Falcon 9 Up, Then Down, at LC 40

After only a few days on the launch pad, the first Falcon 9 will leave Launch Complex 40 in pieces.

Having tested and proven the technique for raising the rocket to vertical, SpaceX workers will disassemble the 188-foot rocket and ship it back to California and Texas for testing.

"Now it's more execution than design," Tim Buzza, vice president of launch operations for Space Exploration Technologies Corp. said Monday. "We're well-positioned to see the entire site come together in the next couple of months."

SpaceX plans to reassemble the rocket for a wet dress rehearsal in March, when the rocket will be fueled. Also, an engine test firing is possible. The first launch from Cape Canaveral is scheduled for the summer, with a NASA demonstration launch to follow two months later.

When launch operations begin after successful test flights, SpaceX will increase its 35-member workforce to about 150 at the Cape, Brian Mosdell, SpaceX's director of Florida launch operations, said. If a program to recover and recycle rocket stages works out, SpaceX could hire up to 1,000 workers, he added.



By the time the rocket parts return to the Cape, a hangar for the rocket will be complete. In the final launch plan, the rocket will be assembled in the hangar and rolled to the launch pad via a railroad track. SpaceX officials plan for rollout to take only several hours.

The Falcon 9 can be raised and lowered quickly, so the company’s hurricane plan is to lower the rocket and roll it into the hangar if a storm approaches. The hangar is built to withstand winds up to 135 mph.

Last month, SpaceX won a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to carry 20 tons of cargo to the International Space Station on a dozen Falcon 9 flights. SpaceX plans to launch its first NASA demonstration flight in the fall, some two months after the initial test flight.

In September, the company successfully demonstrated the single-engine Falcon I, after three failed launch attempts. SpaceX officials believe the lessons learned on the smaller rocket will transfer to the larger spacecraft, which has nine engines and carries nine time more fuel.

"We try to take all the things that have been successful and use them on the Falcon 9," said Buzza. "It's just bigger tanks, bigger pumps, bigger pipes."

Should the rocket veer off course, it will be destroyed with pyrotechnic devices.

"We are using a full-on flight termination system; there are charges on the tank," SpaceX vice president for structures and development operation Chris Thompson said. "That’s an Air Force requirement.

"It’s all carried over from Falcon I. It transfers directly over to this vehicle."