The competition heats up: SpaceX is moving forward with its plans for a spaceport in Brownsville, Texas, purchasing more land and applying for building permits.
A close look at SpaceX’s launch schedule through the rest of 2014 calls for six Falcon 9 launches, including two before the end of August.
If the company is successfully in maintaining this schedule, they will end any doubts about their ability to transform the launch industry. Every other launch company will have to match their prices, or lose their customers.
One paragraph in the article does tell us that there are limits to the re-usability of the Falcon 9 first stage, even if they do succeed in bringing it back safely to a vertical landing on land.
» Read more
A federal judge has denied the motion of the Air Force and ULA to dismiss SpaceX’s suit against their block buy launch contract that excludes competition from any other company.
The judge also required the parties go to mediation to settle their differences. Both rulings give added weight to SpaceX’s main complaint, that the company as well as others should have the right to compete for this Air Force launch work.
SpaceX claimed in a press release on Tuesday that it had successfully completed a soft splashdown of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket in its launch earlier this month.
Video below the fold. The quality is not great because of a buildup of ice on the camera, but it does show they were able to restart the engines twice after separation. It also shows the landing legs deploy just before the stage hovers above the water.
» Read more
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has successfully launched six Orbcomm commercial satellites into orbit.
The six satellites still must be deployed. We will know if this is successful sometime in the next hour or so. Also, no news yet on SpaceX’s effort to recover the rocket’s first stage after a soft splashdown in the ocean.
Update: All 6 Orbcomm satellites have successfully deployed.
Update 2: From Elon Musk as to the first stage recovery: “Rocket booster reentry, landing burn & leg deploy were good, but lost hull integrity right after splashdown (aka kaboom).”
The competition heats up: The Air Force today certified that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket had completed three successful flights.
This certification is a preliminary okay before the official certification. What it means is that the Air Force is agreeing that the Falcon 9 is capable of launching its satellites, which also means that the official certification is almost certain.
The next Falcon 9 launch of six commercial communication satellites remains on schedule this coming Monday, July 14, at 9:21 am (Eastern).
The Planetary Society announced today that its solar sail experiment, LightSail, will be launched in 2016 on a Falcon Heavy.
It will be a secondary payload on what might be one of Falcon Heavy’s early demo flights. They also say the launch date is scheduled for April 2016, but since the rocket has not yet been tested I wouldn’t take that date too seriously.
The competition heats up: The FAA today approved SpaceX’s application to establish a spaceport near Brownsville, Texas.
The competition heats up: The commercial satellite company Inmarsat has booked SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket for one firm launch and two additional options.
The firm contract is for the launch, scheduled perhaps aggressively for late 2016, of a satellite being built for both Inmarsat and Arabsat of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Arabsat will use the satellite for conventional telecommunications services for its wholly owned Hellas-Sat fleet operator of Greece. The Inmarsat payload uses S-band to provide mobile communications in Europe as part of a satellite-terrestrial broadband network, which is a new business line for Inmarsat.
Inmarsat’s launch contract is for a rocket that has not even yet been tested once, which tells us something about the faith they have in SpaceX. While I would be shocked if they didn’t have an option to pull out should there be significant delays or problems in launching Falcon Heavy, that they are willing to commit to it now is a convincing endorsement of SpaceX.
NASA has given SpaceX and Sierra Nevada six additional months, until March 2015, to complete their last contractual milestones for building their manned spacecraft.
An amendment signed by William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration and operations, on May 16 gives SpaceX until March 31, 2015, to complete the 14th and final milestone under its $440 million CCiCap agreement — a pad abort test of its Dragon capsule. The test originally was planned for April 2014.
On May 19, Gerstenmaier signed a similar amendment to Sierra Nevada’s $212.5 million CCiCap award to extend work associated with flight tests of the company’s Dream Chaser engineering test article until March 31, 2015.
NASA’s third Commercial Crew partner, Boeing, is on track to complete all its milestones, worth a combined $460 million, by the end of August,
The significance of this extension is that it reveals something about the dates for both SpaceX and Sierra Nevada’s next flight tests. The previously date for the pad abort test for Dragon had most recently been set for this summer. They are obviously not meeting that schedule and need more time. Sierra Nevada meanwhile wants to fly its Dream Chaser test vehicle some more, but apparently needs time to get it flight ready after it sustained damage during landing on its one and only flight test.
In addition, this extension suggests something about NASA’s assessment of the efforts of all three companies. The agency is supposed to down select to two companies by the end of the summer. The extension suggests that they are hoping to keep all three companies funded so that they all build their spacecraft.
The competition heats up: In an effort to compete with SpaceX, Arianespace has lowered the price it charges for launching smaller satellites on its Ariane 5 rocket.
According to Stephen Israel, the company’s CEO, the lower prices have already produced some contracts. However, the company has not been able to institute comparable cost savings in its operations, which means it
…will force the European launch supplier to ask European governments this year for a 16 percent increase in annual support payments. In its 2013 annual report, Evry, France-based Arianespace said it will ask European Space Agency governments in December to allocate 116 million euros ($158 million) per year for the period between 2015 and 2018 to enable Arianespace to reach financial break-even. That figure compares to the current allocation of about 100 million euros per year for 2013 and 2014 that ESA governments approved in late 2012.
I wonder if the company will get these additional subsidies. In the past there were complaints from the European partners about the inability of Arianespace to make a profit. For it to lose even more money now will not make people happy.
I think, however, that Israel recognizes this. He has been pushing the organization to streamline its operation. Whether he can succeed against Arianespace’s entrenched pork-laden structure remains the big question.
A new water supplier has stepped forward to help fill SpaceX’s gigantic water needs at its proposed Texas spaceport.
An earlier news story had noted the insufficient water capacity in Brownsville compared to the amount of water SpaceX would need for its rocket launches. This new report illustrates how competition and the potential for profits always seems to solve these kinds of problems.
SpaceX has delayed its Falcon 9 Orbcomm launch until July.
“SpaceX is taking a closer look at a potential issue identified while conducting pre-flight checkouts during (Sunday’s) countdown,” the company said in statement posted on its website on Monday. “SpaceX will stand down Tuesday while our engineering teams evaluate further,” it said.
Taking into account a previously scheduled maintenance period for the Eastern Test Range, which supports launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the earliest SpaceX expects to be able to fly is the first week of July.
The willingness of SpaceX to address technical issues rather than push for launch continues to recommend them to me, especially as the company also has a record of producing what it promises within a remarkably fast schedule.
SpaceX now says that Tuesday will be the earliest it will try again to launch six Orbcomm satellites on its Falcon 9 rocket.
There were attempts to launch both on Saturday and Sunday, with weather scrubbing the first and an unspecified technical problem scrubbing the second.
SpaceX scrubbed its Falcon 9 commercial launch of six Orbcomm satellites tonight because of an issue with the rocket’s second stage.
The next launch opportunity is Saturday evening, and based on other sources it sounds like they hope to fly then.
A detailed look at tomorrow’s Falcon 9 commercial launch of six Orbcomm satellites.
Launch is set for 6:08 pm (Eastern). If all goes well, SpaceX will also attempt another soft vertical splashdown of the first stage in its continuing effort to make that first stage reusable.
The competition heats up: SpaceX today released a new video of the most recent Falcon 9R vertical take-off and landing test flight.
Video below the fold. The flight was to test the deployment and use of fins for controlling the stage during its return to Earth. Watch them unfold and adjust themselves beginning at about 1:15 into the video. In the second half you can see them near the top of the stage.
» Read more
SpaceX and ORBCOMM have now set Friday, June 20, as the date for next commercial launch of the Falcon 9.
The article is interesting in that it is somewhat critical of SpaceX’s overall failure so far to meet its launch manifest schedules. The point is well taken, but it seems to me that most of the delays were related to getting the upgraded Falcon 9 into operation. Now that this has happened, I expect SpaceX’s launch rate will continue to accelerate.
The competition heats up: European aerospace companies Airbus and Safran have signed an agreement to merge their rocket divisions.
The companies said the joint-venture would combine Airbus Group’s launch systems with Safran’s propulsion systems, but hinted at broader integration of public and private activities in an effort to duplicate the success of planemaker Airbus. Europe’s Ariane 5 space launcher dominates the market for large commercial satellites but faces growing concerns over its future due to competition from Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), run by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
To respond to the threat, Airbus and Safran aim to lead a drive towards an integrated European launch firm drawing on the lessons of Airbus’s planemaking unit, which was spurred into turning itself from being a consortium into a single company by the merger of transatlantic rivals Boeing and McDonnell Douglas in 1997. [emphasis mine]
The article, like practically every other report about Europe’s space effort in the past two years, singles out the competitive threat being made to their market share by SpaceX. Increasingly, the price reductions being offered by Musk’s company combined with its repeated success in launching payloads into orbit is forcing Europe to cut its own costs and become more efficent, something they have not bothered to do in decades. As result access to space is about to get signigicantly cheaper.
After successfully completing its standard prelaunch static fire, SpaceX has delayed the Sunday Falcon 9 commercial launch at the request of its customer which wishes to do further tests of the six satellites on board.
A new launch date is yet to be determined.
Posted from Durango, Colorado.
The competition heats up: SpaceX plans to boost production of its rockets to 2 per month by year’s end.
They need to do this to prove they can launch their backlog of contracts of commercial satellites. And I will say this once again, I see nothing in their history to suggest that they won’t succeed.
A photographic tour of the new Dragon capsule.
Lots of nice touches, but I have concerns about the touch screens. It is difficult enough to hit the right touchscreen buttons when you sitting in your chair at home. How much harder will it be for an astronaut to do so during a launch, when the capsule is shaking and rocking as it accelerates to orbit. Hard buttons and switches in this situation, giving the astronaut something solid to hold onto, might actually make a lot more sense.
The competition heats up: On Friday SpaceX unveiled its manned version of its Dragon capsule.
I am on the road this weekend so I won’t be able to comment about this until I get home.
One thing I can say. A quick scan of the news reveals a lot of stories about this particular event, showing once again that there is a lot of interest in the possibility of private development in space. This general interest is further fueled by SpaceX’s track record, which suggests that they will accomplish what they promise to do.
The proposed SpaceX spaceport in Brownsville, Texas, has passed its final federal environmental review.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which had raised concerns about possible impact on habitat for some endangered species, ultimately concluded that “the project is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed or proposed to be listed species nor adversely modify piping plover critical habitat.”
But wildlife officials don’t expect the project to be harmless: Two individual cats, either from the endangered ocelot or jaguarondi species, could be lost as a result of the project in spite of efforts to avoid just that with measures such as posting warning signs along the road leading to the launch site. And federal wildlife officials also anticipate that more than 7 miles of beachfront used by nesting sea turtles could be disturbed by security patrols, though driving is already permitted on the beach.
I think every American should read these two paragraphs to gain an understanding of how ridiculous these environmental regulations sometimes are. This report appears to be junk and an enormous waste of effort and time.
The bottom line is to consider what has happened in Florida. The government established a wildlife preserve surrounding the Kennedy Space Center and the wildlife has been flourishing there for more than a half century. Because a launchpad is used so infrequently (12 times a year is what SpaceX proposes for Brownsville), it inflicts very little harm on the environment.
A frame-by-frame repair of the video taken during the April soft splashdown of the Falcon 9 first stage now shows the deployment of the landing legs.
Video below the fold.
In a related note, SpaceX will unveil its manned version of the Dragon capsule tomorrow at 7 pm (Pacific) and will live stream the event here.
Update: The links are fixed. Thanks Edward!
» Read more
The competiton heats up: SpaceX has completed qualification tests of the SuperDraco thrusters that will be used by Dragon for launch aborts as well as soft landings on land.
Next comes the capsule’s first launch abort test sometime later this year.
The competition heats up: The FAA is inching closer to approving a license to allow SpaceX to conduct tests in Texas of its rocket-powered prototype of its Dragon capsule.
Simply, DragonFly is a propulsive system designed to allow the SpaceX Dragon capsule to perform propulsive landings (both with and without parachute assistance). Overall, DragonFly will use eight SuperDraco hypergolic engines capable of producing up to 16,400 lbf of thrust each. …
In all, SpaceX has proposed, and submitted to the FAA for commercial experimental license, a total of 30 DragonFly tests at its McGregor test facility. Four of the test flights involve DragonFly being dropped from a helicopter at an altitude of 10,000 ft with two propulsive assist landings parachutesand engines) and two propulsive landings (engines only). The remaining 26 of the proposed test flights will launch from a specially-built pad that will take between 1-2 weeks to construct (according to the FAA draft environmental report). These 26 flights will consist of eight parachute-assist landings and 18 full propulsive hops (rocket engines only).
We should all be relieved: The 76-page draft environmental impact statement noted that these tests will not destroy the Earth, and that their effect on global warming will be tiny. If the license is finally approved, testing should begin before the end of 2014.
Elon Musk and another watchdog group suggested on Friday that there was a quid pro quo in the awarding ULA its bulk buy military launch contract.
Musk, citing an article by the Washington-based National Legal and Policy Center, suggested Thursday night on Twitter that the Pentagon inspector general should investigate the actions of former Air Force civilian Roger “Scott” Correll. Earlier this year, Correll retired from his post as the Air Force’s program executive officer for space launch, where he wielded enormous influence in awarding a multibillion-dollar contract for 36 rocket launches over the next several years, shooting sensitive national security equipment into space.
The contract went to a company called United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of the nation’s two biggest weapons contractors — Chicago-based Boeing and Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp. Earlier this month, Correll took a job as vice president of government acquisition and policy with Aerojet Rocketdyne, the company that supplies the rocket engines used by United Launch Alliance.
Correll’s hiring certainly illustrates the “old boys” network in operation here. Whether there was direct corruption is not clear. Nonetheless, the bulk buy contract is not in the interests of the taxpayer or the Air Force, at least not at the prices announced.
The competition heats up: The European partnership building the new Ariane 6 rocket struggles to keep its costs down to compete with SpaceX.
Ariane 5 has been a huge triumph, orbiting half of the world’s communications satellites and claiming 60% of the 2012 world market for geostationary launches. But while the rocket is extremely precise and reliable it is also hugely expensive, with a single-payload flight costing €150-200 million. However, even at that price Ariane 5 launches are understood to be loss-making for ESA’s launch operator, Arianespace. Its high cost in in large part blamed on its industrial organisation; while private-sector SpaceX has tailored the Falcon programme for low cost production, the Ariane 5 project is organised in part to satisfy the demands of European multi-national politics.
Speaking exclusively to Flight Daily News, ESA’s Stefano Bianchi, who heads the Vega programme and now spends much of his time dedicated to Ariane 6 development, stresses that the programme is on course as set out by ESA’s member states, and any major change of configuration would require ministerial agreement.
But, he says, he and his colleagues are confident they can bring Ariane 6 to fruition at the target launch cost of €70 million – a level that would match or even undercut SpaceX. [emphasis mine]
This story is in connection with the conflict between France and Germany about how to build Ariane 6. I have specifically highlighted the cost figures to illustrate once again the reality that everyone in the industry knows (except for one commenter on my webpage), that the cost of a SpaceX launch runs in the neighborhood of $60 to $100 million, one third to half the cost of Arianespace and significantly less than the cost of practically every other launch company.
Any company that realistically wants to compete with SpaceX has to be totally honest about these facts. Their customers are honest about them, for certain.
Update: The CEO of ULA admits that the real cost of its military launches averages about $225 million per launch.
He claims they can get the cost down to $100 million per launch, but only if the military makes a bulk buy of 50 launches from them, but even that barely competes with SpaceX’s accepted launch fees ranging from $75 to $100 million, per launch. No need to buy 50 rockets from SpaceX to get these prices.
