Humanity has begun the colonization of space. After several decades launching exploration trips, an army of machines is taking off from Earth to occupy low Earth orbit. It is the first step to convert the cosmos into the outer continentwith resources yet to be exploited and a generation of new companies preparing to do so. A race that has a lot of geostrategy and that scientists observe with concern.
The proper name of this stage is Elon Musk. The South African businessman living in the United States set out 20 years ago to change the foundations of a space industry until then based on the manufacturing of high-tech components that were used only once, with rockets and devices built by hand for each mission. Relying on a blank check, he has used economies of scale, cost reduction and relentless automation to change everything.
At the beginning of the century, putting a kilo of material in space could cost more than $50,000. Today it costs almost 50 times less. “It’s a five-step process,” Musk explained in one of his most shared speeches, from the SpaceX facilities in Texas. “First, make your requirements less silly. Your requirements are undoubtedly silly. It doesn’t matter who gave them to you. It’s particularly dangerous if an intelligent person gave you those requirements, because you might not question them enough. “We are all wrong sometimes, no matter who you are.”
“Next, put a lot of effort into eliminating steps or processes. This is very important. If you don’t have to add some of those things back later, you’re not eliminating enough,” he continued: “Only then, simplify or optimize. The reason it is the third step and not the first is because the most common mistake of a smart engineer is optimizing something that should not exist.”
“Step four is to accelerate the cycles […]but don’t go any faster until you’ve worked through the other three steps first. You can always make things go faster. And the fifth step: automate,” he summarized. It has followed this logic to miniaturize satellites and mass produce them to orbit much closer to Earth than their predecessors. This makes both its production and launch cheaper, which also speeds up its renewal and the constant improvement of its technology.
SpaceX has also made its rockets completely reusable, which Musk calls “the holy grail of space engineering.” Thanks to all this, it has put 6,000 Starlink minisatellites into orbit and plans to launch another 6,000 soon. More than all the rest of the countries and companies combined. An interactive map (the same one that illustrates this information) created by an OpenAI engineer shows each of them and helps visualize the number of these devices that are already in operation.
The reusable economy of space
Starlink satellites are designed for commercial communications, but the power they give to the tycoon “worries” the rest of the governments, as the Spanish Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, recently acknowledged. To counteract this, the EU has just signed Iris², a 10.6 billion euro project to put a constellation of 290 satellites into orbit, most of them low orbit like those of Starlink.
Those responsible for the project, such as former minister Pedro Duque, president of Hispasat, emphasize that “the aspiration is not to be an imitation of Starlink” and that the EU devices will focus on providing secure communications to governments. However, one of the priority objectives of the Iris² investment is to serve as a tractor to transform the European space industry, adapting it to the Musk era.
Companies that had already begun this conversion celebrate the European initiative. “We are delighted,” says Aníbal Villalba, head of Strategy and Public Affairs at PLD Space, a Spanish startup that develops rockets. Its strategy emulates that of SpaceX, with launchers capable of returning to Earth. “We are convinced that in the future, anything that is not reusable will not have a place in the market,” he says: “Will there be other companies that also try it? Probably, but at the moment it’s just us.”
PLD Space is finalizing the Miura 5, a launcher whose first takeoff is scheduled for the end of 2025. The company, based in Elche and testing facilities at Teruel airport, is also developing a crew capsule. “Europe is experiencing a winter of pitchers. Until this summer, when the Arianne 6 was launched, we had been without launch capacity for years and had to turn to American companies,” recalls Villalba.
The Arianne 6, however, is a rocket of the generation that is about to be left behind. It was conceived in the early 2010s, is not reusable and the pandemic and constant delays have skyrocketed the project’s costs. “It’s like using a Porsche to deliver packages through space and then blowing it up,” says the head of PLD Space ironically.
The sector has little hesitation in recognizing that the EU has fallen behind on this issue, also at an economic level. “Improving the pitching side is the most critical thing for Europe in this sense. It is very important to consolidate this capacity,” argues Isabel Vera, president of the Space Committee of the Spanish Engineering Institute.
That is the career of anyone who wants to compete with Musk. “When it comes to mass-building and launching so many satellites, the biggest challenges are financial. You must get infrastructure that is initially very expensive. In fact, right now there are only those of Elon Musk, because he has invested a huge amount of money that perhaps in the future he can recover, although at the moment he has not done so,” continues the expert.
Hence the Iris² program has been well received. “Europe must regain its sovereignty on this issue. It is essential that we also have our own constellation of satellites to ensure our technological independence and secure communications,” says Vera.
The occupation of the sky
While Europe joins the race, the scientific community debates the risks of colonizing low Earth orbit. An article published in August in the scientific journal Astronomy & Astrophysics documented that the second generation of Starlink minisatellites creates radio frequency interference with signals up to 30 times more powerful than those of the first generation.
Musk assures that he is developing technologies to mitigate it, such as reducing the reflectivity of the devices, but astronomers consider that these measures they are not enough due to the large number of them he wants to release. The businessman has put on the table the possibility of reaching up to 42,000, to which we should add the Amazon constellation, which has 3,236 approved as a first step. China, for its part, has already begun the launch of two networks that will total some 28,000 minisatellites.
Other specialists recall the possibility that the Kessler effect becomes a reality with this massive launch of devices. This scenario would make the Earth’s orbit unusable due to the chain reaction of space debris, with remains of satellites colliding with each other and creating increasingly smaller fragments, which could travel for years at very high speeds, representing a danger to any space mission. , robotic or human.
At the moment, the disposal method for minisatellites is to launch them towards Earth at the end of their useful life. “You have to give them a little push so that they automatically reach the Earth’s atmosphere and with friction, they degrade and disintegrate,” explains Isabel Vera. “Sustainability is very important and measures are being taken to guarantee it in the use of space. There are also many ships in the sea and they are not continually colliding,” he recalls.
Another goal of Iris² is to advance this issue. Part of the project will focus on developing new technologies, with specific lines of financing to reduce space debris, implement effective methods of collecting it and increase general reusability.
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