Bloomberg.com has an interesting profile of SpacX founder Elon Musk, the California-based entrepreneur who is trying to make access to space cheap and routine with his Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 rockets.
“I personally wonder if Musk doesn’t want to be Time Man of the Year,” says Strategic Space Development CEO James Cantrell. “He wants recognition for changing the destiny of man.”
The main thing standing in his way is a couple of successful launches. Both Falcon 1 flights failed; a third is scheduled for June from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Falcon 9 has yet to fly.
In addition to trying to conquer space, Musk is making his mark in the automotive industry through his investment in Tesla Motors, which is making a $98,000 electric car that runs on laptop batteries. The main obstacle there has been the inability to find a decent transmission. Tesla is now producing one vehicle per week at a plant in England using an interim gearbox.
Taylor Dinerman examines the current state of the reusable launch vehicle industry over at The Space Review. He is particularly intrigued by a test of a sub-scale space plane that Lockheed Martin conducted in New Mexico last December.
Rob Coppinger of Flight Global takes a look at the success of SpaceX, the El Segundo, Calif. rocket company that has secured a NASA launch services contract that could be worth up to $1 billion without ever having launched anything into orbit. The contract involves the company’s Falcon 1 vehicle, which has failed in its only two launch attempts, and the larger Falcon 9, which has yet to fly.
Coppinger also examines new rocket and spacecraft concepts under consideration by Japan and Europe on his Hyperbola blog. JAXA is considering a VTOL concept that looks a lot like the vehicle that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is working on. Meanwhile, ESA and Russia are jointly examining various designs for a crew transport.
A major initiative has been launched to improve quality control for the Proton launcher, which has suffered two failures in eight months, Coppinger reports. Russia’s Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and its partner, International Launch Services, will be working closely with subcontractors to prevent future problems.
In American space news, the Rocketsandsuch blog has a new post claiming that costs on NASA’s Orion program have risen again by about $3 billion.
NASA PRESS RELEASE
WASHINGTON — NASA has awarded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, a NASA Launch Services contract for the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles.
The NASA Launch Services contracts are multiple awards to multiple launch service providers. Twice per year, there is an opportunity for existing and emerging domestic launch service providers to submit proposals if their vehicles meet the minimum contract requirements.
The contract is an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract where NASA may order launch services through June 30, 2010, for launches to occur through December 2012. Under the NASA Launch Services IDIQ contracts, the potential total contract value is between $20,000 and $1 billion, depending on the number of missions awarded.
Continue reading ‘SpaceX Wins NASA Contract for Falcon Launches’
Investor’s Business Daily has an interview with SpaceX’s Elon Musk. The PayPal founder reports that his space company is profitable despite having failed to place anything into orbit thus far.
“We have been cash flow positive for the last six quarters,” Musk boasts. “We were profitable last year. Revenue was over $100 million. I won’t say how profitable we were, but it was a pretty healthy number.”
SpaceX failed in its two previous attempts to launch its Falcon 1 rocket. The first exploded shortly after takeoff; the second reached space but failed to obtain orbit. Musk and his team will try again in June. SpaceX hopes to significantly undercut its competitors.
“Our nearest competitor there is the Pegasus by Orbital Sciences, although the Falcon 1 has greater capability to orbit than Pegasus. The Pegasus has a NASA list price of $35 million, though I hear you can get it for $30 million commercially. Ours is $8 million,” Musk said.
SpaceX is also developing the larger Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft under NASA’s COTS program. Dragon is being designed to carry cargo and crew to the International Space Station after the space shuttle retires in 2010.
SpaceX has slipped the first launch of its Falcon 9 vehicle by nine months to June, 2009, according to Florida Today.
The El Segundo, Calif.-based company headed by Internet billionaire Elon Musk is receiving $278 million from NASA to launch three vehicles under its COTS program. COTS is designed to help develop commercial alternatives for cargo and crew delivery to the International Space Station.
Flight Global also has a story that includes comments from Musk blaming the delays on a shift in launch sites from a small Pacific atoll to Cape Canaveral and the “enormous amount of work” required to build a new rocket.
Meanwhile, SpaceX says it has completed qualification testing of its Merlin regeneratively cooled engine for its smaller Falcon 1 rocket, which is scheduled for Spring 2008. Two previous launch attempts of the missile failed.
SpaceX Press Release
February 12, 2008
HAWTHORNE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the second Falcon 9 / Dragon demonstration under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) project. NASA representatives attended the event, held at SpaceX’s new headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
Under COTS, SpaceX will conduct three Falcon 9 / Dragon flights, demonstrating the ability to approach, berth, and ultimately deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), and return cargo to Earth. The first COTS flight will demonstrate launch, operations over several orbits, reentry and return to Earth.
Continue reading ‘SpaceX Successfully Completes NASA Preliminary Design Review for Dragon Spacecraft Mission’
Despite failing to reach orbit, SpaceX has declared that the second flight of its Falcon 1 launcher was a success nevertheless. Unlike the first rocket, which exploded shortly after leaving the pad, the second one made it into space but failed to achieve orbit. Space-X officials claimed that most objectives were met.
SpaceX hopes to develop the Falcon 1 launcher and its successor, Falcon 9, as low-cost alternatives to traditional launch vehicles. The company is based in El Segundo, Calif.