01
Earth-to-Earth, delivery courier?
In the past, when we mentioned recyclable rockets, we always thought of sending satellites and going to Mars, but now Chinese companies have given a down-to-earth downstream landing scenario: sending express delivery.
At the beginning of April this year, Taobao and Beijing Jianyuan Technology Co., Ltd. (Jianyuan Technology), a private commercial rocket company, released a "rhapsody" project: using reusable launch vehicles to deliver express delivery around the world. According to Taobao, the project has entered the test preparation stage, and it is planned to conduct the first cargo rocket recovery test within this year. This means that e-commerce platforms are likely to leap from drone delivery to rocket delivery, and achieve "hourly delivery" on a global scale.
As early as 2019, Taobao announced that it would work with the private rocket company Blue Arrow Aerospace to jointly develop the "Treasure Arrow", which was later dismissed. Since 2023, the popularity of domestic commercial rockets has resurged, making this propaganda also reappear.
In terms of rocket carrying capacity, the medium and large stainless steel reusable liquid launch vehicle "Yuanxinger No. 1" planned to be used by Arrow Yuan Technology has a carrying capacity of more than 10 tons, and the volume of the express load compartment is designed to be 120 cubic meters, which is indeed not a problem for transporting automobiles, large medical equipment and other items.
The selection of rocket body materials and engine fuel are the mainstream routes of commercial rockets, and the static ignition test and the sea overboard recovery test have been successfully completed, and the technical feasibility is guaranteed to a certain extent.
In the context of the domestic reusable liquid oxygen methane rocket has just been put into orbit, if the rocket delivery is not a "PPT concept", then will this become a new commercial rocket profit model? The answer is yes, but there are too many prerequisites, such as whether there is a cost advantage between recyclable rockets and cargo planes? Can the entire industrial chain support the operation of this business model? How to operate at that time?
02
The military need is greater than the civilian one
Before discussing the feasibility of large-scale commercial use, we must first make it clear that the idea of using rockets instead of airplanes to transport goods around the world was actually the first to serve the military that focused on efficiency.
The first to bear the brunt of the problem is, of course, the United States, which has several military bases around the world. As early as the fifties and sixties of the last century, the United States tried to use carrier rockets to send heavily armed soldiers and weapons to the world, but it had to be shelved because of technical and cost constraints.
Low-cost recyclable reusable rockets give the military new hope. In 2021, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), in conjunction with the U.S. Transportation Command and other agencies or departments, unveiled an innovative program called "Rocket Cargo Vanguard", which hopes to deliver about 100 tons of military cargo to anywhere on Earth in no more than an hour based on the rocket's space transportation capabilities.
Schematic diagram of the delivery of 100 tons of military supplies by launch vehicle
"The soldiers and horses have not moved, and the grain and grass go first" has been the same throughout the ages. While the U.S. military is a leader in air, sea, and land, rocket cargo capabilities provide a way to quickly transport high-end cargo in less time.
"A rocket can circle the earth in 90 minutes, and the plane can't reach that speed. Greg Spanjers, the head of AFRL, revealed that although it does not directly fund the development of recyclable rockets, AFRL is actually one of the first partners of SpaceX's heavy-lift launch vehicle Starship. In 2022, AFRL also signed a five-year, $102 million contract with SpaceX to collect various data during the launch and flight of Starship.
From the point of view of cost, compared with the quotation of hundreds of millions of dollars for rocket launches more than ten years ago, and the preparation time required for launching a rocket of four months or even four years, the launch cost of $2 million and the reusable rocket that can be launched twice in a week are enough to support the realization of the goal of military logistics support.
Of course, cost is not the most important criterion, and the military is more concerned about how the rocket can be used more quickly to turn around for go-around, as well as the ability to carry large quantities of cargo into orbit, accurately land in all types of terrain, and quickly load and unload cargo. All of this puts a lot of pressure on the rocket's thermal insulation system, grille fin actuators, landing systems, and other components, and commercial logistics needs to consider not only these technical issues, but also many practical political and economic factors.
03
Another commercialization possibility
Returning to the civilian field, it is difficult to ensure the state of the goods during transportation. At present, the general idea of "rocket express" is that the rocket will send the cargo smoothly to the predetermined orbit, the first sub-stage will return to reuse, and the load compartment containing the special container will re-enter the atmosphere above the destination, and land and unload the cargo smoothly.
The realization of "Rocket Express" is not only technically difficult
It should be noted that in a vacuum environment, the atmospheric pressure changes significantly, what will happen to the changes in the commodity goods subjected to such a vacuum state?
For example, if we put a car into a rocket, its oil and fuel will immediately evaporate in a vacuum, "Do we have to redesign the product for rocket transportation?" Of course, this also requires more practice to verify what kind of changes will occur in various products in space, and then consider whether to solve this problem by partial pressurization.
In addition, in order to make rocket logistics come true, in addition to lowering the price of commercial rockets by an order of magnitude and breaking through technical difficulties, it is also necessary to consider the progress of infrastructure construction in various places, and more importantly, transnational policy coordination. Just taking into account the overflight rights, landing rights and international cargo transportation regulations of various countries or regions, it is unlikely that rocket delivery will be rolled out globally in the short term, but it is not impossible to test the waters in China.
In fact, in today's commercial space market, the role and business model of rocket companies are similar to those of logistics companies, except that they send customers' satellites into space. The current demand for commercial aerospace is still limited to the government and enterprise fields, and mainland insiders believe that the "cake" is not big enough, and in addition to the aerospace information industry, if a new and sustainable commercial model can emerge, it may also be able to promote the technological development of commercial aerospace on the mainland. Can the "earth-to-earth" express delivery business take on a big role?