It's been a "sub-nominal" few days in the spaceflight realm.
California startup AstroForge announced that its deep space probe, Odin was all but doomed after it lost contact with controllers. Intuitive Machines faced another setback in its efforts to land a functioning vehicle on the moon. Its latest lander, Athena, tipped over, suffering the same embarrassing fate as its predecessor. Most spectacularly, SpaceX's Starship endured what the company euphemistically calls a "rapid, unexpected disassembly," scattering rocket debris over Florida. This marks SpaceX's second catastrophic failure in just seven weeks.
What connects these recent failures is that the spacecraft involved were developed by commercial companies, not NASA, as they seek to carve out a niche in the increasingly competitive world of commercial space ventures.
These companies embody a bold, risk-taking spirit that many space enthusiasts admire. Some argue that without this approach, space innovation could slow to a crawl, hampered by what they see as NASA's methodical and overly cautious development process.
"The traditional NASA way involved many detailed reviews and design cycles before anything was built," says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & Smithsonian. If you're NASA, "you want it to be perfect the first time," he says.
But for companies like SpaceX, Intuitive Machines, and AstroForge, the emphasis is less about perfection and more on having the resources to try again, according to Glenn Lightsey, a professor at the Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Tech.
He explains that "the goal for these companies is to innovate as quickly as possible to gain a competitive edge in the commercial marketplace," even if that means experiencing some failures along the way.
At a news conference on Thursday following Intuitive Machines' Athena lander failure, CEO Steve Altemus exemplified this "fail-fast, learn-fast" mentality — similar to what SpaceX's Elon Musk has called an "iterative design methodology."
"Anytime you ship a spacecraft to Florida for flight and end up a week later operating on the moon, I declare that a success," Altemus said.
"We think we've been very successful up to this point," he said, working up to the bad news: "However, I do have to tell you, we don't believe we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon yet again," referring to the capsized craft.
Hours later, Intuitive Machines acknowledged that it was zero for two for success in its moon landing goal, but the company is planning another try as early as late this year.
It might seem wasteful to burn through expensive space hardware without thoroughly testing things first on Earth. However, as Lightsey points out, "You get much better data from an actual flight than just from designing or simulating on the ground."
A counter-example is Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000 — two years before Elon Musk founded SpaceX. Blue Origin has taken a more traditional approach to development and has quickly been outpaced by SpaceX.
"Blue Origin had all the resources they could need and they didn't need to be scrappy or cost-effective or even quick," notes Laura Forczyk, owner of the space consulting firm Astralytical. "So you can really see the difference there between two private companies funded by wealthy individuals who took different paths."
The upside for Blue Origin was a successful maiden launch of its latest New Glenn rocket.
Both Intuitive Machines, a publicly traded company, and SpaceX, which is privately owned, have received billions in government contracts from NASA for their space endeavors. SpaceX is developing a version of Starship to serve as a lander for NASA's Artemis moon program, while Intuitive Machines is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which encourages commercial companies to contribute to scientific research and help prepare for future human missions to the Moon.
In some ways, these companies resemble past government contractors. But because they are perceived primarily as private ventures by the public, they enjoy a degree of immunity from harsh scrutiny for their sometimes very public failures.
Due to public perception, NASA "is not allowed to operate in the same way… whereas a commercial company like SpaceX is allowed to keep iterating, breaking, changing, improving, and learning," explains Forczyk.
The Space Launch System (SLS), a massive rocket that successfully launched the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the Moon in 2022 and is scheduled to carry astronauts there next year, is often cited as the classic example of the contrast between NASA and SpaceX.
The SLS has been in development since 2011, with NASA spending an estimated $24 billion so far. In contrast, SpaceX's Starship, which has been in development for almost as long, could cost as much as $10 billion. If successful, Starship's reusability could significantly reduce the cost per launch. While much of the SLS technology is rooted in the Space Shuttle era, critics note that Starship is built with cutting-edge innovations, including its ability to return and capture its lower stage used during liftoff.
For now, Starship remains unproven.
"We've had Starship launches, none of which have completed the mission, and most of the hardware has been destroyed," says Tim Farrar, president of TMF Associates, a space consultancy. "But that hasn't stopped them from continuing; they haven't changed course. For most other companies, that would be a reason to reconsider the approach."
Farrar recalls 2008, when SpaceX struggled to launch its first rocket, Falcon 1. After three failed attempts, Musk warned that the company faced bankruptcy if it didn't succeed. Then the fourth try was a win.
While Musk is now significantly wealthier than in 2008, providing more resources for SpaceX, Starship is a far more expensive platform than Falcon 1.
"At some point, the 'iterative design methodology' may no longer be as cost-effective as it once was," Farrar observes. "Is speed the ultimate goal of this development process, or should the focus be on getting it right, even if it takes longer?"
Even with its conservative development process, NASA has experienced its share of failures too, astronomer McDowell notes. In the early days of space exploration, the space agency was also "pretty adventurous and took a lot of risks," he says. Something it is attempting to embrace again.
"Now, the pendulum has swung back, and not just SpaceX, but also NASA are taking more risks ... the question is where is the happy medium? It's clearly somewhere in the middle."
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