Barely had the scientific community involved in space exploration recovered from the Progress M-27M unmanned space vehicle launched by Russia from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 28, 2015, came the news of another disaster in space. A $60-million Falcon 9 rocket owned by SpaceX and carrying the unmanned Dragon cargo space vehicle on a logistic support mission to the International Space Station (ISS), exploded shortly after its launch from Air Force Station at Cape Canaveral on June 28, 2015. A mere two-and-a-half minutes after the liftoff, even before its first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket had shut down and separated, the rocket exploded 43 kilometres above the surface of the Earth, blowing itself and the Dragon cargo vehicle to smithereens, scattering its remnants and the supplies on board on to the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Cape Canaveral. It is noteworthy that both the missions that ended in disaster in quick succession in a period of two months, were launched on the same day of the month i.e. the 28th. This may only be a mere coincidence but one that is bizarre indeed! There was a similar failure in October 2014 when an Antares rocket built by Musk’s cargo competitor Orbital Sciences, exploded just six seconds after lift-off from the launch pad.

Failure at Launch

Failure in space missions in neither a new nor is a surprising event. A review of the history of failure of rockets launched on space missions reveals that this adage is true for the Falcon series of rockets as well. The very first in the series, the Falcon 1 which was a small expendable orbital carrier rocket developed by SpaceX, undertook its maiden flight on March 24, 2006, from the SpaceX launch site on Omelek Island in the Marshall Islands. However, in less than 60 seconds after the launch, the Falcon 1 developed a fuel leak that resulted in a fire that was followed by an explosion. The mission thus ended in a failure. The second and the third launch of the Falcon 1 also met with a fate similar to the maiden launch.

The failed launch on June 28 was the 19th mission of the Falcon 9 rocket since the Falcon 9 programme began in 2010. Of the total of 19 missions undertaken so far, 18 have been successful. This year alone, SpaceX has successfully launched five Falcon 9 rockets and has orders for another 36. In addition, the company has signed a contract to deliver five of the Falcon Heavy rockets that are of the generation beyond the Falcon 9. Without doubt, the record by all standards has been impressive. But the recent failure of the Falcon 9 is likely to impede, albeit even temporarily, the company’s ambitious launch programme of the future.

Determined to Bounce Back

While a full and comprehensive investigation into the mishap is expected to take time, possibly several months, preliminary assessment by SpaceX points to “Excess pressure in an upper-stage liquid oxygen tank as causing an explosion less than three minutes after lift-off as the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket was nearing point of separation”. While the community of space scientists are perplexed at the episode, the response from Charles Bolden, the Administrator of NASA, was somewhat reassuring for the community when he said, “We will work closely with SpaceX to understand what happened, fix the problem and return to flight. This incident is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback.”

The recent failure of the Falcon 9 will definitely impinge on the ambitions of SpaceX in the regime of space exploration. As recently as in May 2015, SpaceX won certification from the US Air Force to carry national securityrelated payloads, paving the way for the company to garner a sizeable piece of a multibillion launch market.

Although the concerned agencies have confirmed that even with the loss of the Dragon cargo carrying space vehicle the crew on board the ISS will not be deficient of essentials such food, water and oxygen as they have adequate reserves to last them till October this year, the SpaceX disaster will prove costly in some other ways. One vital piece of cargo that has been destroyed in the explosion of the Falcon 9 rocket was the first of a pair of International Docking Adapters (IDA) that was on board the Dragon capsule. The IDA which was built and supplied by Boeing, was meant to connect to the Harmony module of the ISS and was to serve as the attachment node for a range of private crew vehicles that are scheduled to begin flying in 2017.

Emerging Challenge

The sudden and unexpected failure of the SpaceX Falcon 9 has made it necessary for NASA to explore alternative options urgently for timely resupply to the ISS. Fortunately, after two failed attempts to resupply the ISS, on July 3, 2015, a Progress capsule carrying more than three tonnes of supplies was launched without a hitch by the Russian Space Agency aboard a Soyuz rocket from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Progress supply vessel docked successfully on July 5, 2015, much to the relief of all the stakeholders. The supplies now made available by the Progress cargo space should make the crew aboard the ISS comfortable till at least the end of November this year. Meanwhile, the next logistic support mission to the ISS planned is a robotic Japanese resupply capsule from Orbital ATK. This vehicle is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral in August this year, about a year after its most recent attempt ended in a rocket explosion in October last year. While NASA has been able to redeem the situation and has successfully obviated a crisis on board the ISS at this point in time, maintaining uninterrupted supply to the ISS is emerging as a new challenge.

NASA has been dependent on SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation for resupply missions to the ISS. For some time now, following the failure last year, missions by Orbital had been placed on hold and is planned to be resumed in August this year. SpaceX will be able to resume resupply missions only after investigations into the June 28 disaster is completed and problems with the Falcon 9 resolved. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency is no longer available to provide resupply missions in space. Effectively, as on date, only Russian and Japanese Space Agencies are available to undertake resupply missions into space and should there be problems with resupply missions launched by these two agencies, it could have serious implications for the ISS, for the ongoing long duration experiments as also for the other space stations to be set up in the future. In the worst case scenario, if the supplies vital for the survival of astronauts on board the ISS cannot be assured, the astronauts would have to be evacuated and the ISS abandoned. That unfortunately will go down as perhaps the worst catastrophe in the history of space exploration.

Implications for SpaceX

The recent failure of the Falcon 9 will definitely impinge on the ambitions of SpaceX in the regime of space exploration. As recently as in May 2015, SpaceX won certification from the US Air Force to carry national security-related payloads, paving the way for the company to garner a sizeable piece of a multibillion launch market. In this context, the failure of the Falcon 9 on June 28 this year has definitely come at the wrong time as it will impact adversely the company’s national security business at least in the foreseeable future. The incident could also stretch the timeline for SpaceX’s first manned spaceflight. Under a NASA contract, the company has been developing a version of its Dragon spacecraft designed to carry up to seven crew members that could ferry astronauts to and from the space station. The first flight could now be pushed back as SpaceX remains preoccupied in ascertaining the cause of the failure of the Falcon 9 and take appropriate steps to enhance reliability.