A spatial vehicle from a European startup has arrived in orbit. Now it is lost at sea

A European company This tries to develop orbital space vehicles for the load, and finally humans have taken a step forward this week with a test flight that saw its “possible mission” to the enhancement of the vehicle and successfully fly in orbit before carrying out a controlled return to the Earth’s atmosphere.

However, after finding a “problem”, the exploration company lost contact with its space vehicle a few minutes before the touchdown in the ocean.

In a LinkedIn update on Tuesday morning, the company characterized the test flight as a partial success and a partial failure.

“The capsule was successfully launched, powered by the payloads nominally in orbit, stabilized after separation with the launcher, came and restored the communication after Black out”, The company declared in a note. “We are still investigating the causes at the root and we soon share more information. We apologize to all our customers who have entrusted us with their useful loads.”

Maybe they were the parachutes

Restabilization communications with the spaceship after the Blackout period suggest that the vehicle has passed the most challenging part of the return to the terrestrial atmosphere and perhaps validated the manipulation and ability of the space vehicle to resist the maximum heating.

Following this, second The time sequence of the company For the possible mission, the capsule parachutes were due to take sides at a speed between Mach 0.8 and Mach 0.6. The parachutes were selected for their “proven flight heritage”, said the company, and were obtained by the air systems based in the United States, which provides parachute used by Spacex Spacex, Boeing’s Starliner and other space vehicles.

Given when the space vehicle was lost, it seems very likely that there has been a problem with the deployment of the drug or the main parachutes.

The possible mission was a 2.5 -meter diameter demonstration vehicle that was among the largest payloads launched on Monday afternoon on the Spacex Transporter 14 mission from the Vandenberg Space Force base in California. The mission tried to test four main spaces of space flight: structural performance in orbital flight, survive to return, autonomous navigation and recovery in conditions of the real world. He only clearly failed in this final activity, recovering the vehicle within three days to return the payloads on board to customers.

Meet an aggressive temporal sequence

It is refreshing to have such a clear and concise communication from a space company, in particular the recognition that a flight was a partial failure, a few hours after the launch. And it is not a surprise that there have been technical challenges on a vehicle that has been put together quite quickly and low.

In An interview with Ars Last November, the founder of the exploration company, Hélène Huby, said that the possible mission was developed at a cost of approximately $ 20 million in 2.5 years, as well as $ 10 million for the launch of Rideshare on the Falcon 9 rocket.

At the time, he said that the possible mission was on the right way to the launch of this summer and that the company met this temporal sequence.

Given the potential problems with the parachute system or other problems near the touchdown, it is possible that the exploration company can fly another subscalant demonstration mission before moving on to the development of its NYX natural size spatial vehicle.