VANDENBERG
AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — A Falcon 9 rocket roared into the sky on
Saturday carrying 10 communications satellites — a return by SpaceX and its billionaire leader, Elon Musk, to the business of launching satellites to orbit.
But
financial details disclosed this past week about the company
overshadowed the successful liftoff, raising questions about the
viability of Mr. Musk’s long-range plans for SpaceX and his vision of
sending people to Mars.
SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, Calif., has been set back since September, when a different Falcon 9 caught fire and exploded
on a launchpad in Florida, destroying the rocket and its payload, a
$200 million Israeli satellite that Facebook had planned to lease to
expand global internet services. The company’s rockets had been grounded
since then. An internal investigation concluded that a failure of a helium vessel in the second stage liquid oxygen tank had led to the conflagration.
The
Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial space
launches, accepted SpaceX’s report on the explosion’s causes on Jan. 6
and issued a launch license,
clearing the way for Saturday’s liftoff here, on the other side of the
country. To prevent a recurrence, SpaceX adjusted its fueling procedures
to avoid overcooling of the helium.
Continue reading the main storySaturday’s countdown proceeded smoothly, with the liftoff occurring within a one-second window that would send the rocket on a trajectory to line up with the orbit of a group of current Iridium Communications satellites. The new satellites are more powerful than the original ones, which have been in orbit nearly two decades and have outlived their designed lifetimes.
SpaceX
also repeated its feat of recovering the first stage of the Falcon 9
rocket, landing it on a floating platform named “Just Read the
Instructions” in the Pacific. Less than 90 minutes later, mission
control received confirmation that all 10 satellites had been
successfully deployed.
Over
the next 14 months, the company plans six additional Falcon 9 launches
to deploy 60 more Iridium satellites that will completely replace the
constellation.
In
the short-term, the successful launch helps put SpaceX back on track.
The explosion and subsequent four-month grounding created a backlog of
launches, including cargo missions for NASA
to the International Space Station. September’s explosion was SpaceX’s
second failure in 15 months; a Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA cargo
disintegrated in flight in June 2015.
On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported
that SpaceX had lost $260 million in 2015 after the earlier accident,
and revenue dropped 6 percent to $945 million. In earlier years, SpaceX
officials including Mr. Musk described the company as consistently
profitable; that claim has been removed from SpaceX’s website.
Company officials did not dispute the numbers reported in The Wall Street Journal article, but portrayed a rosy future.
“Since
2002, we have been at the forefront of revolutionizing space
technology, with a solid track record of success, strong customer
relationships and more than 70 future launches on our manifest,
representing over $10 billion in contracts,” Bret Johnsen, SpaceX’s
chief financial officer, said in a statement. “Furthermore, with over $1
billion in cash reserves and no debt, the company is in a financially
strong position and is well positioned for future growth.”
SpaceX
hopes to launch its larger Falcon Heavy this spring. The Heavy, years
behind schedule, would become the world’s most powerful rocket since
NASA retired the Saturn 5 more than 40 years ago.
SpaceX
also plans to refly one of its recovered boosters this spring. By
reusing instead of throwing away rocket boosters, SpaceX hopes to
significantly reduce the cost of launches.
Also
on the schedule is an in-flight abort test of SpaceX’s Dragon 2
capsule, a crucial safety prerequisite that it must conduct before the
company can begin ferrying NASA astronauts to the space station next
year.
By
applying Silicon Valley entrepreneurial practices to aerospace, SpaceX
has undercut prices and disrupted the rocket launch business. That
brought in many customers like Iridium, which is paying more than $450
million for the seven launches. The next-lowest bid from one of SpaceX’s
competitors was $1.2 billion, said Matthew J. Desch, Iridium’s chief
executive.
Without
SpaceX’s lower costs, Iridium could not have afforded to replace its
group of satellites, Mr. Desch said. “The Falcon 9 is perfect for what
we want to do,” he said.
But the lower costs make it difficult to see how SpaceX could earn enough profit to finance its grand ambitions.
In September, Mr. Musk unveiled his vision
for what he called the Interplanetary Transport System — a gigantic
rocket with 42 engines that could take 100 passengers to Mars as early
as 2024.
SpaceX
has described plans to offer satellite internet services with more than
4,000 satellites. The forecasts described by The Wall Street Journal,
which were produced in early 2016, show how much the company is
depending on this new business.
SpaceX
projected that current rocket launching business would quintuple in
revenue, to $5 billion, in 2025. Satellite internet services, still in
the early planning stages, were projected to bring in more than $30
billion in revenue and generate the bulk of more than $20 billion in
profit for the company.
During
the September announcement, Mr. Musk spoke of “a huge public-private
partnership” to get to Mars, but did not describe what kind of
partnership he foresaw. The incoming Trump administration has not
outlined in detail its plans for NASA, although some of the
president-elect’s advisers, including Newt Gingrich, are pushing for a
greater reliance on commercial companies like SpaceX.
Other
Republicans, however, have been strong defenders of the Space Launch
System, the big, expensive rocket that NASA is developing for a Mars
mission.
By : Kenneth Chang
Article Source : SpaceX Launches Rocket, Its First Since Explosion on Launchpad
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