SpaceX launches misson for ESA to inspect crash site of the DART satallite on the asteroid Dimorphos. This satallite will give ESA a closer look at the mission to test our capacity to divert astroids off a course for Earth.
Vulcan rocket loses parts of booster during otherwise successful flight, a fiery display but ultiamtely a minor occurance.
A second race to the Moon? NASA has been given a directive to establish a lunar timezone to aid future lunar operations, China is also looking to do so and cement a lead in lunar development.
Dawn Aerospace flies suborbital rocket powered plane twice in one day.
The previous post touched briefly on SpaceX competitors though it mentioned one which really wasn’t one, Scaled Composites. I think it’s best to explain the players, the major ones anyway, before we get into the significant events and achievements. So, this next series of posts will cover basics regarding companies that were founded prior to SpaceX but would be in competition with them soon enough.
Scaled Composites was founded in 1982 and traded ownership numerous times. Northrop Grumman(NG) owns the company now and has since 2007. Scaled Composites entered into the race--somewhat I guess--when they announced a plan to build a spacecraft which would hold several crew members, hoping to win the Ansari X Prize. The craft was essentially a plane and does not put humans into orbit just briefly into "space" in what is called a suborbital flight. In 2004 they did as they promised, becoming the first private company to put humans in space. This is an impressive achievement but it ends there. SpaceShipOne was retired immediately. Considering the company isn’t making waves anymore I consider it out of the race but that may change, projects with companies like Virgin Orbit(no longer operating) as recently as 2023 show a willingness to step into SpaceX’s area of expertise.
Experimental plane manufactures are unlikely to challenge SpaceX anytime soon but there have been more similar peers to Musk's company. Orbital Sciences Corporation, though it no longer exists as such after multiple mergers and renamings, was not so diffenrent from SpaceX earlier in it's history. While it was operating as Orbital it had an impressive record. Founded in 1982, Orbital called itself the first private company to design/launch its own launch vehicle though this is somewhat contested and considering the company's funding and connection to government agencies, this is likely false or only partially true. Nevertheless, Orbital has a huge number of missions under it’s belt prior to being bought by NG. They launched a massive number of satellites and missions to the ISS, completeing 500 missions in 2006. In 2007 a vehicle they designed, Dawn, was launched into the astroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a hugely important mission. By 2017 they were bought and renamed, now a part of NG. Having done so though, it can’t truly be claimed that it remains a private company and so it exits the race as far as we’re concerned.
That's enough for now, we’ll stop there and continue in the next update. Thanks for reading!