Space X公司需要面对最大的挑战有哪些

All said, SpaceX is having a really good year. Over the past several months the company has been to orbit four times (a fifth visit was scheduled for this week, but it was postponed). During those visits, it has successfully placed various commercial satellites in orbit and resupplied the International Space Station at NASA’s behest. The company inked new deals with British satellite giant Inmarsat, unveiled its new crew-capable Dragon V2 space vehicle, successfully tested 3-D printed rocket parts during a live launch—which has the potential to reduce costs—made inroads into the lucrative national defense satellite launch market, and began testing, with some degree of success, a reusable first rocket stage that could drive down the company’s launch costs by an order of magnitude and further solidify its role as the least expensive launch provider in the market.

所有人都觉得，Space X公司正在经历一个非常不错的年景。过去几个月来，该公司已经4次将卫星送上轨道（计划于本周进行第5次发射因故延期）。在这几次发射中，它成功将不同的商用卫星送入轨道，并按美国宇航局（NASA）的要求为国际空间站重新补给。该公司与英国卫星巨头Inmarsat公司签订了新合同，推出了全新的载人飞船龙V2号(Dragon V2)，在一次实际发射中成功测试了3D打印的火箭零部件——此举有望降低发射成本，并打入利润丰厚的国防卫星发射市场。此外，它还开始测试一款可重复使用的一级火箭，并取得了一定成功，这将显著降低公司的发射成本，并进一步巩固其作为最廉价火箭发射供应商的市场地位。

On Tuesday, Fortune published an article intended to cut through the hype surrounding SpaceX—in particular rumors of an astronomical $10 billion valuation—by looking at its commercial space launch competitors and the crisis posture some have assumed as they attempt to deal with SpaceX. Next to those competitors, which include France’s Arianespace (partially owned by Airbus), International Launch Services (a Russian-American joint venture using Russian launch technology), and United Launch Alliance (a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture), SpaceX and its nimble, startup-like culture seem to have the upper hand.

上周二，《财富》杂志(Fortune)刊发了一篇文章，意在深入剖析围绕Space X公司的种种传闻——尤其是该公司犹如天文数字的100亿美元估值。这篇文章检视了该公司在商业航空发射市场的竞争对手，以及一些公司在在试图跟Space X进行交易时所表现出来的危机感。Space X对手众多，包括法国阿利安太空公司【Arianespace，空中客车公司（Airbus）持有该公司部分股份）、国际发射服务公司（International Launch Services，一家采用俄罗斯发射技术的俄美合资企业）和联合发射联盟公司【United Launch Alliance，波音公司（Boeing）和洛克希德马丁公司（Lockheed Martin）的合资企业）。和它们相比，Space X的初创公司文化似乎占据上风。

This all makes for a good story, but what about that multimillion-dollar valuation? Can SpaceX turn the hype into cold, hard profit? The commercial spaceflight industry is a highly competitive, immensely capital-intensive environment saturated by the world’s largest and most respected legacy aerospace firms. For that reason, SpaceX’s biggest challenges lay ahead. Here’s a look at what the firm faces.

仅凭这些素材足以撰写一篇精彩的报道，但上百亿美元的估值是怎么回事呢？Space X公司能否把这些神乎其神的吹捧变成硬邦邦的利润？毕竟，商用航天是一个竞争激烈、资本高度密集的产业，长期以来一直由全球最大也最受尊敬的传奇航空航天公司所把持。正是出于这种原因，Space X未来还将面临巨大挑战。下面就让我们逐一分析这些挑战：

Opportunity. Before September is over, NASA will make a decision on which one, possibly two, of three different spacecraft it will select to be the federal agency’s new crew vehicle for ferrying astronauts to destinations in orbit such as the International Space Station. The winner of that contract is looking at $800 million for spacecraft development up front and an accumulated award of billions of dollars by the time the spacecraft enter service sometime in 2017. SpaceX is in the hunt alongside Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corp. A win for SpaceX would guarantee SpaceX a revenue stream from NASA and certainly wouldn’t hurt its R&D efforts. It would also be another big endorsement from the world’s premier space agency.

机遇。最迟到九月底，美国宇航局就将从三种不同飞船中选择一种，也可能是两种，作为这家联邦机构的新型载人飞行器，这些飞行器将把宇航员送往国际空间站这样的轨道目的地。赢得这份合同的公司将获得8亿美元预付款，用于飞船的前期研发，到2017年飞船交付使用时，还将获得数十亿美元的收益。Space X、波音公司及内华达山脉公司（Sierra Nevada Corp）都有机会赢得这份合同。如果Space X胜出，就能确保从美国宇航局获得稳定收入，也会让它的研发投入不至于付诸东流。这也是全球顶级航空机构对其实力的又一次意义重大的背书。

Reliability. SpaceX has thus far managed to retain a strong record of reliability, even correcting near-mishaps mid-mission in some cases. However, over the weekend it lost a test rocket (which, in SpaceX’s defense, is what test rockets are for) at its test facility in Texas and delayed a rocket launch scheduled for Tuesday in the interest of extra caution. It’s far from the first time SpaceX has delayed a launch. “I think one thing that could tilt the market away from SpaceX is if it can’t launch when it says it’s going to launch,” says Kate Maliga, an industry analyst at aerospace and defense consultancy Tauri Group. “Most of the money in satellites is in the services they provide, so you need your satellite up there to make money. That’s the biggest risk.” Managing that risk and maintaining a regular launch schedule is imperative.

可靠性。迄今为止，就可靠性而言，Space X一直设法保持着良好的记录，甚至还在几次发射过程中纠正了即将发生的事故。但上周末，该公司却在其德克萨斯州试验基地损失了一枚试验火箭（公司辩解称，这正是试验火箭的用途），同时出于多一份谨慎的原则，推迟了本定于周二进行的火箭发射。这远不是Space X第一次推迟发射了。航空和国防咨询公司金牛座集团（Tauri Group）的行业分析师凯特o马丽嘉表示：“我认为，如果Space X表示自己准备发射，实际上却没能成功发射，它就将损失市场份额。卫星的大部分价值在于它提供的服务，所以必须让卫星始终在轨道上运行才能挣钱。这就是最大的风险所在。”管理好这一风险并保持有规律的发射计划至关重要。

Scalability. Launching rockets isn’t the kind of thing a company can do every single day—there are limited launch windows and a limited amount of infrastructure in the world capable of launching them. To continue on its current trajectory, SpaceX has to scale. A new dedicated launch facility at Boca Chica Beach on the Texas-Mexico border—it already launches from Cape Canaveral in Florida—will offer greater capacity to launch independent of other factors beyond its control. But SpaceX will also have to scale its rocket production capacity while maintaining its record of reliability and safety, making this arguably the company’s biggest test going forward. “If they can get up to eight [launches this year] that’s great,” Maliga says. “They say they’ll do 10 to 15 per year, and if they get to that point that would be quite a threat.”

规模化。一个公司不可能每天都发射火箭——全球各地的发射时间和基础设施都非常有限。而如果要保持目前的发展轨迹，Space X公司就要实现规模化。一个位于博卡奇卡海滩（Boca Chica Beach，地处德州和墨西哥边境）的全新发射装置——该公司已经在佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角建立了发射装置——将提供更大的发射能力，不再受到无法掌控的其他因素影响。但在保持可靠性和安全记录的同时，该公司还必须提高火箭的生产能力，从而使这项据称是该公司的最大试验得以继续进行。马丽嘉称：“如果公司今年能发射8次，那就很棒了。他们说今后每年能发射10到15次，真能这样的话，那肯定会对其他对手构成重大威胁。”

Reusability. This year, SpaceX began experimenting with reusable first rocket stages that could one day be recovered, refurbished, and used for multiple flights. Considering most of the sunk costs in the space launch enterprise go into rocket stages that are used once and destroyed, this could significantly alter the economics of space launch.

重复使用能力。今年Space X开始试验可重复使用的一级火箭，将来它可以回收、翻新，多次发射。考虑到航空发射企业绝大多数沉没成本都是发射一次即告销毁的多级火箭带来的，这种新型火箭将极大改善航空发射的经济性。

That last point is particularly important, as it will once again impact SpaceX’s competitors ability to keep pace. Three-tenths of one percent of the cost of a rocket launch is tied up in the propellant, New Space Global’s David says. Most of the remaining cost comes from throwing away the rest of the hardware. Of that, three quarters is tied up in the first rocket stage. Solving the reusability problem will not only drive down the cost of launch for the $200 billion satellite market, but the first company to get there will open up space for a host of new customers as well. SpaceX still has a ways to go before its reusable first stage technology is anywhere near mature, but it’s the only company actually experimenting with anything of the sort.

最后这一点尤其重要，因为它将再次影响该公司竞争的跟进能力。New Space Global公司的戴维表示，每次火箭发射中推进剂的成本占十分之三。其他成本主要来自抛掉剩余硬件。其中又有四分之三和一级火箭有关。对总价值高达2000亿美元的卫星发射市场来说，解决重复使用的问题不仅能大幅降低发射成本，第一个能实现这一点的公司还将带来大量新客户。Space X的可重复使用一级火箭技术还有待成熟完善，但它确实是唯一一家开展这类试验的公司。

SpaceX’s true value has less to do with how much money it has raised and more more to do both with its ability to reliably scale as its competitors retrench, regroup, and learn to compete. The commercial space launch industry is in the midst of an adapt-or-die moment. For now, SpaceX is driving it.

在竞争对手纷纷缩减开支、重组并学会竞争之际，Space X的真正价值与其能募得多少资金关系不大，而是更多地与该公司能否可靠地扩大生产规模有关。商业航空发射业正处于“适者生存、优胜劣汰”的关键历史关头。就目前而言，是Space X正在推动整个行业的发展。

“If everyone is worried about the cost of the Falcon 9, they also should be looking down the road because SpaceX is already doing what all good tech companies do: disrupting its own technology,” David says. “Looking at the Falcon 9 today and attempting to compete with it while ignoring the future is like being a competitor to Apple many years ago when they first introduced the iPod and neglecting to consider the possibility of the iPhone and the iPad.”

戴维表示：“如果大家担心鹰隼9号火箭的成本太高，他们也应该放眼展望未来，因为Space X公司正在开始做所有卓越科技公司都会做的事情：颠覆自己的技术。现在只是关注鹰隼9号并想和它一决雌雄，同时无视未来大势，就好比多年前当苹果公司（Apple）首次推出iPod时，竞争对手一心想击败这款产品，却不考虑苹果将来可能推出iPhone和iPad一样。”