NASA and Boeing achieved a key commercial space milestone May 25 when they safely returned a second astronaut-transportation system to Earth from a docked mission with the International Space Station.
The path to that milestone was not with some “excruciating” and “nail-biting” moments as the spacecraft docked with the station May 20.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, built under a 2014 $4.2 billion, fixed-price contract, touched down at 4:49 p.m. MDT May 25 at New Mexico’s White Sands Space Harbor four hours after departing the space station. Borne by three parachutes and cushioned by six air bags, the capsule landed at about 18 mph (28.5 km/hr) on White Sands’ gypsum flats.
The Starliner’s only occupant was an anthropomorphic test device fitted with 15 sensors to collect data on what astronauts would experience flying in the new spacecraft. Dubbed Rosie the Rocketeer, the device paid homage women — symbolized by Rosie the Riveter — who during World War II filled American factories to keep the war-production effort running.
The six-day flight was a critical achievement in NASA’s 11-year campaign to develop commercial providers of two separate, redundant systems to transport astronauts to the space station. One such provider, SpaceX, has been flying astronauts to the station on its Crew Dragon for 18 months. It won a $2.6-billion NASA contract in 2014.
“This is a landmark mission,” Joel Montalbano, manager, NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) Program. If post-flight data reviews confirm Starliner’s success and clear it to fly humans, Boeing will become “a second crew provider to the ISS team and the NASA program in general.”
NASA relied on single crewed systems for most of its human spaceflight program, which was hobbled after a system suffered a major failure. Since space shuttle was retired from service in 2011, NASA had relied solely on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to carry astronauts aloft until the Crew Dragon was approved for that mission.
The Starliner mission also marked a redemption for Boeing Space. Launched May 19 at 6:54 p.m. on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida’s Space Launch Complex-41, the mission was designated Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2). Boeing’s first Starliner, in 2019, failed after the spacecraft was unable to dock with the station.
That Orbital Flight Test mission had several problems. One, with Starliner’s onboard clock, caused thrusters to misfire and leave the spacecraft in an orbit from which it could not reach the station. Space-to-ground communications problems interfered with
command and control of the spacecraft. While Starliner was in orbit, controllers found a flaw in software governing the separation of Starliner’s service module. They fixed the flaw, but a later review found the flaw could have destroyed the spacecraft during re-entry.
NASA added OFT-2 to demonstrate those problems had been fixed before it would certify Starliner to carry humans. But during the first OFT-2 launch attempt, on Aug. 3, 2021, the countdown was scrubbed after ground controllers were unable to move 13 propulsion system valves in service module to their correct position. An investigation after the spacecraft was pulled from the launch pad found that moisture had infiltrated the valves. The moisture combined with the propulsion system’s dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer to form nitric acid that corroded the valves. Boeing replaced the service module and developed a temporary solution to prevent moisture from entering the valves. But that work pushed the launch re-attempt back nine months.
The second Starliner mission went smoothly, for the most part. The countdown was flawless, launch officials said, and the ascent to orbit was “nominal,” despite the failure of a couple of orbital maneuvering thrusters. Once on orbit, Starliner accomplished many demonstration objectives, including proving its ability to accurately establish and maintain its position as it rendezvoused, docked, and departed from the station and execute a precise de-orbit, re-entry, and landing. It also demonstrated a new, common docking system for spacecraft and Boeing’s Vision-based Electro-optical Sensor Tracking Assembly (VESTA), an artificial intelligence-based system to guide the spacecraft during rendezvous operations.
As the spacecraft began the process of docking with the station the day after launch, flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center in Houston confronted some issues, including a glitch with docking graphics and a need to retract and re-extend the new NASA Docking System. Starliner finally docked with the station at 8:28 p.m. EDT, about an hour later than planned. The rendezvous had begun about five hours earlier. Starliner was required to spend the last hour-plus holding its position about 33 feet (10 meters) from the station’s Harmony module docking port before controllers cleared it for the final approach.
Those last hours were “excruciating,” said Kathy Lueders, the associate administrator in charge of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate. “Seeing that beautiful spacecraft sitting right out of range of ISS was pretty tough.” But, she added, “this was a really critical demonstration mission, and it was important for us to put the vehicle through its paces.”
Mark Nappi, the vice president and program manager heading Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program, said, “It was really nail-biting watching that vehicle sit out there for a while until it was time to come in.”
Space company Rocket Lab failed May 3 in its first bid to catch and recover a launched rocket by a helicopter in midair off New Zealand, but said the attempt provided valuable data that will feed its effort to make the rocket model reusable.
Long Beach, California-headquartered Rocket Lab’s two-stage Electron booster lifted off at 10:49 am local time May 3 from Pad A at the company’s Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula, on the east central coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Dubbed “There And Back Again,” the commercial rideshare mission successfully put 34 small payloads in low Earth orbit for Alba Orbital, Astrix Astronautics, Aurora Propulsion Technologies, E-Space, Spaceflight, and Unseenlabs. It was the 26th Electron launch for Rocket Lab, which was founded in 2006 by New Zealand entrepreneur Peter Beck.
A secondary objective of the mission was to test the ability to capture the Electron’s 56,000-pound-thrust first stage in midair after it had separated from the upper rocket and payloads. The test is part of Rocket Lab’s three-year-old effort to make the Electron a reusable small launch vehicle, which would lower launch costs for customers. The company has previously recovered Electron first stages from the ocean on three missions; submersion in sea water requires much rework before a stage can be reused.
To date, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 in the only reliable reusable booster.
Rocket Lab acquired a former Bristow Group twin-engine, medium-lift Sikorsky S-92A for the recovery mission and conducted tests with dummy targets. The S-92A, tail number ZK-HEV, was registered in March to Advanced Flight, a helicopter charter and management company based in the Auckland suburb of Onehunga. It is the only S-92 listed on New Zealand’s aircraft registry.
On May 3, the first stage separated from the rocket about 2 minutes 30 seconds after launch and descended toward the South Pacific on a parachute. The S-92 crew intercepted the roughly 2,870-pound spent first stage about 150 nautical miles (about 280 kilometers) offshore at 6,500 feet (about 1,980 meters) and then captured the parachute with a longline hook. (The S-92 is certified to carry a 8,000-pound external load.)
But the captured stage exhibited flying characteristics different from what they had experienced in tests. About 30 seconds after capture, the pilots released the stage to descend to the ocean. In a live Rocket Lab webcast of the operation, a crowd in the launch control facility could be heard cheering at the capture, then shortly thereafter collectively groaning.
A recovery ship positioned below the descent path of the booster retrieved it from the water.
The capture itself was a key milestone, company officials said, stressing before the launch that the recovery test would produce valuable data regardless of its outcome.
“Bringing a rocket back from space and catching it with a helicopter is something of a supersonic ballet,” said Beck, who is the company’s CEO. “A tremendous number of factors have to align and many systems have to work together flawlessly.” He said Rocket Lab will “assess the stage and determine what changes we might want to make to the system and procedures for the next helicopter catch and eventual re-flight.”
The attempt revives a proven technique for recovering important assets in midair by helicopter.
In the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force used Sikorsky CH-3 Sea King helicopters to retrieve target and reconnaissance drones. It also has used fixed-wing aircraft to retrieve payloads from secret reconnaissance satellites. The U.S. Army used Sikorsky CH-37 Mojaves to retrieve ballistic missile warheads and rocket nose cones after suborbital test flights.
The United Launch Alliance has proposed a midair retrieval system for the first-stage Blue Origin BE-4 engines on its new Vulcan heavy-lift rocket. Several years ago, the U.K. helicopter operator PDG Aviation Services partnered with Airborne Systems and Lockheed Martin on a mid-air retrieval demonstration test program at West Freugh, Scotland on behalf of the U.K. Space Agency. In the past, NASA has contracted with Erickson to support its 3rd Generation Mid-Air Retrieval Project for recovering descending spacecraft components.
For as long as humans have looked up at the sky, they have longed to go into space and explore. But getting people into space sustainably and at scale has been a difficult challenge to meet. However, with recent developments from the private sector, is it too much to hope that a new era of privatized utilization of space is upon us?
A bit before noon on April 8, a rocket bearing four astronauts blasted off into clear skies from a launchpad at Kennedy Space Center for a 22-hour flight to the International Space Station. There, the crew spent eight days performing life-science experiments and technology demonstrations in the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit before returning with a splashdown off the Florida coast.
Axiom’s Ax-1 mission that launched April 8 was the first completely private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and an important first step in the company’s ultimate goal of constructing a private space station in low Earth orbit that can serve as a global academic and commercial hub. SpaceX image.
In 2021 the world saw 143 successful orbital and suborbital launches (13 carrying humans) and those numbers are expected to be surpassed this year, so the recent flight might seem commonplace. That is, if your idea of commonplace includes riding more than a million pounds of thrust to a place with a million-plus bits of space debris shooting by you at many times the speed of a bullet.
The mission in fact was not commonplace. Its 1.7-million-pound-thrust (7,562 kN) Falcon 9 rocket, 220,500-pound-thrust (981 kN) second stage and Dragon crew capsule were built, launched and operated by Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company, SpaceX. The mission was commissioned by Axiom Space, a private, Houston-based human spaceflight services company.
Michael Suffredini CEO, Axiom
Dubbed Ax-1, the mission was “the first completely private one to the International Space Station (ISS),” said Axiom co-founder and president/CEO, Michael Suffredini. “There have been individuals that have flown on government flights, but never a completely private flight.”
That achievement marks a key milestone in the U.S.’s decades-long, start-and-stop campaign to develop a commercial space sector. Not only would a robust sector bolster America’s economy and sustain its role as a manufacturing, research, and technological leader, advocates maintain. They say it would free NASA from supporting and managing routine activities in low Earth orbit (LEO) to focus on more intense exploration of the moon, Mars and other targets in our solar system and beyond.
NASA has been working toward that milestone since at least 2005. Late that year, then-NASA Administrator Michael Griffin charged a new project office’s staff with “stimulating commercial enterprise in space by asking American entrepreneurs to provide innovative, cost-effective commercial cargo and crew transportation services to the space station.”
The efforts have paid off, despite periodic funding shortfalls from Congress, political shifts, and technical problems with companies’ launch vehicles. NASA signed contracts in 2008 with SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. to deliver cargo and supplies to the ISS ($1.6 billion to SpaceX for 12 9/Cargo Dragon flights and $1.9 billion to Orbital Sciences for eight Antares/Cygnus flights through 2016). Within a few years, the commercial sector was off and running.
NASA is pushing commercial space station development to ensure a permanent U.S. presence in LEO after retirement of the ISS, shown here from Dragon Endeavour after it undocked Nov. 8, 2021. NASA image.
SpaceX has led growth of the commercial space sector, lowering launch costs by perfecting reusable spacecraft. The Falcon 9 that lofted the Ax-1 mission had flown four launches before it lifted off from Kennedy’s historic Pad 39A (the site of Apollo 11’s 1969 liftoff). After separating from the second stage, the Falcon 9 flew back to Florida, then parachuted onto one of SpaceX’s recovery ships in the Atlantic. In carrying Axiom’s astronauts to the ISS, the Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Endeavour made its third flight, and its second to the 357-foot-long (109-meter-long), 21-plus-year-old station.
A key SpaceX contribution to commercial space’s success has been perfecting reusability. Dragon Endeavour, shown here April 15, made its third flight to deliver Axiom private astronauts to the ISS. NASA image.
SpaceX also continually improves its spacecraft. When the company launches a Falcon 9 with a payload of its Starlink broadband Internet satellites, “we’ll push new changes” into the rocket, said William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice president for build and flight reliability. “We’ll push new hardware. We’ll push the limits of the rocket. We’re actually changing some of thrust characteristics of the rocket to get more performance out of it.
Dream Chaser has been tasked to provide a minimum of six cargo missions to and from the space station carrying supplies like food, water and science experiments, and then return to Earth with a runway landing. Sierra Nevada Corp. image.
“That gives us information that helps inform the crew missions, so we actually know where the margins are,” Gerstenmaier said. “We can actually have a safer vehicle for crew missions.”
By 2019, the U.S. space economy accounted for $194.4 billion of market value in goods and services and $125.9 billion (0.6%) of real gross domestic product, according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The bureau said the industry generated $42.4 billion of private industry compensation and 354,000 private sector jobs.
Space Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm that itself invests in the space economy and shares analysis of the sector through its online Space Investment Quarterly. Managing Partner Chad Anderson started tracking and analyzing the sector in 2012, focusing on unique space companies that have raised external equity capital. Over the last 10 years, Anderson said, $252.9 billion of equity has been invested in 1,694 companies in the space economy.
Last year alone, venture capitalists invested $17.1 billion in 328 space companies, according to the firm. That topped the previous annual record investment of $9.1 billion in 2020. Those investment levels were spurred in part by near-zero interest rates in the U.S., which are ending.
The commercial sector has gone in that short time from a handful of companies developing launch services under government contracts, others providing satellite communication services and some firms selling space imagery, to a substantial ecosystem.
“It’s not just launch and re-entry anymore,” said Commercial Spaceflight Federation President Karina Drees, who previously led California’s Mojave Air and Space Port. “It’s an entire ecosystem — launch and re-entry, infrastructure, satellite operators and manufacturers, professional services companies, on-orbit companies,” and universities and research institutions with a much larger interest in the space industry. A leading voice for the commercial spaceflight industry, the federation’s 90 members employ more than 75,000 people across the U.S.
The sector is maturing, Kevin O’Connell said. A former director of the U.S. Commerce Department’s Office of Space Commerce, he was a principal architect of outreach to U.S. private space companies to facilitate innovation and encourage increased market growth and viability.
“We’re making a transition right now,” said O’Connell, who runs the consulting firm Space Economy Rising. “We’re now starting to recognize that space is one of the platforms, if not the platform, through which we’re going to really drive many of the innovations that we both need and expect in the next couple of decades. When folks talk about agricultural technology, health tech and education tech, space is going to be a big part of a lot of those things.”
Phil McAlister Director, Commercial Spaceflight Division, NASA
NASA’s strategy for developing the commercial LEO economy evolved from the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to have three components: cargo transportation, crew transportation, and destinations to which cargo and crews would be flown.
“Cargo you had to start first,” said Phil McAlister, director of NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Division for Space Operations. “Mike Griffin, who started the COTS program, would frequently say, ‘You’ve got to walk before you can run,’ so cargo was likely to be the first thing,” since it has fewer safety requirements than crewed missions.
Commercial Cargo began with initial SpaceX and Orbital Sciences contracts. A second phase saw more contracts awarded to SpaceX and Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman) and privately held Sierra Nevada Corp. The last spun off its space operations last year into wholly owned Sierra Space in part to develop the Dream Chaser, a space plane designed to fly a 1.5 g re-entry, for the ISS resupply mission. Dream Chaser is designed to carry up to 12,000 pounds (5,443 kilograms) of cargo in a single trip. Its target is to fly to the ISS next year.
After Cargo, the second component was Commercial Crew, under which NASA in September 2014 selected Boeing and SpaceX to carry U.S. crews to and from the ISS. Boeing proposed doing so with its CST-100 Starliner launched by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V. It is still pursuing NASA certification for the spacecraft, with a second uncrewed flight test slated for May.
Lastly, there is the Commercial LEO Destinations component. On Dec. 2, 2021, NASA said it had signed three contracts to develop commercial LEO station designs to meet government and private-sector needs:
Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which received about $130 million, has partnered with Sierra Space to develop Orbital Reef, a scalable “mixed-use space business park” projected to start operating late this decade to provide essential infrastructure for all types of human spaceflight activity. Other teammates include Boeing, Redwire Space, Genesis Engineering, and Arizona State University. On April 5, Orbital Reef said it had completed its station’s systems requirements review, which the company said was intended to verify that the station’s specifications are a stable baseline for meeting mission and market requirements and support proceeding with development.
Houston-based Nanoracks LLC received about $160 million. It is collaborating with Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin on Starlab. Targeted for launch in 2027 on a single flight, Starlab would be a continuously crewed commercial station dedicated to advancing research and fostering commercial industrial activity. Designed for four astronauts, Starlab’s flexible design would host the George Washington Carver Science Park and its main operational departments — a biology lab, plant habitation lab, physical science and materials research lab, and an open workbench area.
Northrop Grumman received $125.6 million to develop its design for a modular, commercial station supported by the ISS resupply Cygnus spacecraft. It would provide a base module for extended capabilities, including science, tourism, industrial experimentation, and the building of infrastructure beyond initial design. Northrop Grumman’s team includes Dynetics, with other partners to be announced.
In February 2020, NASA had awarded Axiom a $140 million, firm-fixed price contract to provide at least one habitable commercial module to be attached to the ISS. Axiom was founded in 2016 to build a commercial space station.
In addition to providing private-sector opportunities in low Earth orbit, commercial stations would ensure the U.S.’s ability to maintain a continuous presence there after the ISS is retired.
With commercial cargo and crew operations well-defined and established and commercial stations coming online later this decade, McAlister said, “that entire LEO industry becomes driven by commercial and business and personal needs as opposed to the government needs.”
The FAA licensed Axiom to conduct the mission, as it has done all commercial space operations in the U.S since 1995. But the FAA did not certify the Falcon 9 for the Dragon capsule; it is not authorized to certify spacecraft. (Neither did NASA certify the mission’s vehicle, although it has certified Falcon 9 and Dragon to carry U.S. astronauts.)
The FAA’s safety role in commercial space operations lies in protecting the safety of the public on the ground and others using the U.S.’s national airspace. In addition to issuing commercial space licenses, that agency verifies that human-rated launch or re-entry vehicles are operated as intended and performs safety inspections. It also regulates spaceflight crew qualifications and training, and licenses launch and re-entry sites in U.S. jurisdiction.
But it cannot regulate the safety of individuals on board a commercial spaceflight. Congress prohibited it from doing that in 2004 and has extended that ban three times. It currently expires in October 2023. That ban’s purpose was “to ensure that the industry has an ample ‘learning period’ to develop,” according to the FAA.
Dragon Endeavour and its four Axiom Ax-1 astronauts approach the ISS in preparation for docking April 9. Successful development of a robust U.S. LEO economy could free NASA from supporting and managing routine activities in that regime and allow it to focus on missions to the Moon, Mars and planets and other deep-space exploration objectives. SpaceX image.
The ban includes an exception under which the FAA can enact regulations governing the design or operation of a launch vehicle that are intended to protect the health and safety of crew and spaceflight participants “if a death, serious injury, or near-catastrophe occurs.” Short of that, development of health and safety regulations for commercial space operations is left to the voluntary efforts of industry members through standards development organizations like ASTM, which has a committee (F47) working on that subject.
In December 2020, the FAA published a new section of regulations, Part 450, to streamline commercial space launch and re-entry licensing requirements. Part 450 is performance-based, “providing a regulatory requirement but allowing industry the opportunity to determine how they will meet that requirement,” the FAA said.
The Axiom Ax-1 crewmembers are Pilot Larry Connor of the U.S. and Mission Specialists Eytan Stibbe of Israel and Mark Pathy of Canada. Each is a billionaire who paid $55 million to fly to the station and conduct research there. “They’re not up there to paste their noses on the window,” Axiom’s Suffredini said. “They really are up there to do meaningful research.”
The crew’s commander is Axiom’s vice president of business development, Michael López-Alegría, a retired NASA astronaut and a veteran of space shuttle and ISS flights.
Flights like Axiom’s Ax-1 mission give NASA officials the opportunity to learn how to work with commercial enterprises in a way that allows them to meet their business goals while still satisfying government requirements. McAlister said the Axiom mission looked the same as other crewed SpaceX ISS launches — same rocket, same capsule, same trajectory. “But behind the scenes, it was very different.”
NASA’s involvement was limited and focused on ensuring that ISS safety and operational requirements were met when the Dragon was within about 125 miles (200 kilometers) — the “integrated operations” range — and while the Axiom astronauts were on the station. The rest of the mission was managed by Axiom, which was responsible for the safety of its crewmembers during launch, ascent, return to Earth and recovery.
“We have worked really hard with the Axiom team and ISS in order to ensure that we’re meeting the requirements, guidelines and policies on the NASA side but still allowing Axiom to meet their visions and goals for their company and their business plans,” Angela Hart, program manager of NASA’s Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Program. “It’s been a real interesting activity. I think we’ve come to great processes, plans and solutions on a lot of different challenges that we had as we were pulling this together.
“We’re going to continue to learn more and be able to do this better and faster,” Hart said, “and possibly even offer different and more opportunities as we move forward and learn how to work in this commercial arena.”
2022 — the 75th anniversary of Chuck Yeager’s breaking the “sound barrier” — promises to keep NASA and Lockheed Martin researchers busy as they lay the groundwork for the return of supersonic air travel.
Carefully watching their progress is the handful of outfits proposing to field new fast civil transports, like Exosonic, Hermeus, Boom Aerospace, Japan’s new Supersonic Research Council and others.
A Very Busy Year
In January, NASA’s new X-59 supersonic demonstrator started a month of structural tests at Lockheed Martin’s plant in Fort Worth, Texas. Fuel system calibration tests will follow. Then the Mach 1.4 jet will be trucked back to that contractor’s famed Skunk Works for avionics, engine and subsystems installation; ground vibration, structural coupling, and electromagnetic interference tests; systems checkouts; engine runs; ejection-seat pyrotechnics loading; and ground taxi tests. A May flight readiness review should lead to the first flight this year. Its NASA colors also must be painted on.
David Richardson
“It will be a very busy year,” said Lockheed Martin Program Director David Richardson. Working at a 10-hour-day, six-day-week tempo in Texas and at the Palmdale, Calif., Skunk Works, he said, X-59 workers may not realize the airplane’s potential impact. “It’s a program that’s going to make a big difference.”
Shock waves (dark lines) stream from an X-59 model in this simulation image. Less concentrated, lighter lines are weaker shock waves from lower surfaces that quiet sonic booms to sonic thumps on the ground. Marian Nemec and Michael Aftosmis, NASA Ames image.
To cut costs and speed the $247.5 million X-59’s development, NASA and Lockheed Martin built it from parts of other aircraft — a U.S. Air Force F-16 landing gear, an F-117 control column, and a NASA T-38 rear cockpit and ejection seat.
A processed schlieren image, which depicts density variations in air, shows strong shock waves from a T-38C, a supersonic jet without low-boom modifications. NASA image.
New is the X-59’s delta wing, a single, continuous structure, “the backbone of the whole airplane,” Richardson said. Spanning 29 feet, 6 inches, it holds the fuel for the 25,000-pound-gross-weight, 99-foot-7-inch-long jet in wingtip-to-wingtip tanks. The fuselage, empennage and 38-foot-long nose attach to it. Fluid and electrical lines run along its top. The nacelle for the single, afterburner-equipped, 22,000-pound-thrust F414-GE-100 engine sits atop the wing’s centerline to reduce its risk of generating shock waves.
Also new is the X-59’s external vision system (XVS). There’s no forward window; the pilot can’t see over the fixed nose. Instead, the pilot will rely on a 4,000-pixel horizontal-resolution (4K) monitor fed by a 4K, forward-facing, nose-mounted camera and a retractable belly camera. The nose camera has a 20-degree-vertical by 30-degree-horizontal view. (Side windows let the pilot look left and right 180 degrees.) Computers with custom image-processing software will create an augmented-reality view of the forward line of sight, with graphical flight data overlays.
The X-59 cockpit, nestled low in the fuselage to reduce shock waves sources, has no forward view. The pilot will see ahead through cameras on the nose and belly. QueSST stands for Quiet SuperSonic Technology. Lockheed Martin image.
A Tolerable Thump
The X-59’s big difference? Helping to end a nearly 50-year FAA ban on civil supersonic flights over the U.S. NASA hopes the X-59 will show aviation regulators that a supersonic transport (SST) can be built and flown that will soften the explosive sonic boom to a tolerable thump.
Sound’s speed varies with temperature — about 660 kt (340 meters/second) at sea level and about 573 kt (295 meters/second) above 40,000 feet.
As a jet approaches the speed of sound (flying transonic), air against it compresses. Drag increases. This led to the 1940s belief in that sound barrier.When that compressed air meets sharp angles, shock waves result. That causes the double-clap boom. “What we’re doing with the X-59 design is trying to spread those waves out and make them weaker,” said Craig Nickol, NASA’s program manager for the low-boom flight demonstrator project.
The boom trails a jet for its entire supersonic cruise and can spread 50 miles wide. “We’re trying to solve a pretty big problem here, to avoid all of that” exposure, said Lori Ozoroski, project manager of NASA’s Commercial Supersonic Technology Project.
Lori Ozoroski
The Concorde’s boom measured about 105 perceived decibel level, according to NASA, which compares to nearby thunder or a car door slamming while you’re in the car. NASA wants to get the X-59’s boom below 75. It is designed to change the boom’s shape from an N, with a sharp peak and trough, to something more akin to an exaggerated tilde (~). NASA says that should sound like a car door slamming 20 feet away. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is working with NASA and Boeing to validate the X-59’s low-boom design using a 1.62-scale X-59 model for wind tunnel tests at NASA and JAXA facilities. JAXA and NASA have collaborated on supersonic research for nearly 20 years.
Community response will determine its success. Starting in 2024, the demonstrator will fly over U.S. cities at 55,000 feet, with ground recorders capturing overflight sounds. Residents will be surveyed about aircraft noise, both after overflights and when no overflights occurred. That survey, concluding in 2026, is intended to determine whether X-59 flights produce tolerable background noise. (In addition to pursuing low-boom configurations, today’s SST developers want their aircraft to minimize adverse environmental conditions. They plan for 100% use of sustainable aviation fuels, for instance, and zero carbon footprints for their aircraft.)
A 2003 NASA/DARPA experiment using an F-5E with a modified body proved that a sonic boom can be shaped and that shape maintained, thereby reducing noise on the ground. NASA Dryden image.
“If we can prove the low-boom approach works over real communities, that’s the first step to enable this industry,” Nickol said.
The FAA’s 1973 ban hobbled SSTs, blocking operators’ profits from inland or overland routes (Europe to L.A. or Singapore). Serving Paris-Chicago or London-Dallas meant flying overland at fuel-guzzling subsonic speeds. In the mid-1970s, only two SSTs entered commercial service: Russia’s Tupolev Tu-144 (1975) and the Aérospatiale/British Aircraft Corp. Concorde (1976). Flying at Mach 2, each saw heavily subsidized but limited use. Commercial Tu-144 service ended in 1983, Concorde service in 2003.
Supersonic business jet projects in the 1990s and 2000s (Dassault, Russia’s Sukhoi paired with Gulfstream, Supersonic Aerospace International and Lockheed, and Spike Aerospace) failed to produce a jet, though Spike is still pursuing development of its 18-passenger, Mach 1.6 S-512.
Yeager piloted his rocket-powered Bell Aircraft X-1 to a speed of Mach 1.06 at 43,000 feet over Muroc Field, Calif., on Oct. 14, 1947. Today, civil air travelers are stuck with a Mach 0.99 speed limit.
A revived industry could sell $85 billion in business SSTs and $75 billion in commercial ones globally by 2040, says investment bank UBS. “We see supersonic bizjets viable in the late ‘20s and supersonic commercial jets in the mid-to-late ‘30s, with hypersonic (Mach 5) travel a decade later,” a UBS representative said.
With a USAF contract for supersonic UAV work, Exosonic has shifted strategy to focus on fielding such aircraft to gain design, production, and maintenance experience before delivering an SST. Exosonic image.
Still, the SST industry’s foundation is shaky. Consider front-runner Aerion Supersonic.
Founded in 2003 by billionaire Robert Bass, it spent 18 years developing the 8-to-12-passenger, Mach 1.4 AS2 business jet, with a designed 4,500-5,500-nm range and $120 million price. Aerion worked with GE on the Affinity engine for it. Boeing, in 2019, made a significant investment, pledging engineering and manufacturing assistance. Aerion reported $11 billion-plus in orders.
Norris Tie
But the Reno, Nev.-based company shut down on May 21, 2021, saying “it has proven hugely challenging” to secure new capital to start AS2 production by 2023. Squeezed by the 737 Max scandal and Covid-related global travel woes, Boeing cut funding for aircraft development. New subsonic business jets with Mach 0.9+ speeds and ranges 36% to 66% greater than the AS2’s hurt its prospects. Efforts to get private funding failed. Aerion liquidated its assets.
Exosonic is Optimistic
Despite that, SST proponents are optimistic. They include Norris Tie, co-founder of Berkeley, California-based Exosonic, set up in 2019 to build a low-boom, Mach 1.8, 70-passenger, 5,000-nm-range supersonic airliner. Exosonic has identified 340 overwater routes that can be flown supersonically, and 1,200 more that could be served by an SST cleared to fly overland.
Tie started Exosonic with Chief Technical Officer Tim MacDonald after they met at Stanford University. Tie’s drive to build an SST traces to the 12-hour flights he took as a child to visit family in China and was reinforced in conversations with business travelers.
“If people had the choice of working on an airplane or working on the ground, generally people would like to work on the ground,” Tie said.
“No one wants to work in an airplane.”
Unlike some competitors, Exosonic wants to fly supersonic overland. “We want to change the speed limit to a noise limit, where you can go faster than the speed of sound overland so long as you are quiet enough.”
Exosonic’s focus is on shaping its aircraft’s boom “as our kind of secret sauce,” said Tie, who worked for several years on the X-59 as a Lockheed Martin propulsion engineer. “We certainly think that’s achievable.”
NASA already has shown that. A 2003 experiment with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which modified the body of an F-5E jet, “was really the first time that anybody proved that you could shape and maintain a shape of a sonic boom,” NASA’s Ozoroski said. In 2004-2007, NASA and Gulfstream proved that a 24-foot extendable lance (dubbed Quiet Spike) on an F-15B’s nose could generate shock waves ahead of the fighter that prevented the jet’s shock waves from merging into an “N-wave” boom.
Exosonic’s original goal was delivering a certificated SST by 2030. The priority now is to develop supersonic uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) for commercial and government customers this decade. (Last October, Exosonic received a USAF contract for a low-boom supersonic UAV demonstrator, which might be used as an adversary challenging USAF pilots in flight training.) It’s now shooting for SST delivery in the mid-2030s.
That pivot has several advantages, Tie said. With a short-term path to revenue, Exosonic can demonstrate technologies directly relevant to its SST and gain experience designing, manufacturing and maintaining supersonic aircraft. “To airlines, a big concern is can you actually maintain this aircraft,” he said. If you can’t sustain a new-technology airplane, “it’s just sitting on the ground as you wait to repair it.” With UAVs flying earlier, “we’ll really understand how to maintain, repair and overhaul our airplanes and engines and bring that experience to the supersonic airliner and ultimately to our airline customers.”
USAF is helping underwrite flight testing of Hermeus’ autonomous hypersonic demonstrator, the Mach 5 Quarterhorse. The company unveiled its prototype in November at its Atlanta test site. Hermeus image.
Exosonic has a separate USAF contract to develop an executive SST concept, such as a new Air Force One. “Having the Air Force’s feedback and support has been great in talking to other customers, some suppliers and key partners that we’ve been able to establish contact with” based on the contract awards, Tie said. “It’s also been very helpful in providing funding to hire employees and do some system design work and the administrative tasks required to support the efforts.”
Hermeus and Boom Each Partner Up, Too
Like Exosonic, Hermeus and Boom have USAF concept-development contracts.
Atlanta-based Hermeus, founded in 2018 by four commercial space industry veterans, aims to build a reusable, Mach 5 aircraft with current mature technology. “There really aren’t any science miracles that need to happen,” CEO AJ Piplica told the podcast Acquisition Talk. “It’s really focused on the engineering of how you get everything to work together at the system level efficiently enough to actually go fly a mission.”
AJ Piplica Founder, CEO Hermeus
Hermeus’ long-term vision is “accelerating the global human transportation network,” Piplica said. A hypersonic jet could cross the Atlantic in 90 minutes, a great capability for an Air Force One.
A $60 million USAF partnership helps fund flight testing of Hermeus’ first aircraft, the autonomous Quarterhorse, and validate its engine. That engine pairs a GE J85 turbojet (to propel Quarterhorse to Mach 2) with a ramjet to kick in at Mach 3 and take the jet to Mach 5. To bridge the gap, Hermeus developed a pre-cooler mounted before the J85. It will take 800-degree F high-speed air down to 125 degrees before it reaches the turbojet, allowing the J85 to boost Quarterhorse to Mach 3.
Boom proposes to build the Mach 1.7, 65-88-passenger Overture airliner. USAF has contracted with it to explore use of supersonic jets for presidential and executive transport. Boom image.
Hermeus unveiled the Quarterhorse prototype Nov. 9 at its Atlanta test site at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, running its engine at full military afterburner power.
Hermeus also is partnering with NASA to develop aircraft concepts of operation, including analysis of high-Mach thrust performance, thermal management, integrated power generation, and cabin systems.
Centennial, Colo.-based Boom Aerospace, formed in 2014, entered a $60-million USAF strategic partnership in January to accelerate R&D on its Mach 1.7, 65-to-88-passenger Overture airliner for the presidential/executive transport mission. (In 2018, the company referred to it as a Mach 2.2 bird.) It plans on the 4,250-nm-range, Rolls-Royce-powered jet being flown over water. It aims to be flying passengers by 2030. Japan Airlines (a strategic partner), Virgin Group and United Airlines have ordered Overtures.
Boom is preparing to fly its single-seat, 73-foot-long XB-1 demonstrator, which was powered up late last year. It also is getting set to build its Overture production facility at Greensboro, N.C.’s Piedmont Triad International Airport (see sidebar page 53).
Across the Pacific, JAXA and industry partners last June established the Japan Supersonic Research Council to cooperate in supersonic research and development, including airframe designs to reduce sonic booms, and pursue joint development of supersonic aircraft in about 2030 by Japanese industry. Partners are the Japan Aircraft Development Corp., the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Subaru and IHI Corp. (formerly Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries).
Back at Lockheed Martin, the team is particularly excited about the X-59. “It’s like the Spirit of St. Louis,” Richardson, the program director, said. “There’s only one. There’s an incredible amount of pride that we have here in being able to do this unique X-plane.”
With the Skunk Works noted for top-secret aircraft programs, “the other thing unique about it is that it is something that we can talk about with our families and our friends,” he added. “We don’t get to do that a lot in our careers.”
COVID’s global pandemic created crises for society and business, afflicting most industries. Aerospace faces workforces depleted by illness and departures, healthy staff sent from workplaces to remote sites, disrupted supply chains, and depression-level low demand for the services of aircraft operators and their suppliers.
But those crises also created opportunities. Daily pressure to meet production, flight, maintenance and servicing schedules shrunk. Leaders, managers and workers suddenly had time to consider questions that always had been important but rarely had risen to the level of urgent: Are we well positioned to achieve future business, customer and social goals? Are our people, processes and tools well suited and best employed to prevail and succeed?
Rolls-Royce’s Blue DataThread initiatives aim to build a continuous data stream on its products from design to support and beyond, into its supplier networks. Rolls-Royce images.
“The world after COVID is going to be different,” Nick Ward, vice president for digital systems in civil aerospace at Rolls-Royce, told a March 2021 Aerospace Tech Review webinar. “People have gotten used to not flying and working virtually. So, if the industry wants to come back, we’ve got to earn the right to do that.”
Companies in other industries — electronics, automotive, medical — have led manufacturing in tackling such issues as operational excellence and resilience. They have explored and embraced interconnected electronic devices, advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and robotics. “Digital transformation” initiatives like theirs often are labeled Industry 4.0.
John Coykendall Deloitte Global A&D Sector Leader
Some aerospace companies have followed suit. Rolls-Royce three years ago launched its Blue Data Thread to establish two-way movement of data throughout its processes, from design to product support and beyond, into its supplier networks. When Boeing and Saab in 2018 won a $9.2 billion U.S. Air Force contract for new jet trainers, they used a digital design, manufacturing and flight testing approach that enabled the T-7A to go from initial design to first flight in 36 months.
Boeing employed digital technologies to design the U.S. Air Force’s new T-7A jet trainer with Saab. Boeing image.
Smaller firms also embrace this. Colorado-based Bye Aerospace is using Siemens digital tools to design and build the two-seat, all-electric eFlyer, in part to enable quick morphing of that design to a four-seat model. Zipline International, based in the San Francisco area, uses those tools to design more reliable, maintainable robotic drones — “the world’s largest automated on-demand delivery service.” Since its 2016 launch, Zipline has delivered more than 225,000 shipments containing 5 million-plus units of blood, vaccines and medical products in Africa, the Philippines, and the U.S.
Generally, aerospace companies have lagged in embracing digital transformation and adjusting their strategies accordingly. Now many are correcting that. The leader of Deloitte Consulting LLP’s global aerospace and defense sector, John Coykendall, is among the digital proponents who noted this shift.
Rolls-Royce’s Blue Data Thread includes the IntelligentEngine initiative to improve support for customers by building digital twins to track the performance of engines on wing and head off disruptive problems. Rolls-Royce image.
“Prior to the pandemic, most aerospace companies were running so hard trying to catch up with ever-increasing production volumes that there was very little time to think a few years out,” said Coykendall, who also leads Deloitte’s U.S. A&D sector. If companies did explore digital changes, they typically launched ad hoc or targeted activities aimed at very specific problems, he said, such as some capacity constraint.
Bye Aerospace is using Siemens digital tools to design and build the two-seat, all-electric eFlyer. Bye Aerospace image.
Air travel plunged amid COVID. Total passenger traffic in November 2021 still was down 47% from the same month in 2019. Global air travel demand is not expected to recover to 2019 (pre-pandemic) levels until next year or later, Deloitte noted in December. Coykendall said that drop, combined with decreases in aircraft production and related declines in demand for engines, components, and services like maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO), “gave companies a bit of breathing room to step back and think a little more strategically” about how and where they’re going to get the most value out of digital capabilities.
Saravanan Rajarajan Ramco Aerospace & Defence Solution Director
Ramco Systems, the Chennai, India-based global enterprise software company, is seeing similar reactions among aftermarket service providers. With time and resources available during COVID’s slowdown, companies are reviewing business strategies, said Saravanan Rajarajan, Ramco’s director of aerospace & defense solution consulting and presales. They are assessing whether to launch new strategic business lines and whether to retain, dismantle or expand existing ones. “We thought that with the pandemic our business would go down, because there would be less investment and discretionary spending,” he said. Instead, “we are seeing a lot of interest in exploring digital technologies. We are working with some of the large-scale, global MROs as far as their digital transformation strategies.”
Matt Medley IFS Defense Manufacturing Industry Director
Ramco has invested heavily in recent years in making its enterprise resource planning product available through mobile devices. It is working with customers on applying machine learning and augmented/virtual reality to their digital capabilities. It also is among the industry partners working with SITA in an MRO blockchain alliance to develop digital capabilities to track an aerospace part from the manufacturer until it is scrapped.
The global A&D industry could generate $20 billion more in annual earnings if it achieves greater digital maturity in processes and operations, a 10% improvement over its 2018 earnings of $200 billion, a McKinsey report says. McKinsey image.
The defense sector also is embracing digital transformation, proponents noted. “Largely, and it’s fortunate and unfortunate, defense forces have come on board with this,” said Matt Medley, industry director for defense manufacturing at IFS, the London-based provider of cloud enterprise software. An unfortunate driver is the daily barrage of cyberattacks on military services and defense contractors, he said, which have fostered greater appreciation for secure, cloud-based stores of data. Fortunate drivers include capabilities like additive manufacturing, augmented/virtual reality and complex, large-scale simulations. These factors “have driven militaries to start steering their ships in the direction” of Industry 4.0.
IFS’ A&D customers include Rolls-Royce and its Blue Data Thread, which includes the IntelligentEngine initiative to improve support for the OEM’s customers by building digital twins, or computer-based copies, of engines on wing to track their performance and head off disruptive problems.
Industry 4.0 is one way of referring to the fourth Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution “used water and steam power to mechanize production,” Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chair of the World Economic Forum (WEF), explained in 2016. “The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third.” This fourth, born in the mid-20th century, “is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.”
Industry 4.0 was introduced at the 2011 Hannover Messe trade fair in Germany. That nation put the label on a strategic initiative, which its National Academy of Science and Engineering described in its 2012 annual report as addressing “the fundamental transformation of the way that we manufacture goods” and showing “how information technology can be deployed in traditional industries to simultaneously create value and ensure sustainability.”
That led to a worldwide movement. But why was a revolution needed?
“Manufacturing has experienced a decade of productivity stagnation and demand fragmentation,” said a January 2019 WEF report developed with McKinsey & Co. Those factors, coupled with an aging workforce in the world’s major economies, mean one thing, the report said: “The time for innovation is long overdue.”
That Fourth Industrial Revolution report said organizations that have taken Industry 4.0 technologies beyond the pilot phase “have rapidly achieved a tremendous impact.” The WEF and McKinsey assessed more than 1,000 leading manufacturers. They identified 16 that had achieved significant impact, demonstrated successful integration of Industry 4.0 technologies, employed a scalable technology platform, and exhibited “strong performance on critical enablers.” They dubbed the 16 “lighthouse” factories, illuminating the course to successful Industry 4.0 implementation. (None of the 16 is in aerospace.)
A May 2021 McKinsey/Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) report backed the 2019 findings. It said the global A&D industry could generate $20 billion more in annual earnings if it achieves greater digital maturity in processes and operations, a 10% improvement over its 2018 earnings of $200 billion. The added value would come from OEMs and suppliers expanding revenue and reducing costs across engineering, procurement and supply chain, manufacturing, aftermarket services, and support functions.
Deloitte’s latest outlook expects the A&D industry to focus this year on “innovation to develop new technologies and solutions, create new markets, and expand growth opportunities,” adding that digital innovations “present a host of efficiency- and productivity-enhancing technologies that can accelerate time to market and reduce cycle times.”
Many A&D manufacturers lag in implementing digital technologies, with the bulk of initiatives in early-stage implementation or not started. McKinsey image.
That won’t be easy. “The reality is that A&D has a long way to go to leave behind paper-based processes, fragmented data systems, and stubbornly manual operations,” the McKinsey/AIA report noted.
Research points to one hurdle common to many manufacturers: “pilot purgatory.” A 2018 WEF/McKinsey report, based on surveying more than 700 digital manufacturing experts and business leaders, found more than 70% of manufacturers were stuck in this purgatory, “where technology is deployed experimentally at reduced scale for an extended period due to the inability or lack of conviction to roll it out at production-system scale.” Reasons for this include difficulty in aligning digital’s value with return on investment, uncertainty about digital’s value to performance, and the cost required to implement and scale.
Those challenges are familiar in aerospace. The McKinsey/AIA report, based on a survey of more than 40 private sector, public sector, and academic organizations, said, “Nearly every company in this study noted that digital engineering and model-based design is a priority for them.” But it found that only 36% said they were using digital technologies at scale in research and development and engineering. Another 41% said they were only in the early stages of adopting digital technologies in R&D and engineering. Five percent said they had not started such efforts in those areas, and 18% said they did not know if they had such initiatives, or the question was not applicable.
Dale Tutt Siemens Digital Industries Software VP, Aerospace and Defense Industry Strategy
Manufacturing, procurement and supply chain, and aftermarket services all lag in digital transformation, the A&D report said. In the survey, 44% of companies said their manufacturing digital initiatives were in the early stages, 22% said such initiatives had not started, and 17% said they did not know or N/A. Only 17% said their initiatives were running at scale. For procurement and supply chain, 49% of companies said they had just started digital initiatives, 14% said they had not started yet, and 20% said they did not know or N/A. Only 16% of companies said their initiatives in that area were running at scale. In aftermarket services, 39% of companies said digital initiatives were at the early stage, 23% said they had not started, and 25% said they did not know or N/A. Only 13% had aftermarket services initiatives running at scale.
Industry 4.0 advocates like Siemens maintain that product support can be transformed by a “digital thread” approach that implements model-based planning, management, and configuration control. Siemens image.
Support functions at A&D companies were second only to R&D/engineering in advancing digital initiatives, with 23% of companies saying they were operating at scale. Another 34% said their initiatives were in the early stages, 26% said they had not started, and 17% said they did not know or N/A.
Tom Hennessey iBASEt Chief Marketing Officer
“Fundamentally, you have to have digital transformation if you’re going to succeed in business transformation,” said Dale Tutt, vice president, aerospace and defense industry strategy and VP of overall industry strategy at Siemens Digital Industries Software. A 23-year veteran of the business jet industry, Tutt observed that customers of OEMs and support companies expect swift, highly reliable, 24/7 service. “Customers have invested a lot of money in our products. You can understand why a company would be reluctant to adopt new systems and run the risk of disrupting their production, spare parts or in the basic maintenance that they’re providing to their customers. Whether it’s a commercial customer or a military customer that must keep up their operational tempo, it’s something that companies are going to be careful about.”
The McKinsey/AIA report noted that A&D faces unique challenges in achieving digital transformation. These include demanding customer requirements; costly product development; long product life cycles; legacy incentive, funding, and customer procurement structures; legacy systems; and the imperative for safety and compliance. But A&D digital leaders have shown those challenges can be overcome and that the effort is worthwhile.
A lot of aerospace and defense’s challenges — and costs — stem from design changes, said Tom Hennessey, chief marketing officer at iBASEt. That California-based company serves manufacturing, quality and MRO operations globally with digital tools and services, including its cloud-native Solumina iSeries agile platform.
“What effect is that design change going to have up and down your production? Are you able to deal with that?” Hennessey asked. “Dealing with that on paper and manually, it’s going to take you a long time to chase all those affected parts and processes. If you are dealing with it digitally, it can be much quicker to turn that around. This whole move toward digitization, which Industry 4.0 is all about, is really about that connectivity, that ability to control the process and deal with change that much more effectively.”
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