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SpaceX Conducts First On-Pad Test-Fire of Falcon 9

Posted by timothy on from the still-learning-how-to-stage-launches dept.

FleaPlus writes "On Saturday, SpaceX successfully conducted a launch dress rehearsal and on-pad test firing of their completed Falcon 9 rocket, with the 15-story tall rocket held down to prevent launch (videos). SpaceX is one of several likely competitors (ranging from the upstart Blue Origin to the more experienced Boeing) in NASA's new plans for commercial crew transportation to low-Earth orbit. SpaceX has been cleared by Cape Canaveral for the Falcon 9's first orbital launch next month, carrying a test model of the company's Dragon cargo/crew capsule, although CEO/CTO Elon Musk has cautioned that they're still in the equivalent of 'beta testing' for the first few flights."

17 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by wisebabo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...of getting to space by making incremental improvements in technology (and substantial cost reductions through cutting bureaucracy).

    Let NASA do the high risk/high return investments in fundamentally new technologies (aerospike engines, composite fuel tanks, hypersonic ramjets hell even laser beamed launchers or space elevators!). That, in a nutshell, is Obama's plan isn't it? To me, just a space enthusiast, it sounds good if not ideal. ("ideal" would have been to not have invaded Iraq and instead, COLONIZED Mars. They cost about the same.).

    I just don't want to someday have American astronauts make their first landing on Mars and have to order Chinese food from the restaurant there. (It's okay, they can have the Moon).

    1. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...of getting to space by making incremental improvements in technology (and substantial cost reductions through cutting bureaucracy).

      Let NASA do the high risk/high return investments in fundamentally new technologies (aerospike engines, composite fuel tanks, hypersonic ramjets hell even laser beamed launchers or space elevators!). That, in a nutshell, is Obama's plan isn't it? To me, just a space enthusiast, it sounds good if not ideal.

      It sounds about perfect. Of course, the devil is in the details.

      1) Will the bureaucracy actually be reduced? I suspect not.

      2) Will NASA do the research on fundamentally new technologies? I suspect not here either, since that would require handing NASA money year after year with no real return. (when you're getting money to do research, you have a powerful incentive to never actually finish your research)

      3) Will Obama's Congress actually vote out the money to do either of these things? Given past history, there's no "suspect not" here, just a "no".

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    2. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by Calinous · · Score: 2, Funny

      Aye, the times when NASA researches air engines and Jet Propulsion Laboratories builds Mars exploration rovers...

    3. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      2) Will NASA do the research on fundamentally new technologies? I suspect not here either, since that would require handing NASA money year after year with no real return. (when you're getting money to do research, you have a powerful incentive to never actually finish your research)

      With your last remark this sounds like an attack on doing research in general, every researcher has that interest even in the private industry, unless they're stock holders rather than normal wage takers. The mechanism to solve that is exactly the same too, there's not an infinite amount of research money neither in the private nor public sector. Your program is a lackluster like Constellation? It gets axed. It's a huge success like the Mars Rovers? You can bet there'll be another round of grants for those. Oh there's a lot of pork and politics rather than science that decides what gets funded, but that's equally true everywhere. In fact, I'm fairly sure that this happens much more in the applied sciences where they claim the big profits are right around the next bend, only a little more research is necessary...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by vlm · · Score: 4, Informative

      1) Will the bureaucracy actually be reduced? I suspect not.

      You could staff 30 SpaceX companies with the number of people downsized by the shuttle program ending. Or in other words, its not a good time to be an aerospace engineer. (Has it ever been a good time to be an aerospace engineer?)

      Downsize 27000 jobs as regards the shuttle shut down. Note that is a delta, for the industry not just NASA.
      I know its an industry wide figure because NASA only employs 17900 people per wikipedia.

      http://app1.kuhf.org/houston_public_radio-news-display.php?articles_id=1267053819

      SpaceX employs 900 people

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    5. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by dziban303 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly what is racist or even xenophobic about his statement? He said, in effect, he doesn't want the Chinese to beat us there--he didn't say "I hate and fear those chinks". So is it no longer okay to root for your own team?

    6. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2, Insightful

      With your last remark this sounds like an attack on doing research in general, every researcher has that interest even in the private industry, unless they're stock holders rather than normal wage takers. The mechanism to solve that is exactly the same too, there's not an infinite amount of research money neither in the private nor public sector.

      Nah, I have no objections to research, either public or private. But I don't really expect that an organization dedicated to research is going to be necessarily motivated to develop products. Witness the various X-planes flown over the last couple decades.

      As to "infinite amount of research money", what the government hands out like candy is essentially infinite, especially since every congress-critter will want to make sure that his/her district gets a piece of the research pie, whether they're doing something useful with it or not.

      Note that Constellation wasn't axed because it was "lackluster". It was axed because it was the previous President's program. And because the congresscritter whose district was going to get a huge chunk of the Constellation budget/jobs changed Parties. Odd how that announcement came just after the guy switched to Republican, isn't it?

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    7. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by wisebabo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah, I'm actually Asian American (with both parents being Asian). So while I might be (overly) nationalistic I don't think I'm being racist. And while I'm not living in China, I'm living in a country right next door.

      By the way, since African Americans can say the "N" word without opprobrium, can I use the "C" word. ;)

    8. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by Teancum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is that necessarily a bad thing to have 30 companies the size of SpaceX who productively each perform roughly the same amount of work that the one bloated agency milking government largess to do the same thing?

      Yes, I do realize that even comparing Constellation to the Falcon 9 isn't quite comparing the same thing, but it does help that SpaceX is starting from a clean sheet in terms of building up a new organization that is avoiding bureaucracy that even exists in more established private companies like Boeing or Northrop-Grumman. That is called competition, and I think it is a good thing.

      From a public policy standpoint and from the perspective of a company trying to get started in the aerospace business, now is a fantastic time to be an investor in a new aerospace start-up company with thousands of very hungry engineers that have decades of experience. From what I've seen, it is actually a good time to be an aerospace engineering graduate, as there are job opportunities out there.... especially for entry-level engineers that may be willing to work for a relatively low salary to get their feet wet.

      All this said, yeah it would suck to be an employee of one of the major spacecraft firms that are connected to either Shuttle parts production or to the Constellation program. This does disrupt lives, families, communities, and even whole states when substantial shifts occur. That is why it is important to really evaluate the programs carefully before you shut down something like Constellation or the Shuttle program. Still, just because some program or government project is going, does that mean we as taxpayers need to keep that program going just to employ these workers, even if whatever they are making can't possibly be used affordably even once it is completed?

    9. Re:Great! Keep (slowly) driving down the cost... by Teancum · · Score: 2, Interesting

      No, we are on the edge of a true space race explosion amongst the private companies similar to the net in 1992. Will we see a .com bubble? Most likely. But we will still see MANY MANY companies created and expansion of man to the stars.

      Wall Street is looking desperately for that "next big thing" and I also believe that soon money is going to be pouring from the private equity markets into spaceflight in a manner than has never happened before. Will Wall Street overdo that kind of speculation? Just like everything else that they do, but then again I think it will end up being better for the USA in the long run.

      The one thing that puts some sanity into spaceflight is that so many companies now have "bent metal" and that they have to meet that one incredibly tough obstacle in order to prove that they are capable of competing: get something into orbit

      Any company that can successfully launch their own satellites will likely have gone through a trial by fire that will imply some real engineering talent which must be in place for that to happen in the first place, unlike some of the web companies that was just a dreamer and a URL.

      On the other hand, the market for even near-Earth asteroids and lunar exploration is an untapped potential that could yield some very real financial returns that are on the order of trillions of dollars. A market that size is something also hard to pass up.

  2. Whens the IPO for spaceX by vlm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Whens the IPO for spaceX?

    I check finance.google.com and its all BS paper shuffling worthless shells of a company. All either struggling, dying, living off the government teat, or all of the above. Its like watching a bad season of survivor and the only ones left on the island are the biggest crooks and cheats so you wish none of them would win.

    On the other hand, I'd like to invest in a company doing something interesting, like spacex. Even if they fail, I'd much rather throw away $$$ on a cool rocket than a bunch of thieving financial industry crooks.

    I found one article from Dec 2007 stating they might IPO in the next two years, aka Dec 2009

    http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0344600420071204

    So, wheres the IPO? I was reading slashdot in the Redhat IPO era and I suspect the combined slashdot readership would probably enjoy buying some SPACEX even more so than RHAT.

    If 50K slashdotters alone, each bought $1K of SPACEX at an IPO, that would be enough for one Falcon 9 launch right there.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    1. Re:Whens the IPO for spaceX by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Whens the IPO for spaceX?

      I suspect Musk doesn't intend to do one. He doesn't really need the money now (though that may change when it comes time to man-rate Dragon), and giving up control of his company to someone who is only concerned with the quarterly bottom line may not appeal to him.

      Frankly, though I'd love to own some of SpaceX, I'd prefer to leave it in the control of a guy who isn't afraid to risk some of his own money for long-term gain. And don't see that it's too likely to stay that way once an IPO happens....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    2. Re:Whens the IPO for spaceX by Teancum · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Besides, Elon Musk wants to be an astronaut, and take a flight in his own Dragon capsule at some point in the not too distant future.

      Unfortunately like D. Delos Harriman, he is likely going to be blocked by a series of lawsuits from doing so until after the company is so firmly profitable that his loss from an accident would be irrelevant to the bottom line. That is not the case that the moment with SpaceX.

      I'd have to agree with you that the IPO for SpaceX is at a minimum of 5 years away. That SpaceX is going to need the IPO is true, particularly if Elon decides to go ahead and make his Saturn V-type heavy lifter vehicle that he has been dreaming about and talked about from time to time.

      Well, that would take trying to find a market for such a heavy lifter vehicle too, but being able to send up the ISS in about 2-3 payloads would be something real cool, wouldn't it?

      The preliminary work on an engine similar to the Saturn F1 has already started quietly at SpaceX, but I have no idea if or when it will ever see the light of day. Keep in mind that the test stands at McGregor that SpaceX now owns were originally built to test the F1 engines for the Saturn V, if that gives you an idea of what kind of dream Elon may have for the future.

  3. Re:15-stories? by vlm · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know americans have problems with units for length but really "15 story tall"? Exactly how tall is a story?

    How tall are you? A story is a bit taller than that, to account for ceiling mounted HVAC ducts and lighting. Intuitively its going to be about 10 feet per story, to one sig fig. Or about 3 meters. So, figure around 150 feet, or around 45 meters.

    I agree that it is about as annoying as specifying all computer related measurements in "libraries of congress".

    It would have been much more interesting if the journalist compared it to the size of a common launcher, like a space shuttle stack. Its 25% taller than a ready to launch shuttle stack or whatever it turns out to be.

    --
    "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  4. Re:15-stories? by b0dge · · Score: 4, Funny

    A story is typically about three bears. Fixed.

  5. Spelling Correction by greyline · · Score: 3, Funny

    It is spelled iPad, not On-Pad. Get it right, people!

  6. Re:This is NOT the first firing! by Teancum · · Score: 2, Informative

    Still, my point was that if the first firing had failed on a NASA vehicle it would have been (correctly) called out for it, while anything NewSpace is fine and dandy and they can do no wrong. My "flagrance" is a result of this submitter always spinning his submissions and having conveient omissions (the first failure in this case).

    I would have to disagree in this case. NASA has had launch aborts on very public launches, including the Space Shuttle. They weren't decried as catastrophic or the end of the mission and loss of vehicle. It was merely an abort that forced a recycle of the launch. For the Shuttle, that implies a 24-hour turn around at a minimum to perhaps a week in delaying the launch for the next attempt. This abort for the Falcon 9 was no different, and if anything this test firing also tested that abort procedure in an excellent fashion. What is interesting about the Falcon 9 is that this abort, fix, and re-attempt can happen in as little as 10 minutes for SpaceX, as has been demonstrated already with the Falcon 1.

    SpaceX needed some test data from lighting up the engines on the pad. Instead of one test, they got two, which to me sounds like SpaceX got a bargain including seeing an error condition they hadn't seen previously at the test stands in McGregor. Some heads rolled and some procedures are being changed as a result of that mess up too, so all wasn't lost in the effort, and the engineers have data from two launch attempts already to compare before the real thing happens.

    Hopefully the engineers at SpaceX will make use of that data in a positive way to get the Falcon 9 off the launch pad without a hitch.