** The original creator of the SpaceX Quadrant丨Luo Ji Editor丨Cheng Xin will be able to compete with ChatGPT in full popularity throughout 2023, and there may only be two launches of the SpaceX Starship. Just like the uncle who sells fish in the vegetable market in 2023 can talk about the big model, even people who have never cared about aerospace will know the news of Starship**. In fact, throughout 2023, commercial space is a seriously underrated track. Because from the actual effect, the AI model has not changed the existing world pattern, but the commercial aerospace has already arranged a new position in the world's aerospace industry. This year, SpaceX swept the world's rocket launch market with ultra-high-quality, ultra-low-** rockets. In this year, Europe's Arian 5 was decommissioned, and Europe began a new phase of no space capacity, and a large number of European launch missions were concentrated on SAPCEX. This year, India, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and even North Korea are still struggling to explore on the road to the sea of stars. It was also this year that many rocket companies such as Virgin Orbit, Astra Space, and ULA came to a fork in the road of fate, independent or acquired, alive or dead? Become a test of technology for business. Throughout 2023, global aviation supremacy is concentrating toward SpaceX at a speed visible to the naked eye. But even in this context, China's commercial aerospace still walked out of an independent development curve and ushered in the first blowout in 2023. From SpaceX to the world and then to China, commercial space in 2023 is reshaping the space landscape around the world.
SpaceX, sweeping the world2023 is a year of great significance for the world's commercial aerospaceBecause this year, SpaceX began to make a profit. Profitability means success in business logic. In August 2023, a report on Wall Street** Chinese website ** SpaceX's financial data. According to the report, in the first quarter of 2023, SpaceX's revenue will be about 1.5 billion US dollars (about 109 yuan at that time.)6.5 billion yuan), and achieved a total profit of 55 million US dollars (about 4 yuan at that time0.2 billion). Profitability** is a significant increase in revenue. In 2022, SpaceX's revenue doubled year-on-year to $4.6 billion, driving the loss to narrow significantly. In July 2023, SpaceX told investors that the company expects to achieve revenue of about $8 billion in 2023, nearly double that of 2022. The key to SpaceX's exponential growth in revenue is its expansion in the global rocket launch market. Throughout 2023, a total of 221 rocket launches will be completed worldwide, and SpaceX will exclusively occupy 98 of them, accounting for 4434%。Among them, SpaceX served 63 launches of its own Starlink Startlink, putting 1,984 Starlink satellites into orbit. At the same time, SpaceX has also carried out four "carpool launches" missions, sending a total of 350 microsatellites from all over the world into space. 
Falcon 9 in progress Source: Wired In terms of deep space exploration, SpaceX used Falcon 9 to help the European Space Agency (ESA) launch the Euclid Space Telescope in July 2023, and used the Falcon Heavy to help NASA (NASA) complete the launch of the Eucharis probe in October. In addition, SpaceX has completed 3 manned space launches and 3 cargo launches, sending 12 astronauts and nearly 8 tons of supplies to the ISS respectively. At the same time, it also helped the United States, Germany and South Korea release a number of military satellites. All in all, SpaceX is rapidly seizing the global rocket launch marketAnd the reason why SpaceX is so strong is for no other reason is to use Apple's products to sell Redmi's **. Currently, the launch price of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets starts at $67 million and $97 million, respectively; Small satellite "carpool launches", with payloads of less than 200 kilograms, start at $1.1 million and charge $5,500 for each additional kilogram. For comparison, the Vulcan rocket of the 2ULA (American Launch Alliance) has a ** of 1$100 million. Cosmic God 5's *** in 1$5 $200 million. ULA's Delta 4 Heavy (the benchmark against the Falcon Heavy) is up to 3 per launch**8~4.$200 million. 
Delta 4 heavy rocket in launch Source: Wired Under the huge ** advantage, many SpaceX competitors also have to choose SpaceX rockets for satellite launches. For example, OneWeb, a direct competitor of StartLink, will rely on SAPCEX to launch **96 networking satellites in 2023; At the end of 2023, Bezos, who has been "at odds" with Musk, also allowed Amazon to sign a rocket launch contract with SpaceX to support the deployment of Amazon's version of Starlink Kuiper. Competitors all choose SpaceX, in addition to the Falcon 9 rocket is really cheap and good, it is also related to the "crotch" of the competitors themselves. For example, Europe's oneweb, which has been using the rocket Arian 5 of ESA, or the Russian Soyuz rocket. But in 2023, due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, ESA canceled all cooperation with Russia, and the Soyuz rocket has since withdrawn from Europe. Europe's own rocket, Arian 5, was officially retired in July after putting French and German military satellites into predetermined orbits. According to the original plan, after the retirement of Arian 5, the European Heavy rocket will be replaced by the new Arian 6. But to the embarrassment of Europe, due to various reasons such as engines and parts, the first flight of Arian 6 has not yet been achieved, and the first flight time continues to be postponed. 
Arian 5 in launch Photo source ESA In fact, in addition to Russia's Soyuz and Arian 6, Europe also has a rocket Vega-C responsible for low-earth orbit launches. But three of the rocket's only nine launches failed, and the ultra-high failure rate led ESA to suspend the use of the rocket pending investigation. In other words, in 2023, since the retirement of Arian 5, Europe will face a situation where no rockets are available for a long time in the future, which is actually a direct incentive to promote the transfer of European launch missions to SpaceX. Due to the loss of space launch capabilities, throughout 2023, major European satellites such as the Galileo navigation satellite, valuable such as the $700 million Viasat-3 communications satellite, or the Euclidean space telescope involving cutting-edge scientific exploration have now been handed over to SpaceX for launch. And what is even more embarrassing in Europe is that the overall rocket technology has fallen behind the times. For example, the upcoming Arian 6, although the original goal of the design was to reduce the launch cost, this rocket is still a one-off. For comparison, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has set a record of 18 consecutive uses. So to some extent, Arian 6 was eliminated before it was born. 
Vega-C Source: SpaceNews faces the same embarrassment as Europe, as well as Bezos, who is far away on the other side of the Atlantic. In 2019, Amazon revealed its "Starlink" plan, Project Kuiper, which plans to deploy 3,236 satellites in low-earth orbit to form a communication network. In order to complete the satellite deployment, Amazon has purchased rocket capacity around the world in 2022, which is known as the second-largest capital expenditure in Amazon's history, after Amazon's $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods in 2017. But the purchase has caused dissatisfaction among Amazon's minority shareholders. In September 2023, some Amazon shareholders filed a lawsuit against Bezos and Amazon's board of directors, alleging that they "breached fiduciary duty" when purchasing launch services for the Kuiper satellite. The reason for the dissatisfaction of minority shareholders is simple: Amazon has chosen Blue Origin, ULA and Arianespace in Europe for such a large spending. 
Blue Origin rocket launch, Bezos space tourism Photo source CNN Among them, Blue Origin is Bezos' own company, and ULA's Vulcan uses Blue Origin's BE-4 engine, so some shareholders doubt whether there is a problem with the transfer of interests. In addition, from Blue Origin to ULA, to Arian Company, their rockets are not only the most expensive, but also like Arian 6, they have not completed their first test flight, and some have not even tuned their enginesAccording to industry analysts, Amazon's choice not only has to take huge risks, but also costs about $1 billion more than using SpaceX's launch service as a whole. And even so, Amazon did not consider the technologically mature and cheap SpaceX. In this way, under tremendous pressure, Amazon will launch two test satellites in early October 2023. For this launch, Amazon chose the Cosmos rocket, which is commonly used by the United States, which is a well-known high-capacity rocket with a low earth orbit capacity of 1885 tons, but the total weight of the two satellites launched by Amazon this time is only six or seven hundred kilograms. 
ULA uses the Cosmos-5 rocket to launch Source: UniverseToday In other words, in this launch, about four-fifths of the space of the Cosmos rocket is empty. And the ** of this rocket is about 1About $200 million, that is, Amazon lost about $90 million in this launch. For comparison, if Amazon chooses SpaceX's Falcon 9, it can be controlled at around $55 million. So from a macro point of view, the reason why SpaceX can be like no one in the global market is because of its own advantages in terms of reliability and reliability, and there is another reason, that is, it is too difficult to build rockets. In 2023, just as SpaceX is sweeping the world with technology and low prices, many foreign commercial space projects will also come to the edge of the cliff in 2023, or even the end of their lives. In April 2023, the US Relativity Space Corporation announced that it would abandon the development of the 3D printed ** rocket "Terran 1", and the first flight of the new rocket will be postponed until 2026. In the same month, Virgin Orbit, which had just celebrated its sixth anniversary, declared bankruptcy and was awaiting restructuring. 
Terran 1's electric propulsion engine Source: RelativitySpace Virgin Orbit fell into financial crisis at the end of 2022, and in January 2023, its first launch attempt on British soil ended in failure, which became the straw that broke the camel's back. In March, due to the delay in obtaining financing, Virgin Orbit began to stop working on-site, and almost all employees entered a state of "unpaid leave". In August 2023, due to the tight funding chain caused by poor management, the American rocket company Astra Space announced the postponement of the first test flight of its next-generation rocket and at the same time began layoffs to optimize costs. In the first quarter of 2023, Astra Space has already laid off about 25% of its workforce. In December, ULA received a takeover proposal from Blue Origin and private equity giant Cerberus, a veteran American rocket launch company co-invested by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which is also in its old age. Throughout 2023, in addition to SAPCEX, the global commercial space industry is actually lackluster. The only exception may be the Rocket Lab, which uses electron rockets. Throughout 2023, Rocket Lab completed 9 launches. Its electronic rocket is equipped with a Rutherford engine, which uses liquid oxygen and kerosene as propellants, and is the first engine in the world to use an electric drive cycle in orbital launches. In early January 2024, Rocket Lab received NASDA 5$1.5 billion defense contract.
The global aerospace industry, under the impact of SpaceX, is drastically changing the pattern. But there is one exception to this, and that is China's commercial spaceflight.
China is out of the curve of independenceThere is no doubt about the excellence of China's national aerospace industry. In 2023, China completed a total of 67 space launches, accounting for 30% of the world's total, setting a new record for China. This year, China's space station started normal operation, Tianzhou-1 completed a cargo transportation, Shenzhou-16 and 17 completed two manned spaceflight and return missions, and transported six astronauts to the space station, including the first payload expert of China's space station. 
Shenzhou 16 Photo source CCTV From the national level, China's aerospace has surpassed the United States in the number of launches. But for China's space industry in 2023, the bigger surprise may come from commercial space. Because, at the same time that overseas commercial aerospace was destroyed by SpaceX, China's commercial aerospace ushered in the first blowout since its development. Some of the highlights, such as the successful maiden flight of the Tianlong-2 Yao-1 launch vehicle launched by Tianbing Technology in April 2023 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, broke the curse that the first flight of the world's liquid commercial rocket could not succeed. For example, Interstellar Glory successfully completed the vertical take-off and landing of Hyperbola 2 in Jiuquan on November 2.
In May 2022, the "Nebula-M" test arrow independently developed by Deep Blue Aerospace completed a 1-kilometer vertical take-off and landing test. But this time the success of Interstellar Glory is still worth remembering, on the one hand, because it is the first liquid oxygen methane rocket in China to achieve the best in China, equipped with the Focus No. 1 liquid oxygen methane engine independently developed by Interstellar Glory. On the other hand, unlike the experimental arrows used in Deep Blue Space, Hyperbola-2 uses a full-scale first-stage rocket. In other words, this rocket only needs to be equipped with enough engines, plus a second-stage rocket to launch satellites.
Interstellar Glory's hyperbolic No. 2 Source: Phoenix.com In April 2014, SpaceX's Falcon 9 core first-stage rocket achieved a 250-meter vertical ** experiment for the first time; In December 2015, the Falcon 9 rocket completed the Falcon 9 land** in just 20 months. So far, only SpaceX and Blue Origin in the world have been able to achieve the vertical ** and multiplexing of full-scale rockets, and now, Interstellar Glory has also gone to the position that SpaceX went to in 2014. In addition, Blue Arrow Aerospace successfully launched the Suzaku 2 Yao-2 liquid oxygen methane launch vehicle in July 2023, which is the first liquid oxygen methane launch vehicle in orbit by mankind. Liquid oxygen methane rockets have the advantages of easy reuse, flexible transportation capacity and low cost. What's more, in the future, whether on Mars or Titan, there will be a large number of raw materials for the production of liquid oxygen methane, which means that if interstellar travel is achieved in the future, spacecraft can complete local materials to replenish fuel.
Blue Arrow Aerospace's Suzaku 2 rocket launch Source: Blue Arrow Aerospace official website At present, the world's major commercial aerospace companies are actively developing liquid oxygen methane rockets, such as SpaceX's Raptor engine and Bezos's Blue Origin BE-4 liquid oxygen methane engine. Domestic commercial aerospace companies such as Interstellar Glory, Kyushu Cloud Arrow, Aerospace Propulsion, and Science and Industry Rockets are also actively exploring. But why did so many companies make Blue Arrow the number one? This is the second launch of the SpaceX Starship in 2023 without success in orbit, the Starship uses 33 Raptor engines connected in parallel, with a take-off mass of about 5,000 tons, and when fully reused, the low-earth orbit carrying capacity is 150 tons; For one-time use, the carrying capacity of low earth orbit is 250 tons. Although the two launches of Starship were unsuccessful, the technological breakthrough in it was also visible to the naked eye. At the time of the second launch, all 33 engines of Starship were fully lit, which means that SpaceX has basically overcome the worldwide problem of multi-engine parallelism. At the same time, the thermal separation of the first and second stage rockets was also successfully completed, and the second stage rocket also successfully crossed the Kármán line. The Kármán line is the boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and space, and crossing the Kármán line means that the rocket has completed its main launch mission. This also means that the completion of the Starship launch has basically reached 80%, or even higher. As the super rocket with the largest capacity at present, once it enters service, Starship will completely change the current pattern of commercial space launch in the world, and will also completely change the transportation of materials between the ground and low-earth orbit.
Starship in launch Source: NBC From liquid oxygen methane rockets to rockets, the most important thing is that rocket launches are cheaper. Rockets are the foundation of commercial aerospace, and the decline of rockets directly promotes the development of space industries such as satellites. Throughout 2023, China will send a total of 270 satellites into space, of which 137 are commercial satellites, accounting for 65%. Of the 270 satellite launches, 13 were carried out by commercial rockets. China's commercial satellites are the most concerned application scenariosRemote sensingMonitoring. In 2023, from super typhoon Dusuri, to heavy rain in Zhuozhou, heavy rain in Heilongjiang, and then to Gansu ** in December, China's commercial satellites can be seen actively fighting earthquakes and providing disaster relief in almost every time there is a natural disaster. After the heavy rains in Zhuozhou in August, the National Disaster Reduction Center released a report showing that the Ministry of Emergency Responses counted a total of 602 data received in North China, including 358 national civil satellites and 71 commercial satellites. It can be seen that commercial satellites have become an important force in the monitoring of natural disasters in China.
During the heavy rain in Zhuozhou, the SAR satellite images provided by the Fuling-1 satellite of the Tianyi Research Institute From a global perspective, the competition for commercial satellites is mainly focused on low-orbit satellites, because the number of high-orbit satellites is limited, and now it is basically saturated. In addition to these two, China's aerospace science and industry also proposed in July to start the construction of ultra-low orbit satellite constellation plan. The so-called high-orbit satellite, that is, the geosynchronous orbit at a distance of 36,000 kilometers from the ground, can only hold about 300 satellites in this position. Low orbit refers to an orbit of 500 to 2,000 kilometres above the ground and can accommodate about 60,000 satellites. This location is closer to the ground, and has the advantages of low transmission delay, low link loss, flexible transmission, rich application scenarios, and low manufacturing cost. The downside is that it needs to constantly orbit the Earth, so it needs to consume more energy, the monitoring interval is longer, and the satellite is more expensive to operate. The ultra-low orbit proposed by our country refers to a distance of 150 to 300 kilometers from the ground, which is closer to the ground than the low orbit and has more advantages in remote sensing, satellite communications, emergency rescue and other fields. Of course, this distance is also more technically composed, because it is closer to the ground, the satellite is more affected by the atmosphere, and if there is no propulsion to maintain speed, the satellite will soon fall into the atmosphere and burn up. Therefore, this requires the satellite to consume more energy, and the frequency of orbit control of the ground to the satellite must also increase, and the reliability of the orbit control is also very high, which will increase the operating cost of the satellite. In addition to satellites in lower orbits, China has some other innovations in the field of satellites, such as the Lingxi 03 satellite, which will be launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in 2023, which uses new flexible solar wing technology. In contrast, our satellites were generally equipped with rigid solar wings, which were a few centimeters thick and non-collapsing. The thickness of the flexible solar wing is less than one millimeter, which makes it easier to store with a small envelope, light weight and modularity. Of course, the greater significance of this is that it can reduce the weight of the satellite. The cost of satellite launch is directly related to the weight of the satellite, and the flexible solar wing can reduce the weight of the satellite by 20%, and even 40% in the future, so as to achieve the goal of greatly reducing the launch cost of the satellite. Of course, whether it is an ultra-low orbit satellite or a flexible solar wing, the leading research and development is actually our national aerospace. This can also be seen in a major difference between the development of China's commercial aerospace and overseas commercial aerospace. That is to say, China's commercial aerospace and national aerospace are not completely separated, and the national aerospace with more mature technology and more experience has been leading the footsteps of China's commercial aerospace, and the national and commercial forces have also achieved more cooperation in many aspects. In fact, this is also a great progress in China's national aerospace. At the beginning of December 2023, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation made it clear that it would benchmark against SpaceX, and said: "In terms of development concepts, scientific research and production models, key core technologies, quality and efficiency, etcThere are obvious gaps and deficiencies with the SpaceX rocket launch company founded by Musk, and the company as a whole is 'big but not strong'!
China Aerospace Science and Technology Group *** screenshot is big but not strong, is the evaluation of China Aerospace Science and Technology Group on itself, and benchmarking spaceX is its shameful and courageous performance, when an already excellent person is willing to put down his posture and bow down to learn, we can actually meet its future development potential. In fact, China's national space industry has long been moving closer to the goal of commercialization. For example, the Asia-Pacific 6e communication satellite launched in Xichang in early 2023, according to the plan, this satellite should be sent to a geosynchronous orbit 36,000 kilometers above the ground, but this launch only sent the satellite to a low earth orbit 500 kilometers above the ground. The rest of the road relies on the satellite's own propulsion system to slowly transfer, a process that takes about 10 months. The reason for this is actually a low-cost attempt, using a lower-cost low-orbit rocket to launch a high-orbit satellite, which can save a lot of launch costs in the middle. In addition to using its brains on satellite launches, China's national aerospace is also driving the construction of China's commercial aerospace infrastructure.
Hainan Wenchang International Commercial Space Launch Site Photo source Xinhua News Agency For example, it has built the country's first sea launch home port, where Galaxy Power successfully launched the Ceres-1 sea-launched launch vehicle here, sending four satellites into a predetermined orbit of 800km. According to relevant information, the total investment of Hai Duong Launch Port is 263700 million yuan, covering many fields such as R&D and manufacturing of Star and Arrow, aerospace information application, aerospace cultural tourism industry, etc. It can not only provide all-round service support functions such as test and launch command, flight control, and communication support for the sea launch during the rocket launch, but also be open to the public during the non-launch period and become a tour experience hall. In addition, recently, the No. 1 launch station of the International Commercial Space Launch Site in Wenchang, Hainan Province, China, has also been officially completed, and is expected to achieve a normalized launch in 2024, which is the first commercial space launch site in China to start construction. With the gradual improvement of China's aerospace infrastructure, the development of China's commercial aerospace is also advancing steadily. Finally, looking back on the whole of 2023, due to the emergence of ChatGPT, most of our eyes are actually attracted by large models, and ignore the commercial aerospace that is actually equally important. In fact, if we look at it from a more realistic perspective, we think that the impact of commercial space on the world may be more direct than that of large models. Now, with SpaceX taking the world by storm, the landscape of the world's commercial space has been reshaped. Looking around the global commercial aerospace landscape, overseas SpaceX stands out; In China, it is the major enterprises competing for beauty. We will suddenly find that the development of commercial aerospace is becoming more and more like the pattern of smart cars, with Tesla leading China and Chinese smart cars leading the world. It can be seen that commercial aerospace in 2024 is opening a new era that is no less than an AI model. The picture in the article is ** on the InternetRecommended Reading:2023 Apocalypse丨The year of autonomous driving.
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