SPACEX PRESS RELEASE
McGregor TX – Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) conducted the first five-engine firing of its Falcon 9 medium to heavy lift rocket at its Texas Test Facility outside McGregor on Thursday, May 29. At full power the engines generated almost half a million pounds of force, and consumed 1,750 lbs of fuel and liquid oxygen per second. This five engine test again sets the record as the most powerful test yet on the towering 235-foot tall test stand.
The test of the five Merlin 1C engines, arranged in a cross pattern like the Saturn V moon rocket, is the last step before firing the full complement of nine engines, scheduled for this summer. With all engines operating, the Falcon 9 generates over one million pounds of thrust in vacuum - four times the maximum thrust of a 747 aircraft.
“This is the first time that we’ve added more than one engine at a time, and all phases of integration and testing went smoothly,” said Tom Mueller, Vice President of Propulsion for SpaceX. “As with previous tests, we saw no unexpected interactions between the engines, and are on schedule for adding four more engines.”
The first Falcon 9 will arrive at the SpaceX launch site at Cape Canaveral by the end of 2008. The next flight of SpaceX’s smaller Falcon 1 rocket is scheduled for late June or July of 2008.
Gregg Easterbrook takes issue with NASA’s “Who, us?” attitude toward protecting the Earth against errant asteroids in a piece titled, “The Sky is Falling,” in The Atlantic. “The odds that a potentially devastating space rock will hit Earth this century may be as high as one in 10. So why isn’t NASA trying harder to prevent catastrophe?” Easterbook’s answer? NASA is obsessed with putting humans on the moon.
A Russian Progress vehicle was launched from Kazakhstan on Wednesday with fresh supplies for astronauts aboard the International Space Station. And what will the fastest men alive be receiving in additional to their regular shipment of clothes, oxygen and fuel? Snails. Ninety of them. (No, they’re not going to eat them; it’s all part of a biology experiment. Really.)
In other news, SpaceX’s Elon Musk is saying that he could launch astronauts to ISS aboard his Dragon spacecraft by 2011 if NASA gives the OK to develop a human-rated version of the vehicle this summer. This date is at least two years (or four or five) before NASA would be able to launch its Orion vehicle.
This is an ambitious goal given that SpaceX has yet to successfully launch anything into space. It failed in both attempts to launch its small Falcon I rocket; a third attempt is scheduled for next month. Dragon will be launched atop the company’s larger Falcon 9 rocket, which has yet to fly.
Officials in Hawthorne, California are hoping that SpaceX will help bring the city back its aerospace glory days, the Daily Breeze reports. Elon Musk’s company is now building Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft in the same building where Boeing once assembled 747 fuselages.
“I think SpaceX will basically bring Hawthorne back to the aerospace heydays,” Hawthorne councilman Gary Parsons tells the newspaper. “You have a major anchor like SpaceX, and then you’ll have other smaller companies coming to Hawthorne to serve SpaceX. It’s sort of returning to the aerospace renaissance of the good old days when Hawthorne was a central hub of aerospace activity.”
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.
SPACE X PRESS RELEASE
McGregor TX – Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) conducted the first three-engine firing of its Falcon 9 medium to heavy lift rocket at its Texas Test Facility outside McGregor, on March 8, 2008. At full power the engines generated over 270,000 pounds of force, and consumed 1,050 lbs of fuel and liquid oxygen per second. This three-engine test again sets the record as the most powerful test yet on the towering 235-foot tall test stand. A total of nine Merlin 1C engines will power the Falcon 9 rocket.
The test series continues with the addition of two engines for a total of five, then finally the full complement of nine engines. With all engines firing, the Falcon 9 can generate over one million pounds of thrust in vacuum - four times the maximum thrust of a 747 aircraft.
“The incremental approach to testing allows us to closely observe how each additional engine influences the entire system,” said Tom Mueller, Vice President of Propulsion for SpaceX. “This ensures that we obtain as much data, knowledge and experience as possible as we approach the full nine engine configuration. To date we have not encountered any unexpected interactions between the engines.”
Continue reading ‘SpaceX Conducts Successful Rocket Firing’
SPACEX PRESS RELEASE VIA BUSINESS WIRE
HAWTHORNE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) today announced its newly revised mission manifest listing twelve flights of its Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles.
“We are on track to deliver our first Falcon 9 vehicle to Cape Canaveral by the end of 2008,” said Gwynne Shotwell, Vice President of Business Development for SpaceX. “In addition, we’re very pleased to have signed a significant new US government customer for our next Falcon 1 flight, and will be releasing details shortly.”
Continue reading ‘SpaceX Announces Revised Schedule for Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 Launches’
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.
