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Falcon 9 Prepares For High Stakes Launch
happylunarnewyear writes "The first new rocket to be launched from the Cape since 2002 is assembled and upright on Launch Complex 40. Falcon 9 will undergo fueling testing and live firing tests before the launch occurs as soon as next month. The stakes couldn't be higher, either. The much politicized proposal for a change in direction for NASA, which includes scrapping the Constellation program in toto in favor of privatization and a new heavy lift vehicle, veritably rides on this rocket. If the launch goes well, the plan for increased reliance on privatized cargo missions and eventually privatized manned missions will soar with it. However if something goes wrong, those plans will come crashing to Earth along with Falcon 9. Given the stakes, this launch is one of the most important in recent history. From the article, 'President Obama's proposal to shift transport of US astronauts to the space station from government launchers to privatized ones could suffer politically if there's a high-profile problem with the first mission of the Falcon 9, by far the most talked-about newcomer vying for the opportunity.'"
Reader FleaPlus contributes related news about NASA's proposed funding for scientific payloads on commercial space flights, which would be a huge boon to researchers.
"The Cape" is not thought of a South Africa anywhere BUT South Africa any more than Cape Giruardo is thouight of as "The Cape" anywhere but Missouri. However, Cape Canaveral is known as "The Cape" to anyone who follows space exploration.
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Falcon 9 was supposed to be a stop gap from the time the Shuttle retired till, at least, 2015 when Constellation may have been usable. Now it's all up to SpaceX, Orbital, et al. to do the heavy lifting.
SpaceX is also developing a Dragon Crew module to take astronauts into space, but this year-maybe-they'll be testing the Dragon Cargo module and dock with the ISS. If SpaceX is successful, and the test of Ad Astra's VASIMR engine in 2011-2012 go as planned (probably not) we should see some huge developments in space exploration/science/commercialization.
It's about the cost. Falcon 9 is almost an order of magnitude cheaper than anything else out there. They are also one of the few who have list prices for their launches. I commend them for that.
The first new rocket to be launched from the Cape since last years Ares 1-X. There, fixed that for you
SpaceX has already had their share of "catastrophic launch faliures" with the Falcon 1, which had quite some faliures before they managed to get it right. Falcon 1 now uses the same engines, avionics suite and design philosophy as the Falcon 9. It was basically a test for the bigger rockets, and I'd say they have all the experience and data they need to pull this one off.
Godspeed, SpaceX. They earned this.
Surely you're missing the projected launch costs. SpaceX has the most cost-efficient launcher out there, and they also have had several successful launches with the Falcon 1, which is effectively a smaller version of the 9, sharing the same engines, materials etc. If they succeed with the Falcon 9, this will be nothing short of a revolution in the low earth orbit launch market.
What is wrong with Atlas and Delta, both of which are configurable for all sorts of capacities? ..... Surely I'm missing something here?
Falcons cost about $10M
Delta 4 cost about $140M to $180M. Ariane 5 about the same.
Space shuttle launch costs about $1500M
All lift "about the same amount", but the costs vary by well over two orders of magnitude.
Standard slashdot car analogy, is that as commuter vehicles, both a KIA and a Ferrari will transport roughly one driver and a briefcase, but there is over two orders of magnitude difference in cost.
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GP is an elaborate set up for "Falcon Punch", the tagline of a Nintendo video game character (Captain Falcon).
It's more the nature of the contract.
Delta and Atlas were developed using cost plus methods with a high degree of government involvement and oversight in the creation of the vehicle requirements. The EELV's (Delta and Atlas) were government projects in the same way as a new fighter aircraft, or ship is procured.
COTS (the contract SpaceX is operating under) is completely milestone based, you successfully complete X, we pay you Y. If you fail you get nada, zero. SpaceX is more like how the goverment buys tickets for employees on commercial airliners. Falcon X is not a goverment project
Where are you getting that $10M figure from?
SpaceX's site says $44-49M.
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You've got to be kidding. As someone who grew up on Merritt Island and had many friends whose dads worked at the Cape, we did not want it changed to be named after Kennedy.
From the wikipedia article:
Although the name change was approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names of the Interior Department in 1964, it was not popular in Florida, especially in the city of Cape Canaveral, Florida. In 1973 the state passed a law restoring the former 400-year-old name, and the board went along. The Kennedy family issued a letter stating they "understood the decision"; Jacqueline Kennedy also stated if she had known that the Canaveral name had existed for 400 years, she never would have supported changing the name. The NASA center retains the "Kennedy" name.
It would have been more appropriate to have renamed Cape Cod as Cape Kennedy, as that was the Kennedy stomping grounds. There's even a museum about Kennedy there. Cape Cod was named in 1602 and Cape Canaveral named in the first half of the 16th century. It was inappropriate for a Texas politician to name a Florida historical site after a Massachusetts politician. Thankfully, in 1973, the mistake was corrected.
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Not only does it include the delivery vehicle (Dragon); but, the delivery vehicle is a pressurized cargo container that is rated to be safe for humans to enter and certified to autodock with the ISS... or will be once they're done certifying it.
ESA's ATV (the first one was the Jules Verne) is the equivalent. ESA's cost was on the order of 200 million euro, in addition to the Ariane 5 launch vehicle that put it into orbit. Development cost was 1.35 billion euro.
So, yes, SpaceX Falcon9 + Dragon is cheap.
To finalize this primary point with a quote from the spaceflightnow article:
"People should not think that the rocket is going to launch on whatever the first countdown day is," Musk said in an interview last month. "They shouldn't think of any day that we have planned as launch day, but it is simply an aspiration for the first day that we will try to do a countdown."
That said, this is, indeed, a very exciting launch for the space industry. The spaceflightnow article has some good techie info on the connections made between the rocket and the transport vehicle, as well as some info regarding the anchoring mechanisms for the rocket when it is hoisted.
Furthermore, I do feel it necessary to point out that this:
However if something goes wrong, those plans will come crashing to Earth along with Falcon 9.
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Delta and Atlas are reliable because the time/money have been put into anal retentive engineering. The 1950's/60's customer was in enough of a hurry that they were willing to push the schedule with money and man hours. They also realized that pushing the schedule on developing flaming tubes of fuel was a recipe for BOOM!, and gritted their teeth through the mistakes.
Hopefully, SpaceX has learned enough from Falcon 1 that they can minimize the boom factor on Falcon 9, but given the size of their engineering staff (CAD/CAM or no), I wouldn't count on it.
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