Is ESA ready to develop a commercial version of "Courier Boy"?

Recently, ESA announced the launch of a commercial cargo competition, which is aimed at European commercial companies to solicit commercial cargo spacecraft solutions that can achieve round-trip flights between the space station and the ground by 2028. Why does ESA want to develop private cargo spacecraft? Which commercial aerospace companies in Europe have plans to develop cargo spacecraft?

The past and present of the European cargo spacecraft

The world's first cargo spacecraft, Progress 1, was launched by the Soviet Union on January 20, 1978. Throughout the 20th century, the Soviet Union dominated the field of cargo spacecraft construction and launch. According to statistics, the Soviet Union/Russia has launched 173 Progress series cargo spacecraft.

However, the Progress cargo spacecraft has a capacity of only 2.3 tons, and it needs to be launched six times a year to meet the needs of the International Space Station. In order to reduce its dependence on the Russian Progress cargo spacecraft, ESA took advantage of this historical opportunity to lead the development of a consumable cargo spacecraft - the automatic cargo spacecraft, and thereby accumulated complete spacecraft research and development capabilities.

The automatic cargo spacecraft is a cylindrical structure, 9.794 meters long, 4.48 meters in diameter, 20.7 tons of cargo when fully loaded, and 48 cubic meters in internal dimensions. The spacecraft is covered with aluminum foil and micrometeoroid protection plates, and uses four solar cell wings distributed in an X shape, with a wingspan of up to 22.28 meters, which can provide 4.8 kilowatts of electricity for the spacecraft.

The spacecraft adopts a modular design, which allows the integration and testing of different modules and modules in parallel. It is compatible with different mission modules and is mainly composed of two modules: the integrated cargo module and the service module. The integrated cargo module accounts for 60% of the total volume and is propelled and controlled by the service module. It is divided into two parts: the pressurized module and the unpressurized module. The spacecraft has a high-precision navigation system, highly redundant flight software, and a fully autonomous monitoring and collision avoidance system with independent power supply, control and thrusters. The spacecraft uses the cooperative target autonomous rendezvous and docking technology based on GPS navigation, which can achieve fully automatic docking with the Russian module of the International Space Station "Zvezda".

In addition, the automatic cargo spacecraft is the only spacecraft that can provide fuel replenishment, attitude control and orbit raising among the cargo spacecraft flying to the International Space Station, except for the Progress. It is also the cargo spacecraft with the largest carrying capacity launched so far, with a transportation capacity that is more than three times that of the Progress series spacecraft. Each launch can transport 6.5 tons of cargo and fuel to the International Space Station, and use another 2.5 tons of fuel carried by itself to complete the orbit raising and attitude control of the space station, which can ensure the stable operation of the space station for a long time.

The cost of a single launch of the automatic cargo spacecraft is $480 million, and the unit cost of cargo is $74,000 per kilogram. In comparison, the unit cost of cargo for the cargo Dragon spacecraft is $44,800 per kilogram, the Cygnus spacecraft is $62,100 per kilogram, and the Progress MS spacecraft is $32,000 per kilogram.

From 2008 to 2014, the automatic cargo spacecraft successfully carried out five missions. With the booming commercialization of cargo spacecraft, the disadvantages of the automatic cargo spacecraft, such as long preparation period and poor economic efficiency, became increasingly prominent, and it was finally retired in 2014. Fortunately, NASA and ESA reached an agreement that ESA would provide a service module for the "Exploration Mission-1" of "Orion" based on the automatic cargo spacecraft, called the "European Service Module". So far, Europe no longer has a cargo spacecraft that can be launched independently.

ESA's commercialization considerations

ESA may want to develop commercial cargo spacecraft due to four considerations.

The first step is to replicate the successful model of American commercial aerospace, cater to the trend of low-cost development, and drive European economic development through the aerospace economy.

Good-quality and low-cost products and services are important bargaining chips for the commercialization of spaceflight to gain survival space. At present, the overall space exploration is showing a trend of low-cost development. The US SpaceX company has successfully achieved the recovery and re-launch of the first-stage rocket, and the cost of rocket launch has been further reduced. In this case, further controlling the cost of existing cargo spacecraft with mature technology and conducting private operations has also become an inevitable trend in the development of international spaceflight. The United States has taken the lead in achieving commercialization in this field.

This competition of ESA is obviously inspired by NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Service Program. In the program, NASA is only a user, purchasing the services of enterprises, while commercial companies are responsible for the entire operation. Private companies will become the main force in the research and development and manufacturing of spacecraft, and NASA will be responsible for supervision. This is a very innovative and cost-effective solution that will help the development of aerospace industrialization and national economy, and enhance the country's competitive advantage in the global economy.

Secondly, it is to stimulate innovation and promote the development of the space industry. Introducing competition among commercial companies to design, build and launch cargo transportation systems can not only reduce transportation costs, but also accelerate the pace of innovation in European manned space technology, help improve technological capabilities and reduce costs, and establish a new space industry base with strong competitiveness. ESA can further promote the development of Europe's space industry by cooperating with commercial companies to form a sustainable commercial space ecosystem.

Third, ESA and commercial companies have their own focuses, which will promote the development of the entire European space industry chain. The current global geopolitical landscape is being restructured, and profound changes in the space transportation industry and commercial launch market are accompanied by new competition, innovation and business risks. If Europe wants to keep pace with the times in the ever-changing international environment and grow into a global space leader that competes with other countries, it needs to reduce its dependence on space cooperation.

In order to promote the development of capabilities, the European space sector should also consider attracting private investment. This competition is consistent with the requirements of the European Space Development Plan, which aims to outsource the low-orbit field of European space, and ESA will devote more energy to longer-term and more complex deep space manned space exploration activities, forming the development of the entire industry chain in the European space field and reducing Europe's dependence on the outside world in the space field.

Fourth, the commercial development of cargo spacecraft will serve as a prerequisite for manned spacecraft. Speaking of cargo spacecraft, Joseph Aschbach, director general of the European Space Agency, said: "We will also conceive it in a way that is not a dead end, which means that it is open and it can be developed into a manned spacecraft in the future."

Due to funding reasons, ESA did not seek to develop manned spacecraft immediately. Instead, it took commercial cargo spacecraft as the first step in manned space flight and intended to draw on the development ideas of the Dragon spacecraft. The first generation will transport cargo, while the second generation will focus on manned spaceflight.

European commercial space companies on the rise

ESA hopes that the proposals collected in this competition will be able to achieve a returnable carrying capacity of 2 tons for upward travel and 1 ton for downward travel. In the first phase of the plan (September 2023-June 2024), ESA intends to select 2-3 companies to advance the development of their cargo spacecraft until the preliminary design is determined and appropriate third-party financing is obtained. Currently, several commercial companies in Europe have proposed their round-trip cargo spacecraft design plans.

French exploration company plans to launch a new orbital spacecraft Nyx. The spacecraft has a diameter of 4 meters, weighs 8 tons, and has a payload of 4 tons. Similar to the Dragon spacecraft, it uses a two-stage design of return capsule + cargo compartment, uses open interfaces to build technical modules, can return and reuse multiple times, and can be refueled in orbit. After docking, the spacecraft can fly in orbit for 6 months, and the planned unit freight cost is 21,400 US dollars/kg.

An artist's impression of Discovery's Nyx spacecraft.

Germany's Augsburg Rocket Factory plans to launch the medium-sized cargo spacecraft Argo, which is planned to use Fenix ​​engines, stainless steel structure, and automatic docking capabilities. The spacecraft has a payload of 3.4 tons and a pressurized cargo hold volume of about 13 cubic meters. The company also plans to cooperate with Atmos Space Cargo, a German life science experiment return capsule developer, to jointly develop an integrated inflatable reentry capsule to solve the problem of reentry recovery. Interestingly, Argo will be compatible with different launch vehicles, enabling it to be flexibly deployed and launched.

People will wait and see the evolution of Europe's recoverable cargo spacecraft. We also hope that more products can participate in the competition of commercial cargo spacecraft. (Author: Wang Ludi Wang Zhaolei Image source: French Exploration Company Checking expert: Jiang Fan, deputy director of the Science and Technology Committee of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation)