Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX, recently reflected on the company's accomplishments in 2020, including the first manned missions to the ISS. She also says she is very confident about the Starship's ability to reach Earth orbit this year.
Shotwell, an aerospace engineer by training, joined SpaceX in 2002 a few months after Elon Musk founded the company. Initially, his job was to sell launch services for the small Falcon 1 rocket developed by the company. Then over time, Shotwell gained Musk's trust and vice versa, and saw his responsibilities grow. In 2008, she then became the President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX. In other words, she is the direct right arm of Elon Musk.
However, Shotwell recently reviewed the positive results of his company in 2020. In the midst of the pandemic, SpaceX has indeed distinguished itself by establishing its record of launches in one year (26 in total), by propelling the first astronauts into space (towards the ISS) and by starting the tests of its future Starship spacecraft. Oh, and the company has incidentally also become the largest satellite operator in the world with its Starlink internet service!
“It was a year of highlights “, she said in an interview. However, sending astronauts into orbit was probably the most important. "Getting Bob (Behnken) and Doug (Hurley) into orbit and getting them back safely, especially during this time, was really awesome “, she added.
The two historic crew missions carried out this year are in large part to the credit of Shotwell, who has maintained a healthy and constructive relationship with NASA for fifteen years. It was she who, in 2006, was at the origin of SpaceX's first contract with the American agency , which allowed the company to begin transporting cargo to the ISS.
Shotwell is also busy working with commercial satellite customers with the goal of making them more comfortable with reusing Falcon 9 boosters. SpaceX relies today on first stages already piloted, but all these flights could not be possible without the work of Shotwell who wants SpaceX to keep control of the services offered.
In other words, unless a customer has a strong argument, the choice of which booster to use is left to SpaceX . "You buy a launch service, and we'll get you the best possible vehicle in the time you need to fly “, she explains.
In truth, it hasn't been particularly difficult to convince customers to pay for rockets that have already flown. According to her, it was even easier to sell the reuse of boosters than the first launches of Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. And for good reason, the company has achieved what it promised to do:develop and pilot cheap and reliable launchers .
“Obviously people come to trust organizations that do what they say they are going to do " , she says. “We said we were going to orbit Falcon 1, and we did. Then we said we were going to orbit Falcon 9, and we did. We said we'd reach the ISS, and we did. So inevitably, sales pitches have become much less difficult over time “.
Shotwell has also started selling Starship services, which are still in the testing phase. In March 2020, the company even published a first "user guide" for its future customers and discussions are ongoing. However, Shotwell points out that the company primarily sells 'launch capabilities', not specific vehicles .
“We have signed agreements where we can choose to fly a Falcon or a Starship “, she explains. “We want to provide launch services, and we want to provide them in the most cost effective and reliable way for us and our customers ". In other words, in the event of technical problems with the Starship or according to the schedule, the company will be able to honor its contracts by falling back on Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles.
However, Shotwell points out that SpaceX has already made tremendous progress with its Starship testing program. Moreover, she also said she was very confident about the ability of the spacecraft to reach Earth orbit in 2021 , she who is known to be more cautious in nature than Elon Musk. So that's great news.
In addition, SpaceX is building Starship prototypes at a breakneck pace:one a month or so . The scale of the project and the speed at which the company is developing these huge rockets is unprecedented in the space industry. "We don't do this to embarrass people, but we're happy to provide examples of how this industry can do better “, she assures. “And this industry deserves to be better “.
