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SpaceX Concludes Testing of Falcon’s Upper
Stage A new booster aimed at lowering the cost of access to space remains on track to debut in early 2004 following successful ground testing Aug. 11 of its re-startable upper stage, according to officials at Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), which is building the Falcon rocket. Elon Musk, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in an interview here that SpaceX has now successfully tested the Falcon’s main engine and upper stage motor and expects to complete development of the two-stage rocket by December. The inaugural launch of the Falcon is scheduled to take place about Jan.
22 from Launch Complex 3 West at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.
In all, Musk said the company is currently planning to use three launch Musk took part in the 17th annual Conference on Small Satellites, held here and sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Utah State University. Musk said the history of private launch vehicle development is admittedly fraught with both failure and a string of broken promises, but said the company is prepared to stick it out for the long haul. “SpaceX is for real. We’re going to be there. We will launch and even if we fail we’re going to launch again. If we have an issue we don’t go home,” Musk said. From a money standpoint, SpaceX has a “sufficient war chest to absorb some pretty serious setbacks,” he said. The company announced Aug. 11 it has been successful in test firing the Falcon rocket’s upper stage engine, called Kestrel — a liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene-powered engine. The upper-stage engine is being designed for multiple restarts in the space vacuum for placement of one or more spacecraft into orbit. Still to come is a major Falcon flight simulation firing, now slated for the end of October, or within the first weeks of November, Musk said. “If we blew the bolts, that sucker’s going. It’s a major milestone.” Falcon is to be offered for $6 million per flight, launching payloads weighing up to 450 kilograms into low Earth orbit. The company expects to later have an augmented booster using strap-on liquid boosters that will be priced at about $10 million per flight. A Department of Defense (DoD) payload that the company will not identify will be the first Falcon payload, and Musk said that DoD customer is paying less than $6 million for the ride. “They got a fair deal. All launches after that one are fixed at $6 million. It will be the same for everyone. Our approach is a fixed and open price. There’s no rug dealing going on. The only compromise we’ll make is that if somebody wants to commit to a multiple launch deal,” Musk said. “People will be surprised at who is flying and what they are flying on our first ride. It’s a real satellite that has very significant tactical importance to the military,” Musk said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to talk about it in more detail in six to eight weeks. All I can say is that it’s a Department of Defense satellite as our first mission out of Vandenberg,” he added. “It’s actually one satellite, but if this works there will be a lot more. The [satellite] program doesn’t make sense if you can’t have a cheap launch vehicle,” Musk said. Falcon’s second mission is to lift off from the Reagan Test Site in the Kwajalein Atoll. Because they take place close to the equator, Musk said Kwajalein-based launches will make it possible for customers to launch heavier payloads than they could from more northernly sites like Vandenberg — a similar advantage to the one enjoyed by the European launch pads at Kourou, French Guiana. A third launch site for Falcon is Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., Musk said. Musk said that much of Falcon’s launch equipment is designed to be mobile, capable of being moved from one launch site to another via standard shipping containers. Most launches will likely be out of Vandenberg, given customer needs for polar and sun-synchronous type orbits, he said. To prepare for Falcon’s inaugural flight, SpaceX is spending several million dollars at its Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site. “It’s very expensive integrating with the range,” Musk said. “We don’t really know the full extent of it. By standard launch vehicle numbers it’s tiny — in the single digit millions. That’s a lot for us, but not much for Boeing or others,” he said. SpaceX prepared over 60 documents in order to meet East and West coast range safety requirements. “I think at some point we really need to — instead of just accumulating regulations one year after another — and it’s very hard to get rid of old ones — we need to do a ground-up examination of what do we really need from the regulatory standpoint,” Musk said. Musk said the surprise has been delving into environmental impact go-aheads for launching Falcon. “There are some totally irrational things there, just totally irrational. Even if you love all God’s creatures, there are some things that don’t serve to help anything,” he said. For example, SpaceX had to pay $10,000 dollars to study whether the seal population will be upset by Falcon launchings. “The seals have increased by 12.7 percent last year. Obviously, they are not having an issue — they breed like rabbits. They won’t even know that we have launched,” Musk said. “Hopefully, SpaceX can be a catalyst for improving and smoothing out some of these regulatory processes,” Musk said. Reprinted with permission from Aug. 18 issue of Space News.
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