With SpaceX Rocket Failure, NASA's Now Had Three Cargo Failures From Three Providers

The astronauts on board the International Space Station have enough food, water and other supplies to last them until the end of October, according to NASA.

Hopefully, they don’t need to wait that long, but I’m sure somebody is starting to sweat a little bit about it. After all, today’s failure of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch now marks three cargo failures from three different launch providers in the past few months.

In October 2014, an Orbital-ATK Antares rocket exploded on the launch pad, preventing cargo and supplies on board from reaching the International Space Station.

In April of this year, the Russian space agency lost control of their Progress cargo ship en route to the International Space Station and were forced to abandon it.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft breaks apart shortly after liftoff at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sunday, June 28, 2015. The rocket was carrying supplies to the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

“There’s really no commonality across those three events,” NASA Associate Administrator William H. Gerstenmaier said at a press conference today. “This is a very demanding environment.”

So far, NASA is continuing its missions without pause. A Russian Progress cargo vehicle will launch from Kazakhstan on July 3 to the International Space Station, followed by additional crew members for the station on July 22. Then in August a Japanese HTV will be making its way to the space station.

Also fortunately, space travel is full of redundancies. A docking device for commercial crewed flights that was destroyed in today’s launch failure had a backup, according to NASA, which will be sent on a future flight. And Orbital-ATK has a flight scheduled for December whose schedule might be able to move up, said NASA.

Overall, the agency is simply taking this loss in stride, saying in a statement: “We are disappointed in the loss of the latest SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. However, the astronauts are safe aboard the station and have sufficient supplies for the next several months. We will work closely with SpaceX to understand what happened, fix the problem and return to flight. The commercial cargo program was designed to accommodate loss of cargo vehicles. We will continue operation of the station in a safe and effective way as we continue to use it as our test bed for preparing for longer duration missions farther into the solar system.”

But in the meantime, Falcon 9 flights are suspended while this incident is investigated, meaning that other planned SpaceX commercial flights for their customers will be delayed. This at a time when just over a month ago, the Air Force had certified the Falcon 9 to compete for national defense launch contracts.

The delay may not be long. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted this morning that “There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.”

If that’s the cause and it’s identified this quickly, it’s possible that SpaceX will simply be able to implement a quick fix and get back into the business of launching rockets. I’ve queried SpaceX with a request for an estimate of how long the flight suspension is expected to last and will update if I receive a reply.

But the loss of three cargo launches to the ISS in such a short period of time may raise more, harder questions outside the agency. Several members of Congress have been extremely skeptical about NASA’s plans to outsource both commercial cargo flights and commercial crew flights rather than taking a more active role in its own launch capabilities. These incidents may bolster their strength in budget and other regulatory fights to come – especially now when appropriations budgets in both houses have slashed funding for commercial crew programs and NASA is fighting to restore that funding.

For the most part, however, both NASA and commercial space industry supporters are expressing confidence that this failure will just be a blip in the further commercialization of space.

Jeff Feige, the Chairman of The Space Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for commercial flight, said in a statement today that “Today, our thoughts go out to the hard working team at SpaceX. It’s important to see this event as yet another learning experience for the commercial space industry that will only increase the probability of SpaceX’s success with the Falcon 9 in the future. Space is hard, incredibly hard, just as aviation and ocean voyages were in their infancies, but with the unwavering determination of companies like SpaceX and the NewSpace community, I have no doubt we will overcome the inevitable setbacks only to return stronger and even more determined.”

These words echoes those of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who noted in a statement that “SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success. We will work with and support SpaceX to assess what happened, understand the specifics of the failure and correct it to move forward. This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback. Today’s launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program.”

The next few months will determine whether that optimism is justified.