The U.S. Air Force has given Space Exploration Technologies Corp. a operational license to use Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Pad 40 for its Falcon rocket fleet.The company already has been working with the Air Force and Cape Canaveral on re-developing the old Titan launch complex. The license is another in a long line of steps toward the company's planned launch of the first Falcon 9 rocket. Launch operations could begin later this year, the company said, but the Falcon 9's inaugural flight is not scheduled until the first quarter of 2009.
So far Space X has attempted three times to launch the smaller Falcon 1 rocket and, all three times, failed to get all components of the vehicle to work well enough to deliver a payload to its intended orbit. However, founder Elon Musk vows to keep working at it.
SpaceX has been using small contracts with government and private entities to get its lower-cost, simpler-to-the-pad rocket concept up and running. The goal is to provide launch services cheaper than competitors like United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
The Florida launch operations director for SpaceX spoke to National Space Club members in Cocoa Beach on Tuesday about the company's progress to date. You can read the story from this morning's newspaper here.
Image notes: The top image shows delivery earlier this year of a liquid oxygen storage tank for the new SpaceX launch facility at Cape Canaveral, a tank obtained as excess property from another launch provider. The lower is a drawing of the Falcon 9 rocket. Click on either of the images, provided by SpaceX, to see a larger version.
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