Falcon 9 Is Now Fully Integrated At Cape Canaveral

RobGoldsmith writes "SpaceX's Falcon 9 is now fully integrated: an update from Elon Musk states 'Falcon 9 is now fully integrated at the Cape! Today we mated the 5.2 m payload fairing to the Falcon 9 first stage. This was the final step in the integration process — one day ahead of schedule.' New images are now available showing the first fully integrated Falcon 9 Rocket. Once the launch mount and erector are complete, SpaceX will transfer Falcon 9 on to the erector and raise it to vertical early in 2009."

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SAY IT ISN"T SO BATMAN

[Anonymous Coward]

HOLY FUCKING FIRST POST!!! SCHWEETTT

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Spam (Score:3, Funny)
by Jurily (900488) on Friday January 02, @01:15AM (#26297339)

Once the launch mount and erector are complete, SpaceX will transfer Falcon 9 on to the erector and raise it to vertical early in 2009.

Sounds like some spam I've been getting.

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It's a space salesman race! (Score:2)
by cmowire (254489)

Will Elon Musk, second in reality distortion only to Steve Jobs, be able to convince the new president and congress to cancel Ares I / Orion in favor of Falcon 9 / Dragon, even though it's pretty much guaranteed to wipe out a network of pork barrel projects that ensured NASA's funding built up since the sixties? If so, will we be four launches deep into the campaign with nothing to show for the Falcon 9 / Dragon effort in 2015? If not, will Elon & co shrug and sell endless DragonLab missions to the op

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            Re: (Score:2)
            by MichaelSmith (789609)
            I think there is an opportunity for a small aerospace firm (Scaled?) to build a capsule similar to Gemini, or a small Apollo. Maybe you could sell single use capsules for a million bucks a go, ready to integrate with a Falcon 9.

            I also think it should be possible to build an ultra light capsule to fly on a Falcon 1. The mass budget is about 500kg which should be enough in this day and age.
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            Re: (Score:1)
            by Aglassis (10161)

            If the Ares I design is to be replaced, it would be by the Delta IV Heavy, not the Falcon 9 Heavy. The Delta IV Heavy is already flying, its payload fairing size is an almost perfect fit for the Orion spacecraft, and it uses the RS-68s that are planned to be used on the Ares V. NASA would also be extremely skeptical of the Falcon 9 Heavy because it would be using a total of 27 Merlin engines in its first stage! The failures of the N1 rocket (with 30 engines) would make any high engine rocket a tough sell