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.

[ugordan]

It's a shame that the stage recovery is so difficult. I'd guess the loss of the engines is the worst part, just in terms of expense.

They're expensive, no doubt, but I believe the majority of the vehicle cost is concentrated not in the first stage, but in the upper stage where all the expensive avionics and air-startable/restartable engines are.

Do you actually think they'll ever be able to recover the second stage?

Don't know; probably nobody knows that yet. They are planning on flying a heat shield on the stage similar to the Dragon one, but that and deorbit propellant comes directly from the vehicle's total payload capacity so it's a tradeoff between getting max payload and getting the stage back.
Reentering a stage which has its center of gravity at the back (the engine section) is dynamically unstable so active control is needed etc. Keep in mind salt water exposure is one of the bigger problems in recovering stages - the thing is corrosive, it harms avionics and engines.

[Greg Hullender]

Another press release: http://spacex.com/press.php?page=20091021

They completed their structural and propulsion acceptance tests for the first stage with two static firings of all nine engines at their Texas test site, and they're shipping it to Cape Canaveral next month.

No word on the static firing for the second stage, but one would guess that'll happen soon. They still seem to be right on target to do vehicle integration in November, with the maiden launch anywhere from December to February.

--Greg

[imipak]

Full nine-engine test firing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=...p;v=BYLtXhCcNWc

(Also on the SpaceX site at http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=32 .)

[ugordan]

imipak, that's the last year's test. This is currently the only image from the two recent firings - the 10 second one to be specific (higher res image, courtesy Business Wire). You can see the flight stage is not completely painted white yet.

[imipak]

D'oh! I didn't realise they'd done a previous nine-up test firing. Thanks for the correction

[ElkGroveDan]

Full nine-engine test firing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=...p;v=BYLtXhCcNWc

This is so cool. I am so excited for Elon and his team. Mostly I am excited for the future of commercial spaceflight.

[nprev]

Hopefully not OT, but the second F9 flight is on the tentative launch schedule now.

[Greg Hullender]

No worries. The idea was to create a single thread to hold Falcon 9 discussion up until Launch #1. Around the time they start the countdown, it'll make sense to start a fresh thread and close this one, since (odds are) that thread will accumulate more posts in a couple of days than this one has in months and months.

[ugordan]

Not too surprisingly, the launch is now NET February.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has requested a Feb. 2 range date for the maiden flight of its Falcon 9 medium-lift rocket, according to a 90-day launch range forecast issued Oct. 28 by the U.S. Air Force’s 45th Space Wing.

[Greg Hullender]

New Update: http://spacex.com/updates.php

Second stage passed its last test and is being shipped to Florida by end of January. Launch should be one to three months later, so call it no sooner than March 1 and no later than May 1 -- assuming all goes well. I think Elon has previously said that this wide uncertainty reflects the fact that this is their first launch from KSC.

--Greg

[climber]

New Update: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=30220
Nice looking rocket BTW, very "clean" d the Dragon looks much bigger than I thought. Edited: using Ugordan link (thanks) I suspect part of what I though was the Dragon could be it's fairing instead.
Trouble here is that we could fall into the Manned spacefligth side is we don't care enought but well, so far so good.
Less than 3 months to "see" the maiden flight of a new rocket, I can't wait to watch this.

[ugordan]

Higher resolution images are available at the Business Wire release.

Climber, the sloped thing at the top is the Dragon capsule (missing the nose cone), the cylindrical thing attached to its bottom is the unpressurized trunk section. Both will be pretty much inert, dummy units for the inaugural flight. Not a working Dragon capsule.

[Greg Hullender]

Trouble here is that we could fall into the M****d s*********t side

We ought to be able to safely discuss everything else about the Falcon 9 -- everything we're actually interested in -- with little or no loss. We just can't talk about those kinds of applications for it.

I still maintain that the Falcon 9 is very exciting for UMSF because it promises to eventually make big changes to the cost equation for missions we care about deeply. If Elon finds other uses for it -- hey, that's great. I figure I'll read about them somewhere else.

--Greg (I'll admit I don't want to fly in it if I have to be unmanned first!) :-)

[stevesliva]

So is it me looking at something else, or does the vacuum engine on the second stage have an enormous nozzle? And is that a huge interstage?

[ugordan]

Yes and yes. Trying to squeeze every bit of vacuum specific impulse that's practical.