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.

[Greg Hullender]

SpaceX e-mailed an update this morning -- it's not posted at http://spacex.com/ yet, so I'll summarize here -- skipping all references to MSF, of course. :-)

The first Falcon 9 will be assembled on the pad in November. It will launch between December and February, depending on factors like weather and the launch schedule at the cape. Payload will be the "Dragon Qualification Unit" which will give them aerodynamic and performance information for the payloads on the subsequent COTS flights.

The second flight will use a real Dragon capsule (unmanned, of course) to deliver cargo to the ISS and return for reuse. This will use their Dragoneye system for automated docking (which they tested in July on a Shuttle mission) and their parachute system, which they tested in Texas. (Parachute was the last step for "primary structure qualification".)

They have booked 22 Falcon 9 flights now. Since they plan to reuse the first stage, they're only making 18 first-stage Merlin engines right now, plus at least two of the Vacuum Merlins that the second stage uses. That vacuum engine completed qualification testing last week, but it still has to complete acceptance testing before the inaugural launch.

The first-stage for flight #1 is being assembled in Texas right now and they'll test-fire it there before they ship it to Florida. The second stage is due to start testing there shortly.

For flight #2, they're still fabricating the tanks in California, and they're about half done.

--Greg

[ugordan]

SpaceX e-mailed an update this morning -- it's not posted at http://spacex.com/ yet

Yes, it is: http://www.spacex.com/updates.php

The second flight will use a real Dragon capsule (unmanned, of course) to deliver cargo to the ISS and return for reuse.

It will fly a functioning Dragon, including recovery systems but it will not go to ISS. It's a 5 hour flight to check out Dragon subsystems, AFAIK it won't even need solar panels for that flight.

Since they plan to reuse the first stage, they're only making 18 first-stage Merlin engines right now, plus at least two of the Vacuum Merlins that the second stage uses.

They're eventually hoping to reuse the stages, but that won't happen that soon. They're still ramping up production of Merlin engines to a goal of one per week. NASA CRS contract also demands a brand new Falcon 9 + Dragon on each of the 12 resupply flights so it's no-go on reuse there, they need all the engines they can build right now.