Elon Musk’s SpaceX has acquired a new company, this time a small parachute manufacturer called Pioneer Aerospace. The acquisition happened quietly earlier this month after Pioneer’s parent company went bankrupt. SpaceX purchased Pioneer for $2.2 million, a bankruptcy filing revealed.
This Buy Ensures Reliable Access to Sophisticated Parachutes
Space X has bought Pioneer Aerospace specifically for their high-quality drogue parachutes. These parachutes are used during the Dragon spacecraft’s reentry into the atmosphere to stabilize the space capsule. After reentering the atmosphere, the Dragon capsule is still traveling at 350 mph at an altitude of 18,000 feet when the drogue chutes deploy. The parachutes significantly slow down and stabilize the spacecraft before the main parachutes deploy closer to the ground.
Parachutes for spacecraft reentry are extremely sophisticated components that have to withstand substantial stresses and strains. According to experts, space-rated parachutes are among the most difficult things to design and manufacture properly other than complex propulsion systems. The expertise and testing required makes it hard to bring the production fully in-house.
By acquiring Pioneer, Space X ensures steady access to these mission-critical parachutes from a trusted supplier. It also protects against potential delays or inability to deliver by an outside vendor.
Key Role in Future Manned Missions
The Pioneer acquisition comes at a crucial time for Space X as they prepare for vital NASA missions, including returning astronauts to the Moon for the first time since 1972. Space X and their next-generation Starship rocket system have been contracted to carry the crew as part of NASA’s Artemis lunar missions.
Pioneer Aerospace has contributed hardware and parachutes to many Space X flights so far. This includes multiple cargo and crew missions to the International Space Station, flights that helped certify the safety and reliability of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Pioneer also provided parachutes for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission which recently came back to Earth.
SpaceX Starship Faces Ongoing Development Challenges
As historic as SpaceX’s upcoming Moon missions could be, there are still major hurdles facing the Starship rocket. Despite being the most powerful rocket ever built, the current Starship prototypes still struggle with successful test launches.
The second full-scale test flight of the Starship rocket ended in a dramatic explosion earlier this month. While the spacecraft did successfully separate from the booster stage, it later met an explosive demise due to technical difficulties. Space X will have to demonstrate the ability to routinely launch, fly and land the massive Starship rocket before astronauts climb aboard.
Grand Visions for the Future
Once perfected though, the potential of the Starship rocket is almost limitless according to Elon Musk. It would allow fast transportation of passengers anywhere on Earth in under an hour. The vast cargo carrying capacity could enable establishing a human settlement on Mars. For now though, the Moon, and specifically NASA’s Artemis program, remains the next frontier for SpaceX.
Acquiring parachute vendor Pioneer Aerospace puts SpaceX in the pilot’s seat for controlling this mission-essential component. It also further vertically-integrates SpaceX’s supply chain as they push towards these historic missions. While the price tag was small at just $2.2 million, the acquisition’s implications for SpaceX’s future are huge. Reliable parachutes will play an outsized role as SpaceX continues strapping astronauts atop rockets and returning them safely back to Earth.
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