SpaceX donates used Merlin engine and Falcon 9 grid fin to Smithsonian
A SpaceX used Merlin engine and a Falcon 9 grid fin will go on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum when it reopens its east wing after a major renovation.
In addition to the 2019 launch of SpaceIL’s “Beresheet” moon lander, which entered lunar orbit but crashed into the moon’s surface, the donated Merlin engine was one of nine that flew on the first stages of two other Falcon 9 rockets. In 2018, it was launched twice from Vandenberg Air Force Base (today Space Force Base) in California, helping to loft commercial communications satellites (Iridium-6) and an Argentinian Earth-observation satellite (SAOCOM 1A). The latter stage was the first to land on land on the U.S. West Coast, as opposed to using one of SpaceX’s ocean-going droneships.
The grid fin flew only once, on the 2017 launch that placed a South Korean communications satellite in orbit.
From an engineering perspective, one can’t help wondering why SpaceX chose to donate these items in particular. Why for example did the grid fin fly only once? And why was the Merlin engine retired?
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A SpaceX used Merlin engine and a Falcon 9 grid fin will go on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum when it reopens its east wing after a major renovation.
In addition to the 2019 launch of SpaceIL’s “Beresheet” moon lander, which entered lunar orbit but crashed into the moon’s surface, the donated Merlin engine was one of nine that flew on the first stages of two other Falcon 9 rockets. In 2018, it was launched twice from Vandenberg Air Force Base (today Space Force Base) in California, helping to loft commercial communications satellites (Iridium-6) and an Argentinian Earth-observation satellite (SAOCOM 1A). The latter stage was the first to land on land on the U.S. West Coast, as opposed to using one of SpaceX’s ocean-going droneships.
The grid fin flew only once, on the 2017 launch that placed a South Korean communications satellite in orbit.
From an engineering perspective, one can’t help wondering why SpaceX chose to donate these items in particular. Why for example did the grid fin fly only once? And why was the Merlin engine retired?
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I also wonder when we will see a full Falcon 9 on display there.
There are F9s on display at the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne CA, NASA HQ in Houston, and Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in FL, but not apparently at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, which is sort of Valhalla for American Aerospace, no?
Of course, a Falcon 9 would not really fit within the National Air & Space Museum on the Mall. (A Dragon would, though.)
But it *could* fit out at their gigantic annex at Udvar Hazey, located on premises at Dulles International Airport.
And, I expect that, before too long, we will see a Falcon 9 show up there. SpaceX just has to come up with a Falcon 9 that it’s happy letting go as a museum exhibit.
That museum has many engines on display in cut away, revealing pistons, valves, turbines, etc. Would be great to see a Merlin like that next to the Rolls-Royce Merlin.
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/rolls-royce-merlin-rm-14sm-mk-100-v-12-engine/nasm_A19670085000
These items being five and six years old suggests that they are obsolete by SpaceX standards. In which using them might cut payload by more than it costs to install newer versions.
Bingo