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SpaceX as a showcase of the data economy: why a rocket is also a gadget
It is often said that for startups, failure in the launch of a product is not the end or a disaster, but rather a source of valuable learning and a path to success. This development method is responsible for the unusually fast development of information technology and the establishment of the digital aspects of our lives. Rapid development, frequent releases to test products in real conditions, collecting feedback and fixing bugs in the next version are classic, widely repeated approaches in the IT sector. However, in the development of complex systems and objects of the material world, another, older, linear approach prevails, refining individual stages of a large-scale project through detailed long-term planning. This is traditionally implemented by government space agencies around the world.
The problem with traditional approaches is that they fail to take advantage of the data-driven world. Sure, data-driven development is already in use in some industries outside of IT, but it’s hard to find a more glaring example than SpaceX, and this one is clear and brilliant.
Anyone who has watched even one of SpaceX’s live launches or watched a replay will have noticed (but probably not paid much attention to) the images and numbers at the bottom of the frame. It sparsely but clearly displays some of the telemetry data coming from the spacecraft and upper stages, including speed, altitude above the surface, fuel and oxidizer levels in the tanks, number of engines running, and pitch angle. It’s important to recognize that this is just the tip of a huge iceberg that is being collected in real time during every flight and test.
On its fifth test flight, Starship hovered in suborbital orbit for about an hour after upper stage separation, then began its descent, gradually entering the denser atmosphere. Right up until the final splash in the Indian Ocean at the end of the flight, hundreds of thousands of viewers were treated to crisp, beautiful (and colorful) high-resolution photos of the ship’s hull from multiple vantage points. As I watched, I had to remind myself that this was not a studio special effect, nor was it rendered by a powerful modern generative AI model, but a live feed from a payload flying at an altitude of about 200 kilometers. Traveling at speeds exceeding 25,000 kilometers per hour, it overloads and turns into an increasingly dense layer of plasma, turning the air into it as a body passes through it at such speeds. Beyond the aesthetic pleasure, this unique feed demonstrated the impressive breadth and reliability of the spacecraft’s communication channel with Earth. While the video didn't take up all the available bandwidth, it was mostly filled with telemetry, filling all the hull and ship systems, tanks, engines, rudders, and various numerous control points.
Commentators discussed the victories of the SpaceX and Starship teams and briefly recalled the Starlink service, which also belonged to the same company, which was also a victory. Nearly flawless transmission and a large amount of telemetry data from launch to landing in the Indian Ocean demonstrated impressive new communications capabilities using a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit. Starlink created an attractive advertisement in the eyes of customers who need not only to publish selfies from wild places where the Internet reaches, but also to receive data on a wide variety of extreme situations from anywhere on Earth and exotic places in the immediate vicinity. -Earth space. . Perhaps you will be able to not only receive orders, but also give them.
One of the key concepts in today’s data economy is the digital twin (interestingly, while the concept has been around for decades, the term was coined by NASA experts in 2010). You can imagine how a wealth of data from every launch would improve the quality and predictive capabilities of the product pairs SpaceX produces. At the same time, accidents and emergencies are a particularly valuable source of data. By comparing digital twin flight simulations with detailed real-time telemetry, you can quickly spot when the model’s data diverges from the observed data. Collect the data and ultimately determine what the problem is.
In a data-driven world, having unique data gives you a huge competitive advantage. There’s no doubt that SpaceX knows this and is taking advantage of it. Sure, when working under contract with NASA, the company hands over a lot of data to the agency, but rarely all of it. There’s much less talk about open access. As a result, SpaceX’s competitors have to catch up in terms of the amount of data they’ve accumulated, which is no easy task.
After the fifth test flight, the introduction of Starship into commercial operation no longer seems far-fetched, but that moment is still a long way off. But then starships will begin to have a noticeable impact on the Earth's economy. First of all, the cost of delivering a payload to low Earth orbit is expected to decrease by about 20 times compared to today's. In plain language, this will be similar to the price of ground-based international express air delivery.
In the meantime, we'll have to wait patiently for Starship's sixth test flight. During that time, they plan to test another technology that has never existed before: a way to refuel spacecraft in low Earth orbit. This is needed to build a habitable lunar base and generally establish cargo flows (and human transport) between Earth and the Moon. We'll have to see and understand how the development of satellites and orbits will affect life on Earth. In fact, it's not in the For All Mankind series.
The editor's opinions may not coincide with the author's point of view.