European company This is aimed at developing an orbital spacecraft for the load, and ultimately people took a step forward this week with a test flight, in which his mission was possible that the vehicle fueled and successfully flew in orbit before he made a controlled re -entering the atmosphere of the earth.
However, after meeting the “problem”, the explore company lost contact with its spaceship a few minutes before the operate in the ocean.
In the update on Tuesday morning at LinkedIn, the company characterized the test flight as a partial success – and partial failure.
“The capsule was launched successfully, driven the charges nominally in orbit, stabilized after separation with the starting, re -entrance and restored communication after Black”, ” The company said in a statement. “We are still investigating the main causes and we will soon provide more information. We apologize to all our clients who entrusted us with their charges.”
Maybe it was a parachute
Restoring communication with a spacecraft after a period of blackout suggests that the vehicle has passed through the most thermally demanding part of the re -entering the atmosphere of the Earth and perhaps approved the space of the spacecraft and the ability to withstand maximum heating.
After that, according to Company’s time In the case of a possible mission of parachutes, the capsules were caused by the distribution at the speed of Mach 0.8 and Mach 0.6. The company said that the parachutes were chosen for the “proven flight heritage” and were purchased from American air systems, which ensures drops used by Dragon Spacex, Starliner Boeing and other spaceships.
Considering when the spacecraft has been lost, it probably seems that there is a problem with the distribution of the road or the main declines.
A mission was possible to a demonstration vehicle with a diameter of 2.5 meters, which belonged to larger loads introduced on Monday afternoon in the SpaceX 14 mission from the Vandenberg space base in California. The mission was aimed at testing the four main areas of space flights: structural performance in orbital flights, survived re -entry, autonomous navigation and recovery in real conditions. This clearly failed in this final task, recovering the vehicle within three days to return the on -board loads to customers.
Meeting of an aggressive timeline
It is refreshing to have such a clear and concise communication of a space company, especially the recognition that the flight was a partial failure within a few hours of launching. And it is not a surprise that technical challenges appeared on the vehicle, which were submitted quite quickly and at low costs.
IN Interview with ARS In November last year, the founder of the exploration company, Hélène Huby, said that the mission was developed at the cost of about $ 20 million in 2.5 years, in addition to $ 10 million for the premiere of Reshare in the Falcon 9 rocket.
At that time, she said that the mission was on the right track to start this summer, and the company met with this schedule.
Considering the potential problems with the parachute system or other problems near the operate, it is possible that the exploratory company may fly another demonstration mission of the subcourse before it proceeds to the development of the full -size spacecraft Nyx Cargo.