Rumors of space exploration are greatly exaggerated.

When the Russian Progress M-5M transport vehicle successfully docked at a node on the International Space Station (28) on July 1, providing the crew with vital supplies, those who were worried about his fate experienced a drop in heart rate. However, anxiety about the future fate of space exploration remained - it turns out that we have problems with seemingly "routine" flights into orbit.

1. The ship "Progress" moored to the ISS

There were more than 3 tons of cargo on board the Progress. The ship took, among other things, 520 kg of propellant to change the station's orbit, 420 kg of water, 48 kg of oxygen and air, and an additional 1393 kg of dry cargo, including food, equipment, batteries, consumables (including medicines) and spare parts. The cargo pleased the crew, as the mood after the crash of the Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule filled with cargo (2) was rather gloomy.

These types of missions have been routine for many years. Meanwhile, the crash of a private Falcon 9 rocket and earlier problems with a Russian capsule meant that the issue of supply for International Space Station (ISS) suddenly became dramatic. The Progress mission was even called critical, as a series of failures in supply expeditions forced the astronauts to flee.

There were no more than three or four months on board the ISS before the arrival of the Russian food ship. In the event of a Russian transport failure, the H-16B missile was scheduled to take off with the Japanese HTV-2 transport ship on August 5, but this was to be the last flight in the near future. Flights to the ISS are not expected to resume in December Swan capsule.

2Falcon 9 Missile Crash

After the successful delivery of goods by the Russian Progress - provided that the goods were delivered on time in August by the Japanese ship HTV-5 - the presence of people at the station should be ensured by the end of this year. However, intrusive questions do not disappear. What happened to our space technology? Mankind, flying to the moon almost half a century ago, is now losing the ability to launch ordinary cargo into orbit?!

Musk: We don't know what happened yet

In May 2015, the Russians lost contact with the M-27M flying to the ISS, which crashed to Earth a few days later. In this case, the problems started high above the Earth. It was impossible to take control of the ship. Most likely, the accident was caused by a collision with the third stage of its own rocket, although Roscosmos has not yet provided detailed information about the reasons. It is known, however, that the preorbital was inadequate, and the Progress, upon release, began to rotate without regaining control, most likely due to a collision with this third stage of the rocket. The latter fact would be indicated by a cloud of debris, about 40 elements, near the ship.

3. Antares rocket crash in October 2014.

However, a series of failures in the supply of supplies to the ISS stations began even earlier, at the end of October 2014. Moments after the launch of the CRS-3/OrB-3 mission with the private ship Cygnus, the first stage engines exploded. Missiles Antares (3). So far, the exact cause of the accident has not been established.

At the time when the ill-fated Progress M-27M ended its life in the Earth's atmosphere in low Earth orbit in early May, the quite successful CRS-6 / SpX-6 logistics mission led by SpaceX was going on. at the ISS station. Delivering much-needed cargo to the ISS station in June on another SpaceX mission, CRS-7/SpX-7, was seen as a priority. SpaceX - Dragon - was already considered a "reliable" and credible solution, in contrast to the questionable reliability of Russian ships (whose participation in missions to the ISS is politically less and less attractive).

Therefore, what happened on June 28, when the Dragon's Falcon 9 rocket exploded in the third minute of flight, was a blow to the Americans and the West, setting many in a defeatist mood. The first post-accident hypotheses suggested that this situation was caused by a sudden increase in pressure in the second stage LOX tank. This 63-meter rocket has previously made eighteen successful flights since its debut in 2010.

Elon Musk (4), SpaceX CEO, in an interview with the media a few days after the crash, he admitted that the data collected is difficult to interpret and the reason seems complex: “Whatever happened there, nothing was obvious and simple. (…) There is still no consistent theory to explain all the data.” Engineers begin to explore the possibility that some of the data is simply not true: "Determine if any of the data contains an error, or can we somehow coherently explain it."

Defeats against the backdrop of politics

It would be better for SpaceX and the entire US space program if the causes of the accident were found as soon as possible. Private companies are a very important element of NASA's space plans. By 2017, the transportation of people to the International Space Station should be fully taken over by them, namely SpaceX and Boeing. Almost $7 billion worth of NASA contracts are to replace space shuttles decommissioned in 2011.

The choice of SpaceX by Elon Musk, a company that has been delivering rockets and cargo ships to the station since 2012, came as no surprise. Her design of the DragonX V2 (5) manned capsule, designed to accommodate up to seven people, is quite famous. Tests and the first manned flight were planned until 2017. But most of the $6,8 billion will go to Boeing (SpaceX is expected to get "only" $2,6 billion), which works with Amazon-founded rocket company Blue Origin LLC. boss Jeff Bezos. Boeing development capsule – (CST)-100 – will also take up to seven people. Boeing could use Blue Origin's BE-3 rockets or SpaceX's Falcons.

5. Manned capsule DragonX V2

Of course, there is a strong political connotation in this whole story, since the Americans want to free themselves from dependence on Russian Progress and Soyuz in orbital logistics missions, that is, in the delivery of people and cargo to the ISS. The Russians, in turn, would like to continue doing this, not only for financial reasons. However, they themselves have recorded quite a few space failures in recent years, and the recent loss of Progress M-27M is not even the most spectacular failure.

Last summer, shortly after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a Russian Proton-M(150) launch vehicle crashed about 6 km above the Earth, the task of which was to launch the Express-AM4R telecommunications satellite into orbit. The problem arose after nine minutes of flight during the launch of the third stage of the rocket. The height system collapsed, and its fragments fell into Siberia, the Far East and the Pacific Ocean. Rocket "Proton-M" once again failed.

Earlier, in July 2013, this model also crashed, as a result of which the Russians lost as many as three navigation satellites worth about 200 million US dollars. Kazakhstan then introduced a temporary ban on Proton-M from its territory. Even earlier, in 2011, the Russian mission turned into a resounding failure. Phobos-Grunt probe on one of the moons of Mars.

6. Falling fragments of the rocket "Proton-M"

Private space business hit hard

"Welcome to the club!" - this is what the private space company Orbital Sciences, both the American NASA with a long history of disasters and failures, and Russian space agencies could say. The previously mentioned explosion of the Antares rocket with the Cygnus transport capsule on board was the first such spectacular event to affect the private space enterprise (the second was the case of Falcon 9 and Dragon in June of this year). According to information that appeared later, the rocket was blown up by the crew when they realized that it was in danger of a serious failure. The idea was to minimize the area of ​​possible damage to the Earth's surface.

In the case of Antares, no one died and no one was hurt. The rocket was supposed to deliver the Cygnus spacecraft with two tons of supplies to the International Space Station. NASA said that as soon as the causes of this event are established, cooperation with Orbital Sciences will continue. It previously signed a $1,9 billion contract with NASA for eight deliveries to the ISS, with the next mission scheduled for December 2015.

A few days after the explosion of Antares, the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo (7) tourist space plane crashed. According to the first information, the accident did not occur due to engine failure, but due to a malfunction of the "aileron" system responsible for the descent to Earth. It developed prematurely before the machine slowed down to the design Mach 1,4. This time, however, one of the pilots died. The second victim was taken to the hospital.

The head of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, said that his company will not stop working on tourist suborbital flights. However, people who had previously bought tickets began to refuse to book low-orbit flights. Some asked for a refund.

Private companies had big plans. Before its ISS resupply rocket exploded, Space X wanted to take it to the next level. He tried to return a valuable rocket, which, after launching into orbit, was supposed to land safely on an offshore platform buffered by special drives. None of these attempts were successful, but every time, according to official reports, "it was close."

Now the nascent space "business" is facing the harsh realities of space travel. Subsequent setbacks could lead to questions hitherto asked "silently" about whether it is possible to travel in space as cheaply as visionaries like Musk or Branson imagined gaining momentum.

So far, private companies are counting only material losses. With one exception, they do not know the pain associated with the death of many people in space flights, which is experienced by government agencies such as NASA or Russian (Soviet) space exploration institutions. And may they never know him.