Billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk may have recently turned his attention to more earthly pursuits, but his intergalactic brainchild hasn’t been forgotten…
Late at night on January 7th, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., more commonly known as SpaceX, launched a highly classified satellite into orbit.
Experts and observers alike agree that the launch took place. In the middle of the night, the satellite, code-name Zuma, took off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
I’m sure that you and I, like many others, looked to the sky that Sunday night and saw an oddly shaped mass of bright bluish light soaring across the blackness.
It looked like something straight out of a sci-fi movie where alien invaders come plummeting to earth on their futuristic flying saucers.
Pretty cool, right?
However, more than a few anomalies about the mission and its success have been brought to public attention…
At first, everything appeared to go smoothly. The Falcon 9 rocket carrying Zuma blasted off and appeared to shed stage one as planned.
Since it was a national security payload, SpaceX didn’t broadcast the flight of the second stage of the mission, which was supposed to occur after it separated from the first stage.
The next morning, reports from anonymous government and industry officials suggested that something went wrong with the launch and that Zuma might not have made it into orbit.
Ars Technica was the first outlet to report that, citing an anonymous source familiar with the mission, the spacecraft might have failed to separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9, causing both elements to fall back to earth together.
Shortly after, articles from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg also cited an anonymous source that stated the payload failed to separate and instead crashed-landed in the Indian Ocean alongside the spent rocket.
For its part, a Northrop Grumman spokesperson simply said in response to these reports: “This is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions.”
However, the most recent piece of official information regarding the launch, a statement released by SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, seems to contradict the assertion that any part of the Falcon 9 launch failed:
For clarity: after a review of all data to date, Falcon 9 did everything correctly on Sunday night. If we or others find otherwise based on further review, we will report it immediately. Information published that is contrary to this statement is categorically false.
A similar statement coming from a SpaceX spokesperson reiterated the same sentiment, assuring the public that the Falcon 9 “performed nominally.”
Shotwell’s statement that the Falcon 9 did everything correctly appears to directly oppose earlier reports that the payload failed to separate from the second stage of the rocket.
The seemingly contradictory narratives raise a few questions. Mainly, could the Falcon 9 have done “everything correctly” if the payload still failed to separate?
Generally, SpaceX supplies the part that’s known as the payload adapter, which separates the satellite from the rocker when it’s time to release the satellite into orbit.
However, this particular payload adapter was supplied by Northrop Grumman, not SpaceX. So, perhaps, the rocket company considers its part of the mission a complete success even though Northrop’s adapter failed.
It’s also worth noting that Zuma’s mission was postponed twice: once for significant mechanical difficulties and once for poor weather conditions.
In addition to whether or not Zuma successfully separated from the second stage of the rocket, another major contradiction has emerged in the emission narrative.
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg both reported that U.S. Strategic Command, which tracks all operational satellites and space debris, did not register or begin tracking the new satellite after Zuma’s launch, suggesting that the classified satellite didn’t make it into orbit.
So, what happened?
It’s impossible to know for sure amidst all the confusion.
Maybe Zuma never separated and went down with the rest of the rocket as reported. This would mean that SpaceX doesn’t consider the failed separation a Falcon 9 malfunction because the adapter was supplied by Northrop Grumman.
Maybe the spacecraft did separate but lost power shortly afterward and is now floating dead in orbit.
Or maybe it separated but reentered earth’s atmosphere due to some other complication.
The reports coming from Washington D.C. suggest that the payload was indeed lost. And it looks like a congressional committee hearing is in the works to investigate the outcome of the mission.
If the potentially multibillion-dollar mission was a failure, it could have significant negative implications for SpaceX, which landed two national security payloads previously and plans to extend its launch services for the government. And if could have negative implications for Northrop Grumman, too, which supplies numerous government satellites.
A full investigation into the reported failure could reveal what exactly went wrong.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that Zuma is doing just fine — orbiting along and performing whatever classified mission it was built to do.
This scenario seems improbable considering that amateur satellite trackers would likely find the satellite if it remained in low-earth orbit (LEO) where it was launched.
In addition, the reported concern from Congress about the mission seems to indicate that Zuma was, in fact, lost.
But considering that the military regularly hides experimental aircraft tests from the public, we can’t rule out the possibility that the reports of mission failure are a smokescreen for hiding the true location and purpose of the Zuma satellite.
Maybe it flew to a higher orbit or rendezvoused with another spacecraft.
In any case, SpaceX doesn’t seem overly concerned. The spaceflight company recently rolled out its much anticipated Falcon Heavy rocket.
Northrop Grumman is keeping its mouth shut, so we’ll have to wait and see if anything comes from the congressional hearing on the mission.
We might never know what exactly happened on Zuma’s launch, but it sure kicked off 2018 with some sci-fi-like mystery and intrigue.
That’s all for now.
Until next time,
John Peterson
Pro Trader Today