Lots of SpaceX news

JimNtexas

JimNtexas

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Jim - In Texas!
A lot has been happening with SpaceX this month:

1) After spending a month at the ISS, SpaceX resupply mission CRS-3 safely landed in the Pacific ocean on May 18. The Dragon V1 capsule lifted about 3400 pounds of cargo to the ISS, and returned about 3500 pounds of 'downmass', mostly scientific experiments. Some water leakage occurred on landing, but not enough to damage the downmass cargo.

The Dragon is the only vehicle capable of returning anything larger than a small carryon bag from the ISS to the earth.

The launch was delayed a couple of time for various minor issues, including a communications issue with range control, loss of a needed range tracking radar, a computer failure on the ISS that required a spacewalk to fix, and some concerns about possible interactions between an optical experiment and a shielding blanket .

After launch the Falcon 9v1.1 booster did a successful hover landing, with extended landing legs, over a preselected location in the Atlantic. Most observers expect the next CRS launch to include a booster landing on land.

These missions are flown under contract with NASA. There were two qualifying flights of the Dragon to the ISS prior to the 3 operational flights. A total of 12 ISS resupply flights are currently under contract.

2) The FAA issued a draft environmental impact statement that tentatively approves use of the McGregor Texas test facility for drop tests of the "DragonFly" test vehicle, which is probably a prototype Dragon V2 capsule.

The DragonFly will be dropped by helicopter from 10000' to test propulsive landings. About 30 drop tests are planned.

3) This week the FAA approved use of the SpaceX private launch site near Brownsville Texas for up to 12 launches per year. SpaceX has acquired about 56 acres of land near Boca Chica beach for this site.

4) Yesterday CEO Elon Musk unveiled Dragon V2, a reusable manned capsule capable of propulsive landings on earth "with the accuracy of a helicopter" and a turn around time measured in days.

The capsule seats seven, and has control positions for two pilots. The drop down instrument panel has four large LCD displays, a big control knob thingee, and "manual buttons for all critical functions".

The Dragon V2 uses new 'Super Draco' thrusters for landing and has a backup parachute system in case one of those scaredy cat Cirrus pilots buys one ;). The Super Dracos are the first ever 3D printed operational rocket motors.

It also has a way cool leather looking interior!

SpaceX has 12 more flights manifested for 2014. You can order a flight for a mere $52 million dollars.

The best thing about SpaceX spaceships? They are made entirely in America. The SpaceX factory pretty much takes metal in one door and pushes rocket ships out the other door.

I guess we can still do a few things right in this country! :yes:

hdhJtVd.jpg
 
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A fascinating company run by a genius. Looking forward to what comes out of Space X in the coming years.
 
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us AAirways said:
NASA already did all that in the 60's.
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And yet they can't do it today. Nor could they do it for the small amount of money SpaceX does it with. Or the control of the entire process that SpaceX does it with.
 
Very cool. However, I don't believe the "few days turnaround time".
:no:
 
Datadriver said:
Very cool. However, I don't believe the "few days turnaround time".
:no:
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Whatcha mean?

After it lands, they'll just refuel the rockets. Do a pre-flight. Sump the fuel tanks. Clean the bugs off. That kind of stuff.

After 100 hours, it will need a more careful inspection, because it's for hire. They'll check the compression on each rocket. Piece of cake!
 
NoHeat said:
Whatcha mean?

After it lands, they'll just refuel the rockets. Do a pre-flight. Sump the fuel tanks. Clean the bugs off. That kind of stuff.

After 100 hours, it will need a more careful inspection, because it's for hire. They'll check the compression on each rocket. Piece of cake!
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Similar things were said about the space shuttle. Mission fail.
 
I do hope they succeed. Very cool stuff.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
To the surprise of many on this board, they actually manufacture in CALIFORNIA.

:D
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Yep, right next to HHR. I run into their people all the time at lunch, as I try to get out of the "Zone 1" restaurants around LAX that everyone else is at :yes:
 
What is particularly hilarious is I just came from reading the post about the Nigerian scam. This thread reads like a continuation of that thread.
 
SpaceX peformed another successful commercial launch this week, placing six Orbcomm satellites into low earth orbit. On this mission the booster returned to a powered landing in the Atlantic ocean. Elon Musk tweeted that the booster did a 'body slam kaboom', perhaps due to self-created waves.

Last weekend I few a recon mission near the SpaceX test facility in McGregor Texas. The Falcon9r.dev1 ('r' = 'reusable') was on it's launch pad:

f9r.2 by JimNtexas, on Flickr

This rocket has flown a number of times already. The small black squares near the top of the rocket are recently added guidance 'paddles'.

Musk has said he hopes to land a Falcon 9 on Cape Kennedy by the end of 2014.

The McGregor facility used to be a Navy bomb dump and rocket testing range. SpaceX modified the Navy's test stand to use to test their boosters.

On this flight I noticed a huge concrete triangle being built next to the current test stand. Reliable sources have told me this triangle is the base of a new larger test stand, designed to test their next generation 'Falcon Heavy' rockets.

main_stand2 by JimNtexas, on Flickr

In other SpaceX news, the FAA and EPA issued final approval for construction of a launch site near Brownsville Texas.

The Air Force announced that SpaceX will be allowed to compete for at least a few NRO launches.

The next SpaceX launch is scheduled on August 4, a mission to launch ASIASAT-8, a Chinese communications satellite. Rumor has it this booster will not have landing legs.
 
JimNtexas said:
SpaceX peformed another successful commercial launch this week, placing six Orbcomm satellites into low earth orbit. On this mission the booster returned to a powered landing in the Atlantic ocean. Elon Musk tweeted that the booster did a 'body slam kaboom', perhaps due to self-created waves.

Last weekend I few a recon mission near the SpaceX test facility in McGregor Texas. The Falcon9r.dev1 ('r' = 'reusable') was on it's launch pad:

f9r.2 by JimNtexas, on Flickr

This rocket has flown a number of times already. The small black squares near the top of the rocket are recently added guidance 'paddles'.

Musk has said he hopes to land a Falcon 9 on Cape Kennedy by the end of 2014.

The McGregor facility used to be a Navy bomb dump and rocket testing range. SpaceX modified the Navy's test stand to use to test their boosters.

On this flight I noticed a huge concrete triangle being built next to the current test stand. Reliable sources have told me this triangle is the base of a new larger test stand, designed to test their next generation 'Falcon Heavy' rockets.

main_stand2 by JimNtexas, on Flickr

In other SpaceX news, the FAA and EPA issued final approval for construction of a launch site near Brownsville Texas.

The Air Force announced that SpaceX will be allowed to compete for at least a few NRO launches.

The next SpaceX launch is scheduled on August 4, a mission to launch ASIASAT-8, a Chinese communications satellite. Rumor has it this booster will not have landing legs.
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How do they handle launches? Is there a place to watch them from?
 
JimNtexas said:
The McGregor facility used to be a Navy bomb dump and rocket testing range. SpaceX modified the Navy's test stand to use to test their boosters.
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The site was also briefly owned and used by Beal Aerospace in the late '90s.
 
Jay Honeck said:
How do they handle launches? Is there a place to watch them from?
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They recently go clearance from the FAA to fly the Falcon and the upcoming DragonV2 up to 10,000 feet from McGregor.

They don't announce tests in advance.

They used to let you drive right by the big test stand, but they've gated that road recently.

SpaceX Rocket Test Stand by JimNtexas, on Flickr


There is a gravel County Road on the north side of the facility that can get you pretty close to the Falcon9R.

SpaceX Falcon F9Rdev1 by JimNtexas, on Flickr

Note the new flight control 'fins'.

SpaceX has announced that they will test the 'Falcon9rdev2' at the New Mexico Spaceport with flights up to 100,000 feet.
 
That costs an arm, a leg and the lives of 14 astronauts :no:

us AAirways said:
Too bad there wasn't a heavy lift, winged spacecraft that could land on a runway and be reusable. One that might carry 30,000 pounds to and from orbit. It would make maintaining the ISS much easier.
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At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment. However, our next couple launches are for very high velocity geostationary satellite missions, which don’t allow enough residual propellant for landing. In the longer term, missions like that will fly on Falcon Heavy, but until then Falcon 9 will need to fly in expendable mode.

We will attempt our next water landing on flight 13 of Falcon 9, but with a low probability of success. Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success.
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'Flight 13' is the next NASA ISS resupply mission, which should be in early Fall of this year. Flight 15 should occur near the end of the year.

If SpaceX can do better about launching on the first or second try.
 
JimNtexas said:
SpaceX has 12 more flights manifested for 2014.
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They aren't going to come anywhere close. 7 flights at the most, if they're lucky.

If you look how Russians managed to pop a Soyuz every week, it was done by overbuilt infrastructure. In particular, severals rockets were processed in parallel, so a delay with one launch would not back up others.

But Elon didn't have a massive government backing for that, so he built a tin hangar where one rocket barely fits at LC-40. Until that rocket is away, they cannot accept deliverly of the next one and cannot start processing it. So the difficult Orbcomm OG2 campaign jammed the whole schedule for the rest of the year.

As a point of comparison, conversion of LC-40 costed $40 million to SpaceX. The conversion of Pad 35-1 in Plesetsk was $1.5 billion give or take. That's Billion with B. They built 112 seaparate buildings and structures in support of that project. Now the hope is they'll launch as often as needed... A different approach.
 
Their staff always seem to have a good sense of humor. I popped over to Lowes in Hawthorne at lunch (approach to HHR), there was a Space-X employee in there with a "Occupy Mars" t-shirt :)
 
In June of 2013 Gwynne Shotwell, COO of SpaceX said this about the test program for the Falcon 9r reusable booster:

So we're 5-for-5 testing on this Grasshopper. But, but that means we're not pushing hard enough. We've got to tunnel one of those vehicle into the ground by trying something really hard. We haven't done that yet. So now our challenge to our test team is you've got to push hard enough that we're going to see something happen.
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Today they tried really hard at their McGregor Texas test facility.

Kaboom!
 
SpaceX just completed a successful launch of AsiaSat6. The next launch will be a NASA ISS resupply mission in about two weeks.

NASA should announce the winners of the contract to fly humans to the ISS. Rumor is that two of the three bidders (SpaceX, Boeing, SNC) will be funded.
 
Historians a generation from now will be agog over the accomplishments of Musk and his Space-X in spite of obstruction and sabotage by the NASA/Pentagon/Boeing conspiracy in under the table contracts and all the mischief they have been causing.
Those of us who actually lived through the man to the moon era and remember the fantastic expenditures and military/industrial winking incompetence have admiration for this man and what he as done for a tiny fraction of a penny on the dollar compared to the likes of Boeing's bloated hardware that is not even flying, fer cripes sake.
I do not believe that the casual observer who did not live through that era comprehends. Time to do your homework laddies. Those puffing on about his rocket's unreliability are showing their ignorance in public.

Now, I do not know how Space-X will fare in the future. It may be that he cannot build a heavy lift, launch to orbit and return, system that is reliable. I tend to think he will do it. And do it for less than what NASA spent on Just the crawler all by itself.
And I am looking forward to watching it in my lifetime - for a second time.
 
Reminds me of Andy Griffith in Salvage 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mR-gz9EFO8

Dr. O said:
Historians a generation from now will be agog over the accomplishments of Musk and his Space-X in spite of obstruction and sabotage by the NASA/Pentagon/Boeing conspiracy in under the table contracts and all the mischief they have been causing.
Those of us who actually lived through the man to the moon era and remember the fantastic expenditures and military/industrial winking incompetence have admiration for this man and what he as done for a tiny fraction of a penny on the dollar compared to the likes of Boeing's bloated hardware that is not even flying, fer cripes sake.
I do not believe that the casual observer who did not live through that era comprehends. Time to do your homework laddies. Those puffing on about his rocket's unreliability are showing their ignorance in public.

Now, I do not know how Space-X will fare in the future. It may be that he cannot build a heavy lift, launch to orbit and return, system that is reliable. I tend to think he will do it. And do it for less than what NASA spent on Just the crawler all by itself.
And I am looking forward to watching it in my lifetime - for a second time.
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NoHeat said:
Why do they launch from the middle of Texas?
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The only thing they do in Texas currently is low altitude testing of the grasshopper. They're setting up launch facility down in Brownsville for commercial launches, at it seems to be a bit of a pain for them in KSC to operate with foreign customers, as their site currently sits on an AFB.
 
NoHeat said:
Why do they launch from the middle of Texas?
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SpaceX purchased a former Navy ordnance storage and rocket testing site, so the people around McGregor were used to this kind of testing. It's a fairly big site, but I found it surprising they got FAA clearance to fly up to 10000 feet thee.

One reason they terminated that last flight was that it was starting to go out of their tall narrow rectangle of airspace.

SpaceX is building a test facility at the New Mexico spaceport that is approved for flights up to 100,000 feet.
 
Caution: necropost!

I thought I'd resurrect this thread given Space-X's two successful launches and stage 1 landings over the weekend. I'm really enjoying watching their progress. Granted that it is consistently behind their optimistic projections, two launches in a weekend and 7 before the halfway point of the year is not bad.
 
Old Fart said:
Their staff always seem to have a good sense of humor. I popped over to Lowes in Hawthorne at lunch (approach to HHR), there was a Space-X employee in there with a "Occupy Mars" t-shirt :)
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Holy crap... they are getting foreign made Lowe's junk to build with?
So it's 'assembled in America' :)

kidding.. sort of ha ha. I'd love to work there too. (not Lowes)
 
Zeldman said:
I just got a job there. Watch future launches. When you see all the fire and smoke coming out, I'll be the guy running away from the rocket after lighting the fuse...:rolleyes:
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I'm actually thinking of applying for a job at Cape Canaveral. I know most of their jobs are in California, but I have no desire to move there.
 
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