Falcon 9 Launch & Recovery Operations Options

[Greg Hullender]

SpaceX just sent a press release with an update on the Falcon 9. They successfully did a 5-engine test. They also mentioned the next Falcon 1 attempt will be late June "or July," presumably meaning "late June or early July," but you never know. :-)

Here's the full text. This isn't on their web page yet, the last I looked:

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.

[nprev]

A little birdie just told me to check spacex.com on Sunday afternoon around 1600 PDT (2300 GMT) for live streaming video of the F1 flight 3 launch from Kwajalein.

(I make no claims for the veracity of little birdies, BTW, but thought you'd all like to know.)

[ugordan]

A major milestone in Falcon 9 development was completed last night with a full duration, 3 minute static firing of the first stage engines in McGregor, Texas. There's no official SpaceX release yet, but this site reported on the test and includes SpaceX official video and also an interview with a SpaceX employee who conducted the test.

There's also an interesting amateur video on youtube showing the test and rattling of his house walls/windows. Apparently, the meteorological conditions conspired to make the test felt quite a long way away and scared a big bunch of people as far as 25 miles away.

EDIT: Video now up on SpaceX site: Falcon 9 Nine Engine Test - MDC

[MahFL]

Wow, that sounds powerful.