Cosmic affairs: is everything as sad as they tell us about it?
Since Tuesday morning, the media has been full of reports about how the Falcon 9 rocket of the SpaceX company of the famous high-tech businessman Elon Musk flew and flew, but did not reach the right place, without putting into orbit the secret military satellite Zuma, built in the interests of the US Strategic Command.
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Unlike the SpaceX rocket, nothing is known about the Zuma apparatus, its characteristics, orbit, goals and objectives, except for the cosmic level of secrecy, which has become the reason for various speculations about Russia’s involvement in the incident with the American satellite.
In general, it is no secret that about 50 years ago the USSR and the USA initiated the development of spacecraft capable of destroying or even stealing other people's satellites in space. The Americans created “shuttles” that could deliver satellites for various purposes, such as space telescopes, from Earth to orbit and vice versa, and in the USSR, the dual-purpose Salyut space stations even had on board a space machine gun and gunner Petka. Just in case of fire. But at the moment, no space power has anything like this in its arsenal. The most promising developments of spacecraft are designed for the flight of six people to the Moon, but not for the capture and delivery to Mother Earth of a hefty satellite, spread out with open antennas and solar panels.
It is also interesting how critics of Roscosmos and Rogozin personally, who love to savor the accidents and failures of the domestic cosmonautics, instantly fell silent. This is understandable: Rogozin is a representative of the “bloody Putin regime,” while dear Elon Musk, who gave the world the Tesla electric car, cannot screw up in principle - he is a creature from a glorious post-industrial society, in which there is and cannot be a place for stupid government bureaucrats and disgusting Morlocks in work overalls. In turn, Russian cosmonautics is the legacy of the damned “scoop”, which by continuity alone has no right to exist.
In general, there are practically no jokes about the “replenishment of the underwater American satellite constellation” by the brilliant Elon Musk. “Vatniki” do not particularly angrily approve of the accident of the American military satellite Engineering-savvy comrades shrug their shoulders at all this hype and do not talk too enthusiastically about the complexity and imperfection of space technology in any country.
After digging a little on the Internet about the Zuma device, the following became clear. Something is fishy about this thing.
American sources speak mutely and contradictorily about the fate of Zuma. The Wall Street Journal, citing two unnamed [NASA?] officials, reports that the satellite failed to separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and it probably fell into the ocean.
The REUTERS news agency is reporting the same thing: the Zuma device crashed or sank. Or burned out.
The US Strategic Command is reluctant to announce that it is not detecting a new military satellite launched the day before in a given low-Earth orbit.
Elon Musk’s department is stupidly frozen and won’t comment, citing a terribly secret mission. However, a representative of SpaceX made an interesting hint that it was Zuma who let us down, and their rocket “worked normally.”
In any case, if Rogozin had started to obscure the satellite accident in the spirit of our “democratic partners”, all sorts of analysts would have long ago devoured him, digested him and devoured him again. But in the West, as we see, such tricks are perceived quite good-naturedly.
Additional information about the SpaceX/Zuma flight was posted on its pages by the American Internet public. www.space.com, far from feeding its readers sensationalist conspiracy bread.
According to public reports, it is generally unknown what the Americans were going to launch into orbit under the name Zuma. It is known that the first stage of SpaceX operated normally, launching the second stage with a payload into low orbit and landing at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral.
According to experts from the famous American military space company Northrop Grumman, the Zuma device was nevertheless launched into orbit, but then communication with it was interrupted, and its detection and identification is complicated by the fact that too many man-made objects rotate in the same orbits - from military, meteorological and communications satellites to the ISS.
In order not to give too much hope to the adherents of the sect of witnesses of garage craftsmen from SpaceX, let us remember that last year the Pentagon reluctantly admitted its involvement in rocket projects fronted by Elon Musk.
This practice is not surprising. No one, even a very rich private shop, is capable of achieving significant success in space research - this requires financial, organizational and intellectual means that no private company has. Elon Musk is nothing more than an image cover and a lightning rod in case of failure for “serious guys” who do not really need to be in the focus of public interest.
Previously, the role of Elon Musk for the American military industry was played by the famous aviation tycoon Howard Hughes - a businessman and engineer much more serious than the Teslamobile hipster from South Africa, who raised money by selling the PayPal payment system. It’s just that now in the USA there is a big shortage of Howard Hughes, but there are as many hipsters as you like. You don't have to choose.
Returning to the domestic cosmonautics, I would like to say the following. In the public consciousness, the past 2017 has developed as a year of crisis, a year of failures due to unfortunate accidents. In fact, things are not as bad as they seem.
Based on the results of 2017, Roscosmos reports the following (we note the most important thing):
20 successful launches were carried out. One of the launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome became a record - 73 spacecraft were launched into space at the same time. The Federal Target Program “Development of Cosmodromes for 2017 – 2025” was approved. The net profit of industry enterprises reached 13 billion rubles, which is 4 times higher than in 2016. The state defense order for the production of military missiles for the Russian Ministry of Defense has been fully completed. Manned astronautics will receive the new Soyuz-5 launch vehicle. There was also good news for the Angara-A5 launch vehicle - modernization of the rocket will continue with the start of launches from the Vostochny cosmodrome in 2020. The cosmonaut corps replenished its ranks in 2017.
The new astronauts will participate in the lunar program and test the new Federation spacecraft. An agreement was signed with NASA on cooperation in deep space exploration. Cooperation with the European Space Agency will be continued and expanded. An agreement on scientific cooperation in the space industry was signed with the former Soviet republics - Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan (non-brothers with a plasma engine in trousers - hello to physical education!). It is planned to create a satellite Internet operator together with OneWeb. The Union of Rocket and Space Industry Employers was formed. The “Chief Designer School” training program for the personnel reserve has been launched. Programs have been developed and successfully implemented to attract young people to the space industry.
What do you hear from Elon Musk? They say that he was going to launch his Tesla to Mars and bury the Russian cosmonautics? Put compote into his mouth with a bag of cookies. Competition in space is a good thing. Will live!
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