Falcon 9 design drawing.
A heavier-lift version of a new American rocket could launch from a former Titan pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as early as next year.
The first Falcon 9, which is similar in scale to United Launch Alliance's Delta IV and Atlas V rockets, is scheduled to be erected on dormant Pad 40 next fall.
A launch could come within months, according to Space Exploration Technologies chief executive officer Elon Musk said Wednesday during a presentation at the Space 2007 conference in Long Beach, Calif.
Musk acknowledged that schedule delays are not unusual in development of a new launch vehicle and it is too early to commit to a specific target date for liftoff of the new U.S. launcher. Still, the rocket is in production and testing and the plans remain on track for late next year.
"It's hard to say where the launch will occur because we will launch when were ready not based on some arbitrary time," Musk said.
The tanks, engines and other components of the larger version of the company's new rocket are under construction at its facility in El Segundo, Calif. Test firings at a Texas facility are on track as well.
So far, the company has launched two of its Falcon 1 rocket from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The first vehicle barely got off the launch pad before failing and the second failed to reach its target orbit because of a gas bubble that caused an early engine shutdown. A third Falcon 1 launch is planned for early next year.
The larger rocket will use many of the same components being tested on the smaller vehicle. For instance, the Falcon 9 first stage will utilize nine of the SpaceX developed Merlin engines. One of the engines is used in the smaller rocket.
The progress so far has inspired enough confidence that the company has sold 14 launch contracts to date for its Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 vehicles. The first two flights were bought by the U.S. military. Most of the remaining 12 launches purchased, all of which are scheduled to occur by 2010, are under contracts with the government. Almost half are scheduled for the Cape.
The company's goal is to offer launch vehicles at a fraction of the cost of U.S. competitors. Musk estimated Wednesday that the Falcon 9 would be sold for about one-third what a customer would pay for a ride on an equivalent vehicle offered by United Launch Alliance, although the comment drew skepticism from some of the hundreds assembled in the conference audience.
SpaceX recently landed a contract to launch a satellite to geosynchronous orbit for Avanti Communications, a British company that also considered European and Russian launch vehicles before choosing the yet-to-fly Falcon 9.
Musk pointed to that and other contracts as proof that the industry believes that SpaceX is on track.
"The acid test for credibility is customers buying the rockets," Musk said in response to a series of skeptical questions about whether his schedule and public statements are realistic. "... There are some people out there who believe in us, and there are some who do not," Musk said, "but if they're not buying rockets, it doesnt really matter."
10 comments:
Well, you have to give them credit for trying ~
I've been on the launch team for every major vehicle the US flies in my 33 year career and I can truthfully state that the staffing is mandated by gov't regs and requirements and we couldn't build and fly with 50% less people and meet the DOT, NASA, ETR, etc. rules.
Now if you want to give them a pass and say they don't have to meet the same requirement....
Well, perhaps then you could cut some money and fly something. But make no mistake, rockets are very unforgiving at 14,000 MPH and it cannot be achieved by folks with Home Depot backgrounds. You need talent and experience, and that means bucks. R&D is very expensive, and that means more bucks. Major sub-assemblies are expensive, and that means bucks.
Sure, Space X can have have something build and setting on a pad in a couple of years. But can it hit an orbital insertion point at a given time, at a given speed, and release a payload with pinpoint precision time and time again for 1/3 the price of an EELV?
I wouldn't want to bet my retirement on it!
Think about it, if you had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on your payload, maybe even MILLIONS of dollars ~ would you want to fly on something that has a 0-2 record?
Or maybe this:
"It was the 75th consecutive successful ascent for the Delta 2 rocket. No other single rocket design in the current era has strung together such a long and spotless track record.
Delta 2 has been perfect since May 1997, amassing its consecutive string by launching spacecraft for military, NASA and commercial users, including the Global Positioning System satellites, the twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Mercury-bound MESSENGER orbiter. In the rocket's 130 flights overall since debuting in 1989, 128 of those launches have been successful."
I rest my case....
I personally liked the Delta III flight record or even the Delta IV flight record. I mean, really, I think there are tons of customers lining up to pay 3 to 10 times as much for a ride on a fleet of rockets that never fly on time and aren't exactly offering a stellar record when it comes to delivering payloads to their destinations.
The rockets have a common freeze-in-flight valve problem. The launch team somehow cracked the D4 pad during a wet test. The D4 Heavy ... come on. Is any serious, real customer going to ever pay money to put anything of value on that rocket. It has one "successful" test flight and then stands down for how long now.
Let's see the signed contracts for the Falcon, Atlas and Delta for the next three years laid out by one another in comparison. Atlas and Delta are government jobs programs. The venomous response to what SpaceX is trying to do -- and no, they are not successful yet -- but the nasty reax to what they are trying to do sounds like a bunch of scared kids who are afraid Dad's gonna shut off the trust fund money. That's exactly what will happen if they succeed. Aren't we all in the business of trying to break through lowering the cost of access to space. So far, EELV has failed to deliver on EVERY SINGLE GOAL laid out in the program. Every one. No to more frequent flights. No to cheaper flights. No to less government investment. No to more industry control and less government oversight. No to honest and open competition (now we have a monopoly). My guess is monopolizers are just PLAIN SCARED.
Someone post the CONTRACTED flights for all three vehicles and let's see how they stack up. Who's making a new business case and who's still nursing off the taxpayers.
Well, that is one viewpoint, isn't it?
The question I'm asking is ~ and I thought I was quite clear about this ~ would I actually want to bet my retirement on it? Bet my income on it? Bet my ability to feed and house my family on it?
I do give SpaceX some righteous props for having the huevos to give it a go, and I do wish them well. What's good for the space business is success ~ on everybody's part!
According to your RpK editorial that mentions Falcon, they have flown twice, not reaching orbit one of those times.
I'm quite sure both failed.
SpaceX is nursing and being developed on tax payer funds.
This is not venture capital funds who are we trying to fool.
SpaceX would dry up with out goverment funds.
There is no bang for the buck SpaceX is ridding on developed space coatails.
The question is not do you have contracts but can you perform.
Smoke blowing and showing results are two different subjects.
At this point this we have a lot of smoke blowing about what will happen.
But results will quickly speak for it self.
A lot of programs come and gone in the space world.
I'll have to agree on the blowing smoke thing. Yes, lots of rockets have been launched over the years but it's the ones that accurately and dependably deliver the payloads that are still around.
That doesn't mean there isn't room for some innovation and improvement, because there is!
I wouldn't have too much problem booking my ashes, or a good friends ashes, to be spread in space by a start-up ~ but when I've got a $B spacecraft that absolutely, positively has to be there overnight ~ I'm going with somebody who has demonstrated they know what they're doing.
Even your Atlas and Delta rockets had growing pains...and LOTS of government money to get started. Why not another competitor now?
I remember lots of newsreels of the Atlas and Delta (Thor)rockets blowing up on the pads and just after.
Nobody has suggested that competition be stifled; certainly not me! Competition best serves the needs of society ~ without a doubt.
The point is, those repeated blowups of the 50's and 60's led to lots of learning, modifying and adjusting ~ which has now been engineered into the materials, processes and programs. We have already realized the benefits of those learning experiences in the current medium and heavy vehicle programs.
Frankly; The US cannot afford to fund the startup of add'l systems that do not offer significant new capability or some other value added function that would make them desireable. Private investors are free to come up with what they can, certainly ~ but I can't advise giving sweetheart gov't launch deals to unproven companies with unrealistic dreams and unproven systems.
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