Tim Furniss/CRYSTAL CITY, ARLINGTON
THE ARLINGTON-BASED Spacehab Company, which leases the Space Shuttle-based Space Research Laboratory of the same name, has raised $100 million in international private financing. This is the largest amount of private capital assembled for a space-applications project other than in the communications-satellite industry.
The company, however, is facing an uphill struggle in persuading customers to take advantage of laboratory space and the company still depends on NASA for its business. It has signed a second contract with the US space agency for the use of its Spacehab mid-deck augmentation module on four Shuttle Mir Missions (SMM) in 1996-7. The Spacehab will be used mainly for logistics, rather than experiments, however, and the company has been assured of the work because it was the only one able to supply a module in the time required.
When the company was established in 1983, Spacehab offered a major opportunity for the commercialisation of micro-gravity research and processing. Customers are offered the chance of leasing 50 experiment lockers aboard the Shuttle-based laboratory. Their payload capacity is 1,360kg, at a rate of $1.8 million per 30kg of experiments based on quoted 1993 prices. Spacehab's prime contractor, McDonnell Douglas is supported by subcontractors, Alenia of Italy and Japan's Mitsubishi. These companies, and more recently, Germany's Daimler-Benz, are equity holders in the company.
The Spacehab laboratory initially was developed partly on the back of a $185 million contract from NASA in 1990 for the Commercial Mid-deck Augmentation Module. NASA signed to use two-thirds of the Spacehab's capacity on its first six missions (200 lockers), while Spacehab sought customers for the remaining 100 lockers. Spacehab paid NASA $32 million to fly each mission and planned to profit from the remainder of the NASA contract and commercial leases. The $100 million of private capital was raised to start development.
The Spacehab 1 was flown in June 1993, with 21 materials and life-sciences experiments from NASA and its sponsored centres for the commercial development of space, to "...force a breakthrough in materials processing, organic research, fluids dynamics and other technologies", says the space agency.
No other commercial contracts materialised, despite aggressive marketing. NASA flew 44 lockers on the Spacehab 2 in 1993. The module carried 49 lockers on the Spacehab 3, which was flown on the Russian Mir 1 rendezvous flight in February.
No independent customers were attracted, however (Flight International, 12-18 May 1993). "No commercial companies are ready yet to make an independent commitment to research," says Rebecca Gray, the company's manager of Government and public relations.
The Spacehabs worked perfectly and were delivered on time and on-budget demonstrating industry's "...ability to perform to NASA's highest standard under a fixed-price contract", Gray says.
The Spacehab 4 is scheduled to be flown on the STS77/Endeavour in May 1996, carrying a full locker-load of NASA-sponsored biotechnology and materials-processing experiments, and will be the last under the original NASA contract, which was renegotiated to cover four, rather than six missions. If NASA requires more Spacehab flights of this nature, it is likely, only to be at a rate of about one flight a year and another contract will have to be negotiated.
COMMERCIAL DOUBTS
Spacehab's problems have revolved around the fact that the prospects for commercial processing have not been proved. Micro-gravity research and development time will be much longer than anticipated, and the research may in the end help only to improve processes on the Earth, rather than make them commercially viable in space.
The Spacehab 2, for instance, carried the Space Experiment Facility, which was used to grow a crystal of cadmium telluride inside its 590°C furnace. The crystal "...will be used in the development of improved semiconductors for radiation detectors", says NASA. A Protein Crystal Growth experiment grew crystals of human insulin "...which will be studied, using X-rays, to see if their structure reveals clues to develop a new, longer-lasting, treatment for diabetes".
Breakthroughs in biotechnology, advanced materials and manufacturing from space research could result in "possible products and technologies, such as medicines, extended-wear contact lenses, robotic services" being touted, just as silicon-chip and pharmaceutical space factories were in 1985.
Another hurdle for Spacehab is pricing. Its fee per locker is $925,000, which compares unfavourably with NASA's $800,000 fee quoted for an equivalent payload transported into space. Companies find the cost of access to space far too expensive and rely largely on Government-funded and associated research.
Finally, some experimenters can receive "free" rides on Government-funded Spacelab laboratory missions, such as the recently completed US Micro-gravity Laboratory 2 mission, making it unnecessary to have to pay for Spacehab lockers.
By 1993, Spacehab was forced to change the emphasis of its marketing, promoting the Spacehab laboratory more as additional space for logistics and storage, rather than space for experiments. It was no coincidence - and good marketing - that NASA was talking about the SMM missions in 1993. The SMM missions have been a company lifesaver.
Spacehab has signed a $54 million contract with NASA to carry experiments, food, water, equipment and other astronaut supplies to and from the Mir 1 space station, to support the long-duration flights aboard it by NASA astronauts. To support three of the four SMM missions which are allocated Spacehabs, the company is investing a further $15 million in the development of a double module, which "...can be used as a laboratory and a cargo carrier".
The first double module, which will be flown in August 1996, will carry 2,720kg of cargo. A Spacehab soft stowage system of canvas bags attached to an interior surface increases maximum potential cargo capacity to 4,080kg.
Another influence in selecting Spacehab was NASA's realisation that it was more logical to use a Spacehab laboratory for logistics than to transform a fully equipped, purpose-built space laboratory science module into a cargo carrier. During the first SMM in June 1995, for example, a space-laboratory module was packed with water and food, not science experiments.
The $54 million lease contract, "...is an example of NASA's continuing emphasis, on cost savings through commercialisation, to achieve certain aspects of its agency mission, in a fiscally constrained environment", says Spacehab, which offers NASA the "only commercial source of flight-certificated laboratories capable of delivering the required services, against the tight SMM resupply schedule".
To create the double module, one of the two flight-qualified Spacehab single modules will be mated to the original Spacehab Structural Test Article, using an adaptor ring. The remaining single module will be flown on the SMM3/STS76 flight in March 1996, and the last original NASA contract flight, the STS77, in May.
FLEXIBLE APPROACH
Spacehab is able to turn around the modules to meet these aggressive schedules because of its flexible modular approach to integration, which demonstrates a 45-day turnaround. Daimler-Benz has joined the Spacehab team because it "...wants to be part of the payload processing", says Gray.
The double modules will be flown on the SMMs 4/STS79 (carrying 590kg of water and 860kg of supplies), 5/STS81 and 6/STS84, in August and December 1996 and May 1997, respectively. The double module can support full science or full stowage services in both sections or with services shared in each.
About 80% of the SMM Double Module payloads will be food and water and 20% science materials, including the European Space Agency's (ESA) Biorak, which will be flying on the SMM 5 and 6 (as well as the SMM 3). Boeing will also be flying some pre-space station experiments, says Gray.
Spacehab is hoping to capitalise on its SMM experience by winning a NASA contract to provide logistics services to the Space Station, but it will be competing with Italy's already-assigned Mini-Pressurised Logistics Module, made by Alenia. Spacehab is also actively pursuing customers requiring pressurised space on the Shuttle. It has not ruled out the possibility of leasing a module to an international agency for a science mission.
"We are aggressively working with the European Space Agency and with Japan's National Space Development Agency [NASDA]," says Gray, using the company's Alenia and Mitsubishi connections. With the Space Station now fast approaching, Spacehab believes that many people will want "...to test their stuff before the Station", says Gray, who adds that NASDA "...has budgeted money for a potential Spacehab flight". When the Space Station opens for business "...everybody will want to be on board", meaning more potential business for the Spacehab as an add-on science module, rather than a logistics craft.
There may be an interim phase in which NASA, NASDA, ESA and others may join for a Space Station rehearsal mission, sharing one flight. Equipment flown on the Spacehabs could be leased to users such as NASDA. "We want to make it as painless as possible to reach space," says Gray.
Source: Flight International
