Space X

SpaceX Asks For Oct. 23 Dragon Launch Slot

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has requested Oct. 23 on the 45th Space Wing’s calendar for launch of its second Falcon 9 rocket, which will aim to place a Dragon cargo capsule into orbit.
The flight is the first of up to three launches planned under SpaceX’s $278-million Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract with NASA, which is intended to help pay for the rocket and capsule’s design, development and flight testing.
In December 2008, NASA gave California-based SpaceX, a privately owned company headed by Elon Musk, a contract worth $1.6 billion for 12 flights to deliver cargo to the International Space Station). Orbital Sciences Corp. holds similar contracts for development work and launch services on the Taurus II launcher and Cygnus spaceship.
In addition to a second flight test for the Falcon 9, which had a successful debut on June 4 (Aerospace DAILY, June 7), the COTS-1 mission will test Dragon’s avionics, flight computers, guidance, navigation and control systems, back-shell heat shield, reentry and recovery systems. The Dragon vehicle is expected to be recovered in the Pacific test range close to the southern California coast after three orbits.
A second operational Dragon that will maneuver to within 6 mi. of the ISS is targeted for launch early next year, while a provisional third test would have the Dragon actually dock at the station.
All the hardware for the COTS-1 flight has arrived at the company’s Cape Canaveral site and is undergoing final integration and testing in preparation for launch, says newly named SpaceX Communications Director Kristin Brost, who will be based in Washington.
Dragon preparations include a checkout of avionics, including airborne electrical and guidance and control; checkout of the propulsion system for valve leaks and to assure there is no damage to the propellant or the pressurized gas tanks; installation of the capsule’s parachutes, which were tested successfully earlier this month; spacecraft fueling; nosecone installation and mating to the booster.
Pending work on the launcher includes stage mating, Dragon mating, vehicle mating to the transporter/erector, rollout to the pad, a tanking test and a static firing.

Space Exploration Technologies and EADS's Astrium offer launch services

With a newly signed marketing agreement with California-based Space Exploration Technologies and the operation from next year of its new medium-lift Vega launcher, EADS's Astrium subsidiary is set to offer what it claims is a unique range of launch services.
The SpaceX deal gives Astrium exclusive rights up to 2015 to market in 28 European countries launches aboard the US company's Falcon 1e rocket, which is set to make its maiden flight next year from the US Army's Reagan test site at Kwajalein Atoll.
Falcon 1e is a heavy version of SpaceX's Falcon 1, which successfully launched a commercial payload in July to mark the company's entry to the launch market. The size of the Falcon 1e rocket is significant, as it will give Astrium the ability to offer to European institutional customers dedicated launches of very small satellites, of up to 500kg (1,100lb).

Alain Charmeau, chief executive of Astrium Space Transportation, says there are no other commercial operators that can offer dedicated launches of very small satellites, and he cites three key advantages to customers who would otherwise have to rely on "piggyback" launches on much larger rockets, such as the 1,500kg-payload Vega or Russian Soyuz, which is also available through Astrium, or Astrium's heavylift workhorse, the 10t payload Ariane 5.
The first, he says, is that a dedicated launch should be much more affordable. Second, a dedicated launch gives the customer a fixed launch date of their choosing. And, third, a dedicated launch will put the satellite into the most suitable orbit - not one determined by the requirements of a larger piggyback partner.
SpaceX and Astrium have been discussing this marketing arrangement for more than a year, visiting each other's facilities in France, Germany and California. Good contact between working teams has established the start of a "very long co-operation" between two companies Charmeau sees as innovators.
FOR STARTERS
For now, he says, collaboration is strictly in marketing, with launches available from SpaceX locations at Cape Canaveral, Kwajalein and Vandenberg AFB in California.
No technical collaboration is part of the deal, but Charmeau readily concedes that the partnership could develop further.
Early signs are good. Charmeau says the first launch under the new marketing arrangement will come "very soon", although he is not as yet revealing any details. Astrium last September placed an order with SpaceX to launch a yet-to-be-identified Earth observation satellite.
His opposite number at SpaceX, Elon Musk, describes the agreement as "opening new doors for SpaceX". Musk, who made a fortune as co-founder of the PayPal internet payment system, subsequently founded SpaceX and later launched the Tesla all-electric sports car, boasts that the Falcon concept is to "provide breakthrough advances in reliability, cost, and time to launch".
This month also marks a milestone in the Vega project, with prime contractor ELV, of Colleferro in Italy, signed to deliver five launchers after the type's qualification flight.
Vega features three solid-propulsion stages and a fourth stage with a reignitable liquid rocket engine to offers payload capacity of 1,500kg into polar orbit at 700km (435 miles) altitude, for launch from Europe's French Guiana spaceport

SpaceX Looking To November Dragon Launch

CAPE CANAVERAL — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is retargeting the launch of its next Falcon 9 rocket, which will carry an operational Dragon capsule, from Oct. 23 to early November.
The flight is the first of up to three launches planned under SpaceX’s $278 million Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract with NASA. The company also has contracts worth $1.6 billion for 12 cargo delivery runs to the International Space Station.
“Our targeted launch date has moved,” Kirstin Brost, SpaceX’s communications director, wrote in an e-mail. “We’ve submitted a request for November 8th or 9th and are waiting for the range to complete their standard deconfliction work and provide a formal approval.”
On Sept. 15, SpaceX conducted a tanking test as part of a countdown rehearsal for the launch of its second Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40. An engine test firing also is expected in the weeks leading up to this event .
The goal of the flight is to demonstrate Dragon’s orbital maneuvering, communication and re-entry capabilities. After several orbits around Earth to verify performance, the capsule is designed to re-enter the atmosphere and splash down off the coast of southern California, where a recovery team will be standing by.
Typically, Dragon will enter the atmosphere at around 7 km. per sec. (15,660 mph.), which will heat its exterior up to 2000C. For shielding, SpaceX is using a material it calls PICA-X – Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator.
“We will gather performance data and retire significant amounts of risk on key spacecraft systems, including [the capsule’s] Draco thrusters, the Dragon communication systems, PICA-X high-performance heat-shield material, and other critical navigation, re-entry, landing and recovery systems,” the company says on its website.

SpaceX Dragon Cleared For Launch

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is awaiting an FAA license to fly its Dragon capsule through the atmosphere, following launch on a Falcon 9 rocket targeted for Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.
The launch license was granted Oct. 15. The pending re-entry license will be the first ever issued by FAA, according to George Nield, FAA’s associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation.
“As we go forward [with NASA Commercial Crew Development and other programs] we expect to see a lot more of those,” Nield tells AVIATION WEEK.
Building on the Falcon 9’s successful June 4 debut (Aerospace DAILY, June 7), SpaceX plans to put Dragon into a 34.5-deg.-inclination, 300-km. (190-mi.) orbit, where it will remain for less than 4 hr. before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Southern California.
Demo flight
The mission is a demonstration flight for NASA under its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. have contracts to develop and demonstrate launch vehicles and to fly cargo to the International Space Station.
“While we had an incredibly successful first launch of the Falcon 9, this second launch is still very much a demonstration mission and will be our first attempt to bring a spacecraft from orbit back to Earth,” SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost says.
“We would like to do more integrated system testing, including another in-depth round of hardware-in-the loop mission simulations to see if we can uncover any corner-case problems. So far, it looks good, but we want to triple-check.”
Test points
Following Dragon’s release from the Falcon’s second-stage engine, the capsule will be used to test operational communications, navigation, maneuvering and re-entry.
They have a pretty aggressive flight,” says Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations.
“They’ll do, I think, two orbits and then do a re-entry of their capsule. I think that will be a good test to see how things are going in their systems,” he adds.
“It seems simple to just describe two orbits and then the re-entry. That’s still a pretty sophisticated test for them. They have their whole attitude-control system on orbit, which hasn’t been checked out yet. They’ll do some maneuvers on that. They have their entry systems with their parachute system, the heat shield, all that performance to come back, as well as a water recovery off the coast of California.
“They’re taking their time, working through the issues that they’ve got with their vehicle,” Gerstenmaier notes. “They had some software things they wanted to spend a little more time working with. They have hardware integration tests where they check out their hardware with their software; they wanted some additional time to do that, so that’s why they moved from the 8th to the 18th.
“They’re doing all the right things. They’ve got the right attitude of how to get ready for flight. I think it will be interesting to see how this flight goes ... and then they have potentially two more demonstration flights. The third one will actually come to the space station,” Gerstenmaier says.

SpaceX-NASA launch postponed

The maiden flight of SpaceX's Dragon capsule originally planned for 7 Decemeber has been postponed due to a crack in the engine nozzle on the rocket's second stage.
During a routine review of close-out photos of the rocket on 6 December, SpaceX engineers discovered the three-inch the crack. The company and NASA continue to prepare the rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 in Florida, but NASA says take off will come 8 December at the earliest.
SpaceX is considering several options, including repairing the crack or shipping a replacement part from California.
Though the company and NASA have identified an approximately three-and-a-half hour launch window, from 9:00 to 12:22 EST, will be available through 9 December.
The Dragon spacecraft's first flight is also the first time the FAA has issued a re-entry license to a commercial company to re-enter a spacecraft from orbit and the first flight under a NASA demonstration program helping to develop new commercial vehicles. The mission, the second for the Falcon 9 two-stage-to-orbit vehicle, is intended to prove the structural integrity of the Dragon spacecraft, on-orbit operation, re-entry, descent and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

Dragon Capsule Returns From Space

Dragon capsule developed, launched and operated by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) had a successful debut flight Dec. 8, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after executing a preprogrammed set of maneuvers in orbit designed to simulate approach and docking with the International Space Station.
The mission was the first under NASA’s $500 million Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, which includes agreements with both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket delivered Dragon into a low Earth orbit for a two-orbit test flight that ended with the capsule’s parachute return into the Pacific Ocean about 500 mi. west of Mexico shortly after 2 p.m. EST.
The capsule’s orbital checkout ended with a six-minute firing of four of its Draco thrusters, slowing the craft so it would re-enter the atmosphere for tests of its heat shield.
The Falcon’s nine liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene-fueled Merlin engines roared to life at 10:43 a.m. EST, catapulting the 157.8-ft.-tall rocket off the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 and into clear skies over the Atlantic Ocean. Nine minutes later, the Falcon 9’s second stage, also a Merlin engine, shut down and separated from the Dragon capsule. The targeted position was a 300-km. (186-mi.) circular orbit inclined 34.5 degrees.
The company’s first launch attempt at 9:06 a.m. was halted three minutes before liftoff due to a false abort on the ordnance interrupter ground feedback position. The problem was quickly fixed and SpaceX proceeded to the second of three available launch windows — dictated by the availability of NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellites, which are supporting the mission.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9/Dragon is one of two systems NASA plans to use to deliver cargo to the International Space Station after the shuttles are retired next year. SpaceX shares a $3.5 billion launch services contract with Orbital Sciences Corp.
Launch was held up a day when cracks were discovered in the nozzle extension of the Falcon 9’s second-stage engine. SpaceX traced the root cause of the cracks, located in the aft end of the nozzle, to a GN2 vent line that “caused flutter of the thinnest portion of the nozzle extension, creating the cracks,” the company said in a statement.
Engineers cut off the bottom 4 feet of the nozzle extension and corrected the root cause by diffusing the vent. “The extension increases the efficiency of the Merlin engine in vacuum and is installed by default on all upper-stage Merlin engines, but that efficiency increase is not required for this mission,” company spokeswoman Kirstin Brost said in a statement.

SpaceX Wins An SES Satellite Launch

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) will launch the SES-8 medium-sized communications satellite on a Falcon 9 vehicle in 2013, under the startup launch service provider’s first geostationary communications satellite launch contract.
“After extensive due diligence of SpaceX’s technical and operational expertise, we feel comfortable entrusting SpaceX with one of our satellites, thereby encouraging diversity in the launch vehicle sector and fostering entrepreneurial spirit in the space industry,” said Romain Bausch, president and CEO of SES, who has encouraged more launch capability to hold down costs. “Falcon 9 ideally complements our roster of Ariane 5 and Proton boosters, as well as our framework launch understanding with Sea Launch.”
The Falcon 9 launch vehicle is being developed to send cargo to the International Space Station via SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Ultimately, SpaceX plans to upgrade the Dragon to carry crews to the station as well.
“The SES deal shows that even the most conservative commercial or government customers can have confidence flying their satellites on the Falcon 9 rocket,” said Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and chief technical officer, in announcing the award March 14.
Luxembourg-based SES maintains 44 geostationary communications satellites. The SES-8 spacecraft, under construction at Orbital Sciences Corp., is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2013 to the orbital slot at 95 deg. East Long., where it will be co-located with the NSS-6 satellite to support direct-to-home broadcast delivery in South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as to customers in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Australia, Papua New Guinea and South Korea.
While SpaceX has launched a Dragon testbed to orbit and back — a first for a commercial company — it has not yet delivered a satellite to geostationary transfer orbit. Alan Young, CTO of SES World Skies, told the opening session of the Satellite 2011 conference in Washington on March 14 that his company is moving toward “more generic” spacecraft better able to accommodate last-minute changes that might be required by a launch failure.
As Bausch noted, SES also has entered a framework agreement with Sea Launch to use the Zenit boosters it flies from an ocean-going platform as the launch service provider emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Falcon Heavy, the world’s most powerful rocket, represents SpaceX’s entry into the heavy lift launch vehicle category. With the ability to carry satellites or interplanetary spacecraft weighing over 53 metric tons (117,000 lb) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Falcon Heavy can lift nearly twice the payload of the next closest vehicle, the US Space Shuttle, and more than twice the payload of the Delta IV Heavy.

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With over 3.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, Falcon Heavy will be the most capable rocket flying. By comparison, the liftoff thrust of the Falcon Heavy equals fifteen Boeing 747 aircraft at full power.

VEHICLE	INCLINATION	ORBIT	PAYLOAD TO LEO
Falcon Heavy	28.5 degrees	200 km	53,000 kg
Space Shuttle	28.5 degrees	200 km	24,400 kg
Delta IV Heavy	28.5 degrees	407 km	22,980 kg
Titan IV-B	28.5 degrees	150 km x175 km	21,680 kg
Proton M	51.6 degrees	200 km	21,000 kg
Ariane 5 ES	51.6 degrees	407 km	20,000 kg
Atlas V 551	28.5 degrees	200 km	18,810 kg
Japan H2B	30.4 degrees	300 km	16,500 kg
China LM3B	28.5 degrees	200 km	11,200 kg

Built on the Flight-Proven Falcon 9
Falcon Heavy’s first stage will be made up of three nine-engine cores, which are used as the first stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. It will be powered by SpaceX’s upgraded Merlin engines currently being tested at the SpaceX rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. SpaceX has already designed the Falcon 9 first stage to support the additional loads of this configuration, and with common structures and engines for both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, development and operation of the Falcon Heavy will be highly cost-effective.

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	FALCON HEAVY
Mass to LEO (200 km, 28.5 deg):	53,000 kg (117,000 lb)
Overall Length:	69.2 m (227 ft)
Width (body):	3.6 m (12 ft) x 11.6 m (38 ft)
Width (fairing):	5.2 m (17 ft)
Mass on liftoff:	1,400,000 kg (3,100,000 lb)
Thrust on liftoff:	17 MN (3,800,000 lbf)

China Great Wall Confounded By SpaceX Prices


COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — China’s space industry remains hopeful it can do business with the U.S., despite a renewed chill in relations. But executives at China Great Wall Industry Corp. are finding it hard to believe that California-based Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX) is offering lower launch prices than they can.
Lei Fanpei, vice president of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CAST), told the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs April 14 that despite the U.S. policy shift in 1999 that effectively shut down U.S.-China trade in space products, China is still open for business.
“Committing to peaceful uses of outer space, CAST is willing to stress exchanges and cooperation with various countries in the world transparently and with [an] open mind,” Lei said through an interpreter. “I believe the China-U.S. space cooperation, once initiated, will certainly bring immediate results to the two countries’ space industries, providing more choices for customers from different countries all over the world.”
Lei did not take questions, and declined an interview request. But colleagues from China Great Wall, the marketing arm of CAST, say they are opening a one-person office in Washington this summer to push Chinese space products, including solar arrays.
Declining to speak for attribution, the Chinese officials say they find the published prices on the SpaceX website very low for the services offered, and concede they could not match them with the Long March series of launch vehicles even if it were possible for them to launch satellites with U.S. components in them.
According to the SpaceX website, launch on a Falcon 9 — which has an advertised lift capacity of 10,450 kg. (23,000 lb.) — from Cape Canaveral costs $54 million - $59.5 million.
Relations between the U.S. and China have cooled in recent months. Language in the compromise fiscal 2011 funding measure working its way through Capitol Hill prohibits NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from cooperating with China in any way, including using public funds “to effectuate the hosting of official Chinese visitors at facilities belonging to or utilized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”

SpaceX To Try Reusable Launch

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) engineers have concluded it may be possible to modify the company’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle to make it fully reusable, a feat SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk says could cut the cost of access to orbit “a hundred-fold.”

Speaking at the National Press Club, Musk, who also carries the title chief technical officer in his job description, says he has concluded over the past 12 months that it is at least tentatively feasible to modify the kerosene-fueled vehicle’s main and upper stages for return to Earth using propulsive landing with landing gear, protecting the upper stage with a heat shield for re-entry.

By reusing most of the vehicle, the cost of flying to orbit becomes primarily the cost of propellant, he says, which puts it at $200,000 a flight.

“We’ll see if this works,” he says. “If it does work, it will be pretty huge.”

Musk stresses that the work on reusability is unrelated to the company’s plan to launch a commercial cargo vehicle to the International Space Station (ISS) in the near future. Initially set for November, that flight has slipped along with the station’s visiting-vehicles schedule following the Soyuz launch failure that claimed a Russian Progress resupply vehicle.

The company also must await final approval to fly two Orbcomm data-relay satellites as piggyback payloads on its first flight to the station, which would demonstrate the ability of the Dragon cargo capsule to provide ISS logistics and fulfill a major milestone in the company’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services seed-money agreement with NASA.

SpaceX posted an animation of a recoverable Falcon 9’s flight profile on its website Sept. 29. But Musk cautions that it is not technically accurate, in part because of a time lag in the animation process and in part because “we’re keeping a few technical things under our hat.”

One of those is likely to be the exact flight profile that would return the unwinged vehicle to its launch site for a vertical landing, a launch-abort feat that space shuttle astronauts considered risky and never tried with the winged orbiters.

Musk says the Dragon capsule is as safe for human spaceflight now as the shuttle ever was, largely because, like the shuttle, it lacks a launch abort system that can rescue a crew from a failure on ascent. The company is working under another NASA seed-money effort to develop a pusher-type launch abort system for the Dragon, which Musk says could be ready in three years at most.

Musk acknowledges the help — financial and technical — that SpaceX has received from NASA. His biggest problem with the government at the moment is with the Air Force, he says, citing the service’s reluctance to open its launch-service procurements to newcomers like SpaceX that lack a long track record.

Musk says that reluctance grows out of a stated desire to protect the industrial base represented by Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which provide the Delta IV and Atlas V launchers through United Launch Alliance. But the Atlas V is powered by RD-180 rocket engines built in Russia, he says, and large pieces of its structure are made in Switzerland.

“Which industrial base are we talking about preserving?” he says, adding that “if this decision is based on lobbying power, we’re screwed.”

SpaceX Demo Flight To ISS May Slip

HOUSTON — Though tentatively targeted for early January, the NASA-sponsored Space Exploration Technologies Inc. (SpaceX) cargo resupply demonstration mission of the Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station could slip a little later into the new year.

“I think January is pretty aggressive,” Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, said following presentations on the status of the six-year-old cargo initiative before the American Astronautical Society national conference here Nov. 15. “At the end of this month, we will know better.”

Nonetheless, 2012 promises to be a year for major strides by SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp., representatives from the two COTS participants told the aerospace gathering.

During the SpaceX demonstration mission, the Dragon spacecraft will attempt to rendezvous with the space station, allowing the U.S. crewmembers to grapple and berth the supply craft using Canadarm2.

The mission’s timing will depend on the outcome of NASA’s SpaceX flight software assessments to identify potential hazards posed by two Orbcomm data-relay satellites carried by the Falcon 9 as secondary payloads and possible impingements of Dragon thruster firings on the station’s outstretched solar panels, Lindenmoyer says.

In addition, NASA intends to brief its Russian partners on the SpaceX mission strategy before signing off on the flight, according to Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

Plans for a January liftoff from Cape Canaveral AFS are subject to change depending on the software test results and outcome of discussions with Russia, Gerstenmaier said from Moscow, where he was following the Nov. 16 docking of the Soyuz TMA-22 crew with the space station.

Meanwhile, Orbital Sciences is preparing for a late February/early March flight test of the Taurus II/Cygnus rocket and cargo carrier from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, says Frank Culbertson, Orbital’s senior vice president and deputy general manager.

Orbital’s commercial cargo carrier could be ready for a rendezvous and berthing demonstration flight as soon as late April, Culbertson says.