Falcon 9 v1.1:

SpaceX have successfully flown the Falcon 9 v1.0 – powered by nine SpaceX Merlin 1C engines arranged in a “tic-tac-toe” pattern – via the first five F9 launches, including four launches of the Dragon spacecraft – three of which resulted in a successful mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

The upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 will utilize a longer first stage, powered by nine Merlin 1D engines arranged in an “octagonal” pattern. The additional performance from the Merlin 1D’s will increase the payload capability to over 29,000 pounds to Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

(*Falcon 9 V1.0 vs. V1.1 image left is Photoshopped as to what the change in configuration may look like*)

The plan to upgrade the Merlin engine related not only to the vast improvement in performance, but also – according to SpaceX – the reliability and manufacturability, with the engines also enabling the company’s aspirations with the fully reusable Falcon 9 (F9-R) and their Falcon Heavy.

Essentially, the Falcon 9 v1.1 is the same vehicle as the F9-R, minus the landing legs – currently being tested via the Grasshopper program – and other modifications that will eventually be installed on the vehicle. UPDATE: The Grasshopper enjoyed a huge 325 meter leap into the air on Friday, before successfully landing after nearly 70 seconds in the air.

SpaceX began live testing of the Merlin 1D powerpack in 2011, achieving a full mission duration firing and multiple restarts at target thrust and specific impulse (Isp). During the 2012 series of testing, the engine fired for 185 seconds with 147,000 pounds of thrust, the full duration and power required for a Falcon 9 rocket launch.

By March of this year, SpaceX announced the completion of a 28-test qualification program, with the Merlin 1D accumulating 1,970 seconds of total test time, the equivalent run time of over 10 full mission durations.

However, test firings of all nine Merlin 1D’s together on the test stand at McGregor have yet to result in a full first stage burn duration, for various reasons.

According to L2 information, a May 31 attempt to fire the first stage on the test stand was aborted at just after the first-stage ignitor – a pyrophoric mixture of triethylaluminum-triethylborane (TEA-TEB) – was initiated. The reason for the abort was due to one of the Merlin 1D’s Gas Generator’s exceeding a conservatively-set limit.

Following a recalibration of the limitations, another attempt took place the following day (June 1), this time resulting in all nine engines coming to life, before aborting 10 seconds into the test due to an issue with a Gas Generator inlet temperature.

SpaceX engineers then spent a few days changing out and repairing components damaged in the aborted firing, including three chamber walls. However, it was also noted that eight of the engines are classed as non-flight hardware, and as a result are less robust than the flight version of the Merlin 1D.

The next test firing resulted in the longest duration burn so far, with the stage firing for a total duration of 112 seconds out of a planned 180 seconds. This time the abort was caused by an over-temperature alarm at the top LOX dome, after the stage – which is filled with hot helium taken from the engines’ heat exchangers – was evidently exceeding temperature limitations.

Surprisingly, a video was published by SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk, showed the test firing taking place, along with the abort – mixed in with some choice words from observers within ear shot of the camera, before an edited version of the video was reuploaded.

While sparks were observed to be coming from the aft during the abort, L2 source information noted they did not originate from the engines, but from the heat shields around the engines and the octaweb structure.

This was in part related to the thermal environment at the base of the stage, which is more intense during ground testing than it would be during an actual ascent – the former resulting in a larger recirculation zone.

Another test firing then took place on June 13. However, the firing was again aborted, this time at the T+70 second mark, due to a “fire” in engine bay 9. The engine – which is located in the center position of the new arrangement – will be replaced, allowing for inspections ahead of another test fire attempt in the coming days. SpaceX did not immedaitely respond to requests for further information.

A successful test will be key for several of SpaceX’s future ambitions, not least their upcoming increase in launch frequency, with the next Falcon 9 – the debut of the v1.1 – set to loft Canada’s space weather satellite, CASSIOPE, out of Vandenberg Air Force Base. This mission has officially slipped to August, with the likelihood it will be re-targeted to September.

Focus will then switch to Cape Canaveral, with two satellite missions, the first carrying SES-8, to be followed by the Thaicom 6 launch.

In order to be in a launch stance, the SpaceX team have been working several issues, ranging from the Second Stage Merlin VacD engine nozzle, to the new 43×17 foot diameter fairing that will debut during the CASSIOPE mission.

It was noted (L2) that during testing at NASA Plum Brook Station test facility, the qualification fairing unit failed at 99 percent of maximum load, due to a small amount of debonding between separate components at the interface between the fairing and payload adapter.

However, once all the issues are resolved, SpaceX should be able to hit the ground running, with L2 information noting a large amount of completed – or almost-completed – Merlin 1Ds and Merlin VacD engines ready, along with enough tanks, fairings, interstages, and octawebs for numerous upcoming launches.

Ironing out the issues on the ground is always the best solution for any rocket, the very reason the motto “this is why we test” having been cited by engineers ever since the early days of the rocket business.

(Images: via SpaceX)

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Merlin 1D:

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 currently employs nine “SpaceX designed and built” Merlin 1C main engines on the First Stage of the rocket.

The engines use a propellent fed dual impeller turbo-pump, operating on a gas generator cycle which also provides the high pressure kerosene for the hydraulic actuators, recycling into the low pressure inlet.

The turbo-pump also provides roll control by actuating the turbine exhaust nozzle on the single second stage MVac engine.

Only one engine has suffered from a notable issue during the five successful launches of the Falcon 9, namely Engine 1, which shutdown during the launch of the CRS-1 (SpX-1) Dragon. With a capability to endure the loss of two engines, Falcon 9 still managed to carefully loft Dragon into orbit, ahead of its journey to the International Space Station.

It was always in SpaceX’s plans to upgrade the Merlin engine by Flight 6 of their Falcon 9 manifest, with the move to the Merlin 1D providing a vast improvement in performance, reliability and manufacturability, all of which will provide a timely boost to aiding the potential for success for the fully reusable Falcon 9 and their Falcon Heavy.

“Increased reliability: Simplified design by eliminating components and sub-assemblies. Increased fatigue life. Increased chamber and nozzle thermal margins,” SpaceX cited on the improvements for the Merlin 1D, during an interview with NASASpaceflight.com last year.

“Improved Performance: Thrust increased from 95,000 lbf (sea level) to 140,000 lbf (sea level). Added throttle capability for range from 70-100 percent. Currently, it is necessary to shut off two engines during ascent. The Merlin 1D will make it possible to throttle all engines. Structure was removed from the engine to make it lighter.

“Improved Manufacturability: Simplified design to use lower cost manufacturing techniques. Reduced touch labor and parts count. Increased in-house production at SpaceX.”

Test firings have been ongoing since at least 2011, with the powerpack achieving a full mission duration firing and multiple restarts at target thrust and specific impulse (Isp). During the 2012 series of testing, the engine fired for 185 seconds with 147,000 pounds of thrust, the full duration and power required for a Falcon 9 rocket launch.

Now, in March, 2013, SpaceX announced the completion of a 28 test qualification program, with the Merlin 1D accumulating 1,970 seconds of total test time, the equivalent run time of over 10 full mission durations.

As such, the milestone allows the company to claim the engine is now fully qualified to fly on the Falcon 9 rocket.

In total, program included four tests at or above the power (147,000 pounds of thrust) and duration (185 seconds) required for a Falcon 9 rocket launch. The Merlin 1D engine was also tested at propellant inlet and operating conditions that were well outside the bounds of expected flight conditions.

“The Merlin 1D successfully performed every test throughout this extremely rigorous qualification program,” said Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and chief designer. “With flight qualification now complete, we look forward to flying the first Merlin 1D engines on Falcon 9′s Flight 6 this year.”

The Merlin 1D has a vacuum thrust-to-weight ratio exceeding 150, the best of any liquid rocket engine in history. The extra power and multiple restart elements are major steps towards achieving the highly complex task of making Falcon 9 reusable, a vehicle known as F9r, which is currently being tested via the Grasshopper program.

Notably, from a reliability standpoint, SpaceX’s test program demonstrated a ratio of 4:1 for critical engine life parameters such as firing duration and restart capacity to the engine’s expected flight requirements. This is a much higher ratio that the industry standard of 2:1.

The new engine is designed for improved manufacturability by using higher efficiency processes, increased robotic construction and reduced parts count.

This will be key for several of SpaceX’s future ambitions, not least their upcoming increase in launch frequency, with the next Falcon 9 – the debut of the V1.1 – set to take place in June, carrying Canada’s space weather satellite, CASSIOPE, out of Vandenberg Air Force Base. (*Falcon 9 V1.1 image left is Photoshopped as to what the F9 V1.1 config may look like*)

Focus will then switch to Cape Canaveral, with two satellite missions, the first carrying SES-8, to be followed by the Thaicom 6 launch, scheduled for the summer.

Back on the West Coast, SpaceX are also preparing to debut their Falcon Heavy launch vehicle. This vehicle will feature 27 Merlin 1D engines on its core and dual boosters, with another Merlin 1D – modified for vacuum operation – providing the role as the second stage engine.

The increase in production has resulted in a busy factory floor at the SpaceX factory in Hawthorne, California, with at least three of the upcoming Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicles in an advanced state of production.

(Images: via SpaceX)

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CRS-2 Status – Article will be updated throughout FD-3:

Dragon was launched out of Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at 10:10am local time on Friday, carried uphill by the Falcon 9 rocket.

Only one minor issue was reported prior to launch, namely a low temperature reading on the flight computer – caused by a combination of chilly conditions in the region and the “cold soak” from the LOX tank on the Second Stage during the countdown.

The Falcon 9′s ascent was nominal, with just one reference to a Ground Support Equipment (GSE) issue after lift-off, relating to a small fire on the pad – as is usually seen when the Falcon 9′s plume catches the pad’s umbilical line on the strongback.

Successfully completing its job by deploying the Dragon without a hitch, the Falcon 9 showed it had overcome the issues of the CRS-1 (SpX-1) launch, which resulted in shut-down of Engine 1 during ascent. The success will add confidence to SpaceX’s internal post flight investigation procedures, which included Non Destructive Evaluation (NDE) testing on their flight hardware.

However, a new challenge was soon to face SpaceX engineers, just moments after Dragon was shown to have successfully separated from the Falcon 9 Second Stage via onboard cameras.

The problem was seen in the propulsion system – a set of four “quads” of thrusters on the Dragon, vital for attitude control and required burns en route to its destination.

As flashed up on L2′s CRS-2 mission coverage, the issue was seen during priming phase, as Dragon prepared to fire up its thruster systems by pressurizing the fuel tanks via the injection of gaseous helium.

“Post-separation, Dragon’s propellant system opened valves between the Helium tanks and the Fuel and Oxidizer tanks to pressurize the system. All four fuel tanks were observed to pressurize as expected. However, only oxidizer tank 1 showed nominal pressure response,” the notes added.

With three of the four quads at a lower than required pressure, only “Quad 1″ remained online, which was not enough to ensure Dragon could maintain attitude control.

“Ox tanks 2,3, and 4 did not indicate a pressure increase. Due to this failure to pressurize, three of Dragon’s four prop quads were unusable. Dragon’s attitude drifted while troubleshooting occurred, and solar array deploy was delayed.”

Although the initial plan was to deploy Dragon’s solar arrays once two Quads were available, SpaceX decided to unfurl the arrays with only one Quad working. This proved to be helpful for the unstable Dragon, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk describing it as not unlike an ice skater stretching out her arms during a spin maneuver to slow the rotation.

Meanwhile, controllers continued to evaluate the propulsion system, concluding it was was being caused by either a blockage in the helium line, or a sticky check valve. The solution was to “jack-hammer” the valves in the system by commanding them to cycle on and off several times in succession. This proved to be successful.

“Troubleshooting involved cycling the helium isolation valves between the He and Ox tanks 2-4. This allowed “slugs” of pressure to flow through the regulators and downstream to in-series check valves that were suspected to be the cause of the blockage,” added the notes. “After several cycles, the Quad 4 Ox tank suddenly rose to its expected pressure, indicating the blockage had cleared.”

With two Quads (1 and 4) now available, Dragon regained attitude control. Shortly after, the remaining two Quads (2 and 3) saw their tank pressures eventually return to normal.

Now with all four Quads, a much happier Dragon conducted a test burn of around 30 seconds to observe the performance of its prop system.

“All appeared well, as oxidizer tank pressures remained stable and did not decay, as might occur with restricted helium flow,” the notes continued. “This was followed shortly by a four minute burn, during which the prop system again appeared to function nominally.”

Notably, the delay rescheduled the key Coelliptic Burn, resulting in the Dragon being unable to arrive at the ISS on Saturday. However, thanks to the speedy mitigation of the problem by the SpaceX team – and what appears to be good propellant margins – Dragon successfully negotiated a path to be in a stance for a Sunday berthing.

“Several subsequent burns have been performed – including the Height Adjust Burn and CE-1 burn – and the prop system continues to appear to function well, though SpaceX is evaluating post-burn data to confirm.”

With NASA concurring with SpaceX’s healthy status for Dragon, Sunday morning saw the triumphant spacecraft arriving 2.5 km below ISS, ahead of a Go/No-Go for the HA3/CE2 burn pair, resulting in Dragon closing to just 1.2 km distance from its destination.

The HA3/CE3 burn pair, using RGPS and configured with the ISS’ own GPS system, were then conducted, followed by the HA4 (Ai) burn, taking Dragon inside the corridor where the crew began to monitor the spacecraft’s approach.

With both SpaceX mission control in California, and NASA’s ISS Flight Control Room (FCR) in Houston monitoring, Dragon held at 250 meters distance from the Station, where checks of Dragon’s LIDAR system will be conducted, a key element of hardware that has a heritage of testing via the Space Shuttle Discovery during her STS-133 mission.

When all parties are satisfied with Dragon’s performance – and ability to abort if required – Dragon was then given a “Go” to approach to 30 meters distance from the Station where it automatically paused.

At all points, the ability to abort could be made by either controllers on the ground, the Dragon itself or the ISS crew – via the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Ultra High Frequency (UHF) Communication Unit, or CUCU, which rode in the middeck stowage locker on Atlantis during STS-129 late in 2009, before being handed over to ISS crewmembers ahead of the demonstration flights.

The CUCU provides a bi-directional, half-duplex communications link between Dragon and ISS using existing ISS UHF Space to Space Station Radio (SSSR) antennas, which provides a communication path between MCCX (SpaceX) and Dragon during proximity operations and a command security between ISS and Dragon.

Proceeding from 30 meters to the Capture Point at 10 meters out, Dragon automatically held position again, allowing the ISS’ robotic assets – already translated to the pre-capture position – to make the move towards the Dragon via controls in the Cupola RWS.

Upon receiving the “Go for Capture” call from Houston, the ISS crew armed the SSRMS capture command and begin tracking the vehicle through the camera on the Latching End Effector (LEE) of the SSRMS. NASA Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn are the crewmembers then completed the task of capturing the CRS-2 Dragon.

With the ISS’ thrusters inhibited and Dragon confirmed to be in free drift, the arm’s LEE closed over the Grapple Fixture (GF) pin on Dragon to trigger the capture sequence ahead of pre-berthing maneuvers.

The Dragon, secured by the SSRMS, was then carefully translated to the pre-install set-up position, 3.5 meters away from the Station’s module, allowing the crew to take camcorder and camera footage of the vehicle through the Node 2 windows.

This hi resolution footage will be downlinked to the ground for engineers to evaluate the condition of the Dragon spacecraft (See raw download collection from C2+ and CRS-1 mission in L2 – 100s upon 100s of hi-res Dragon photos).

The SSRMS then translated Dragon to the second pre-install position, at a distance of 1.5 meters out. Desats were inhibited prior to the maneuver of the Dragon into Common Berthing Module (CBM) interface to begin the securing of the spacecraft to the ISS.

A “Go” at this point was marked by all four Ready To Latch (RTL) indicators providing confirmation on the RWS panel.

Dragon was eased through first stage capture tasks, allowing the SSRMS to go limp, ahead of second stage capture, officially marking Dragon’s berthing with the ISS.

The hatch between the newly arrived SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the Harmony module was opened at 1:14 p.m. EST.

(Images: via L2′s SpaceX Dragon Mission Special Section – Containing presentations, videos, images (Over 2,700MB in size and exclusive), space industry member discussion and more).

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ - to view how you can support NSF and access the best space flight content on the entire internet).

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CRS-2/SpX-2:

The problem was noted after Dragon separation, with the anomaly reported at the point Solar Array deployment was expected.

This procedure was delayed due to a problem cited as with the Dragon’s thrusters, which failed to initiate as planned – claimed to be related to a propellant valve.

SpaceX controllers used ground stations to send commands to override the inhibits, with the goal of bringing at least two of the four thruster pods online. This was deemed to be successful, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk using social media to confirm solar array deployment had been achieved.

However, L2 sources noted only one of the “quads” was working as of 17:00 UTC – around the point the coelliptic burn was scheduled. It was also noted Dragon was not in attitude control at the time. It was later revealed the array deployment was related to thermal conditions and the bonus effect of the arrays stablizing the vehicle’s attitude.

SpaceX and NASA issued a statement at 8pm UTC, confirming ISS rendezvous on Saturday was missed.

However, SpaceX did confirm they were back to two of the four thrusters, with the remaining two returning to life shortly afterwards. Three thruster pods are required for ISS rendezvous and berthing.

The root cause is still preliminary, but the initial data points to a stuck valve that was resolved by “jackhammering” it open and close to free it, or the potential of a blockage in the associated helium pressurization line.

On Saturday, NASA and SpaceX confirmed they are in a good stance to berth with the ISS on Sunday.

(You can keep up to date via the live Flight Day 1 thread for CRS-2, here: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=31239.0) A full review of the issue and pre-berthing article will follow at the weekend.

Friday’s launch was tasked with deploying Dragon on the the SpaceX CRS-2 mission; delivering 575 kilograms (1,268 lb) of cargo to the space station.

The mission will mark the Dragon’s third visit to the ISS; the second operational flight under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, the first visit having been the spacecraft’s second and final Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.

The Dragon was launched by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 carrier rocket, flying in the v1.0 configuration for what is expected to be the final time.

Future launches are manifested to use the v1.1 configuration, which features significant modifications including a new first stage engine arrangement, more powerful Merlin-1D engines replacing the v1.0′s Merlin-1Cs, and both stages being elongated several meters.

Friday’s mission is the fifth overall for the Falcon 9, which first flew on 4 June 2010 on a test flight successfully carrying the Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit, an inert demonstration payload intended to simulate the aerodynamic properties of a Dragon spacecraft, into low Earth orbit.

The DSQU was never intended to separate from the Falcon 9′s upper stage, and the spacecraft and upper stage reentered the atmosphere on 27 June, a little over three weeks after launch.

Following the success of its test flight, the Falcon 9 was ready to launch the first functional Dragon spacecraft. This mission, Dragon C1, or COTS Demonstration 1, was conducted in three hours and 19 minutes on 8 December 2010.

Liftoff occurred at 15:43 UTC from Cape Canaveral, with the spacecraft orbiting the Earth twice before reentering, and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 19:02. Unlike subsequent flights, the Dragon’s Trunk Section was intentionally left attached to the Falcon’s upper stage, with the capsule performing its mission alone.

In addition to Dragon C1, eight other satellites were carried on the Falcon 9′s second flight. These were SMDC-ONE 1 for the US Army, Mayflower for Northrop Grumman and the University of Southern California, QbX-1 and 2 for the US National Reconnaissance Office, and Perseus 000, 001, 002 and 003 for the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

These satellites were all deployed into Low Earth orbits which decayed quickly; Mayflower was the first of the secondary payloads to reenter the atmosphere on 22 December. It was followed by the four Perseus satellites; 000 and 002 on 30 December, with the other two the next day.

QbX-1 decayed on 6 January 2011, with SMDC-ONE 1 reentering on 12 January, and finally QbX-2 on 16 January.

The COTS program had originally called for three test flights of the Dragon, with the second mission rendezvousing with the ISS, and the third mission being the first to be captured and berthed with the outpost.

Following the success of the first flight, however, it was decided to merge the second and third flights into the Dragon C2+ mission, which was launched on 22 May last year, by the third Falcon 9.

The launch also carried the New Frontier payload for Celestis, which included samples of the cremated remains of 308 people. One of these was astronaut Gordon Cooper, who passed away in 2004 at the age of 77. One of the Mercury Seven, Cooper flew aboard Mercury-Atlas 9, the final flight of the Mercury programme, and later commanded Gemini V. Another participant was actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in the original series of Star Trek.

This was the third time their ashes had been launched into space; having initially been flown on a suborbital flight using a SpaceLoft-XL sounding rocket in 2007, organized due to considerable delays with the orbital mission. Their ashes were then carried aboard the Explorers mission, which was lost in the failure of a Falcon 1 rocket in 2008; as a result of the failure replacement samples were included for free on New Frontiers.

Dragon C2+ successfully completed a series of rendezvous demonstrations on 24 and 25 May, the last of which culminated in its approach to within nine meters (30 feet) of the space station, where astronaut Donald Pettit captured the vehicle using the Canadarm2 remote manipulator system. Following capture, the RMS was used to berth the Dragon spacecraft at the nadir port of the Harmony module. Hatches between the spacecraft and the ISS were opened on 26 May.

Following the completion of tests with the Dragon berthed at the ISS and the transfer of cargo between the Dragon and the station, hatches between the two spacecraft were closed and it departed the station on 31 May.

Canadarm2 was used for unberthing, and the Dragon was released to begin its descent to Earth.

Following a series of burns to depart the vicinity of the ISS, Dragon C2+ was deorbited, and splashed down in the Pacific at 15:42 UTC after a successful mission, completing Dragon’s COTS demonstration objectives.

The success of the two COTS demonstration missions paved the way for operational flights, which began last October with SpaceX CRS-1.

The third mission of the Dragon, and the second to visit the ISS, it lifted off atop a Falcon 9 on 8 October 2012. The secondary payload for this launch was the Orbcomm O2G-1 communications satellite; a prototype for Orbcomm’s second generation constellation slated for launch on subsequent Falcon 9 missions.

While the CRS-1 mission was successful as a whole, the launch suffered an engine problem during first stage flight which resulted in the loss of the Orbcomm satellite.

The number 1 engine failed approximately 79 seconds after launch; being shut down by the onboard computer after it lost pressure. Debris was seen falling from the rocket, believed to be part of a fairing designed to protect the engines from aerodynamic loads.

While the failure was within the Falcon 9′s engine-out capability, it resulted in the second stage burning more propellant than had originally been planned in order to reach the planned orbit for Dragon deployment.

As a result the stage failed a propellant mass check at engine cut-off, and the Orbcomm satellite was dumped into this same orbit that the Dragon had been deployed in, so as not to put the ISS at risk should a planned second burn to reach the Orbcomm deployment orbit not be completed successfully.

The CRS-1 spacecraft arrived at the space station on 10 October, and following a successful berthed mission, it was unberthed on 28 October at 11:19 UTC.

Splashdown occurred a little over eight hours later at 19:22 UTC, following successful separation maneuvers and a deorbit burn.

The fifth Falcon 9 launch is the tenth overall for SpaceX, who also conducted five launches of the smaller Falcon 1 rocket, which has since been retired from service.

Its first mission, which carried the US Air Force Academy’s FalconSat-2 satellite, launched on 24 March 2006 from Omelek Island; part of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The launch ended in failure after the base of the first stage caught fire due to a corroded nut, with the engine cutting out 25 seconds after liftoff.

The vehicle fell into the Pacific, however the satellite was thrown free and came down back at its launch site, falling through the roof of the building in which its shipping crate was being stored.

The second flight on 21 March 2007 fared little better. While first stage flight was completed, the vehicle underperformed due to a fuel mixture error, and recontact between the first and second stages was observed at separation.

Despite this, the second stage continued towards orbit, however it began to oscillate, causing fuel sloshing which led to the engine cutting out prematurely around seven and a half minutes into the flight.

The rocket, which was carrying an inert demonstration payload for NASA and DARPA, failed to achieve orbit. The launch also carried two NASA experiments designed to operate during ascent, one of which monitored the rocket and the other tested communications with the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS).

The Falcon 1′s third flight debuted a new Merlin-1C first stage engine, in place of the Merlin-1A used on the first two flights.

It lifted off on 3 August 2008, carrying the Trailblazer satellite for the US Department of Defense’s Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office, the PRESat and NanoSail-D CubeSats for NASA, and the Explorers space burial payload for Celestis.

An unexpected consequence of the change of engine was residual thrust following burnout, which resulted in severe recontact between the first and second stages following separation. The second stage ignited while its engine was still inside the interstage section, and control of the rocket was quickly lost.

SpaceX quickly determined the cause of the failure, and were ready for another launch attempt less than two months later.

The fourth Falcon 1 carried a 165-kilogram (364 lb) inert payload named RatSat. On 28 September 2008, it was placed into low Earth orbit as the Falcon 1 completed its first successful flight. RatSat remains in orbit, as does the Falcon 1′s upper stage, to which it is attached.

The Falcon 1′s final flight came on 14 July 2009, with the only mission which successfully deployed a functional payload into orbit. That payload was the 180-kilogram RazakSAT, for ATSB of Malaysia. Following this launch the original Falcon 1 was retired in favor of a stretched and more capable version, the Falcon 1e; however this never flew and has since been abandoned.

Launches from Omelek have ceased, and SpaceX plans to launch Falcon 1-class payloads on Falcon 9 rockets, along with larger payloads. It remains unclear how the Falcon 9′s failure to deploy the Orbcomm satellite during its last mission will affect this in the long term.

The Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 were originally to have been joined by a third rocket, the Falcon 5. This was similar in design to the Falcon 9, however optimized for smaller payloads, with only five first stage engines.

This was cancelled around 2007, in favor of the Falcon 9.

Two additional variants of the Falcon 9 had also been announced; the Falcon 9S5 and 9S9, which would have featured boosters, based respectively on the first stages of the Falcon 5 and Falcon 9.

The 9S9 grew into the Falcon 9 Heavy, and subsequently the Falcon Heavy which is currently under development.

The Falcon Heavy is derived from the Falcon 9, with improvements to the first stage which will also be introduced on the Falcon 9 with the v1.1 configuration; Merlin-1D engines, stretched stages and an octagonal engine layout replacing the v1.0′s square format.

Two strap-on boosters based on its first stage are mounted on either side, giving a similar configuration to the Delta IV Heavy, with its three Common Booster Cores.

With a claimed payload capacity of 53 tonnes (51 imperial tons) to Low Earth orbit, the Falcon Heavy will surpass the Delta IV as the most powerful rocket in service when it makes its maiden flight, which is currently scheduled to occur next year.

Dragon is a 5.9-metre (19.3-foot) long spacecraft, which has a diameter of 3.66 meters (12 feet), and is capable of carrying up to 3,310 kilograms (7,296 lb) of cargo to the International Space Station. It can carry pressurized cargo to the ISS in a 2.9-metre (9.5-foot) long capsule, which also provides 2,500 kilograms (5,500 lb) of downmass for returning supplies to Earth.

Its trunk section, which holds its solar arrays, can also accommodate unpressurized cargo for delivery to the station, and can also carry 2,600 kilograms (5,732 lb) following departure from the station, allowing its use to dispose of non-recoverable payloads when it burns up during re-entry.

The spacecraft is powered by two solar arrays mounted on the Trunk, while Draco thrusters, burning monomethylhydrazine oxidised by dinitrogen tetroxide, will be used to provide attitude control, manoeuvring in orbit, and to deorbit the Dragon at the end of its mission.

The nose of the spacecraft houses a Common Berthing Mechanism, used to attach the Dragon to the Harmony module of the International Space Station.

The 575 kilograms (1,268 lb) of cargo aboard CRS-2 contains supplies for the crew, scientific experiments, tools and station hardware and parts. For transport, it is contained in 102 kilograms (225 lb) of packaging. In all, 81 kilograms (179 lb) of upmass is dedicated to crew equipment, including “crew care packages”, clothes, food and hygiene equipment.

Scientific equipment and experiments take up 348 kilograms (767 lb) of cargo capacity, and while most of the equipment is for NASA, experiments for the European and Canadian Space Agencies are also aboard, as are supplies for JAXA experiments already aboard the ISS.

Other supplies include Carbon Dioxide Removal Assemblies for the station’s life support system, crew healthcare equipment, batteries and a charger, computer hard drives and disc cases, a serial port adaptor for one of the computers, and a gyroscope cable for the Russian segment.

Upon its return to Earth, the Dragon will be carrying 1,210 kilograms (2,668 lb) of cargo, not including its packaging, which takes up a further 160 kilograms (353 lb) of mass. This consists of 90 kilograms (210 lb) of used crew equipment such as food containers, preference items and care equipment; 660 kg (1,455 lb) of experiments and scientific hardware for NASA, CSA, ESA and JAXA; 38 kg (84 lb) of EVA equipment, and 417 kg (911 lb) of station hardware.

The Falcon 9 which launched CRS-2 is a two-stage vehicle. The first stage is powered by nine Merlin-1C engines arranged in 3-by-3 square. A single vacuum-optimized Merlin-1C propels the second stage. Both stages burn RP-1 propellant, using liquid oxygen as an oxidizer.

During the countdown to launch, powerup of the Falcon 9 and Dragon occurs around thirteen and a half hours before the scheduled liftoff. Oxidiser loading will begin three hours and fifty minutes ahead of launch, with propellant loading beginning ten minutes later.

Three and a quarter hours before liftoff, both of these processes will be complete, however topping off of the oxidiser tanks will continue until the final stages of the countdown, as liquid oxygen tends to boil off.

The terminal count begins around ten minutes before launch, with the Dragon switching to internal power at L-8 minutes, and the flight computers beginning the final automated sequence at L-6 minutes.

At L-5, the carrier rocket will transfer to internal power. The launch pad’s “Niagara” water deluge system will be activated 60 seconds before the countdown reaches zero, with propellant tanks pressurising at L-40 seconds.

The command to ignite the first stage engines will be issued three seconds before liftoff, and when the countdown reaches zero the Falcon 9 will begin its ascent into orbit for its fifth mission.

Around 85 seconds later, the vehicle will encounter the area of maximum aerodynamic pressure, and around this time it will pass through Mach 1, the speed of sound. Three minutes into the mission the first stage will burn out, with separation occurring about five seconds afterwards. Seven seconds after staging, the second stage will ignite.

Around 40 seconds into the second stage burn, the protective covering over the Dragon’s berthing port will be jettisoned in order to reduce the vehicle’s mass, and avoid placing unnecessary debris into orbit. The second stage burn is expected to last about 359 seconds, with MECO coming about nine minutes and eleven seconds after liftoff. Spacecraft separation will occur about half a minute later.

Two minutes after SECO, the Dragon will deploy its solar arrays. Two and a quarter hours after this, it will open its guidance, navigation and control bay door. Around this time the Draco thrusters will be used to circularize the spacecraft’s orbit.

Rendezvous and berthing with the ISS is expected to occur on Flight Day 2, with hatch opening the day afterwards.

The spacecraft will perform an R-bar approach to within 10 metres (66 feet) of the station, where the crew will use Canadarm2 to capture it, and maneuver it for berthing with the nadir port of Harmony.

Canadarm2 will also be used for unberthing when the Dragon is ready to return to Earth.

Falcon 9 launches from Cape Canaveral use Space Launch Complex 40. Originally built in the 1960s for the Titan IIIC rocket, the launch of SpaceX CRS-2 is the sixtieth launch from the pad. Fifty five Titan rockets; Twenty six IIICs, eight 34Ds, four Commercial Titan IIIs and seventeen Titan IVs; flew from the complex.

The final Titan launch from SLC-40 occurred in April 2005 when the rocket’s penultimate flight overall deployed a Lacrosse radar imaging satellite for the US National Reconnaissance Office.

The pad was subsequently converted for use by SpaceX, and has supported all Falcon 9 launches to date. Another former Titan launch pad, Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg, is currently being modified for use by the Falcon 9, and this is expected to see its first Falcon launch later this year.

The launch of CRS-2 is the eleventh confirmed orbital launch attempt of 2013, of which all but one have been successful, the failure being a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL mission carrying the Intelsat 27 satellite, which came down in the Pacific on 1 February.

There are some rumors that an Iranian launch, attempted around 17 February, may also have failed, however these claims have not yet been substantiated. If they are proven true, it will have been Iran’s third consecutive failure, and will make CRS-2 the twelfth orbital launch attempt of the year.

Friday’s launch was SpaceX’s first of 2013, and the United States’ third. America’s next launch is expected around 20 March, when an Atlas V 401 will deploy the SBIRS-GEO 2 missile detection satellite in a launch from Cape Canaveral.

Orbital Sciences Corporation is expected to make its first attempt to reach the International Space Station, with a Cygnus spacecraft flying a COTS demonstration mission in July, following a test flight of the Antares carrier rocket which is scheduled for 4 April.

If this is successful, Cygnus is slated to begin CRS missions in October or November.

SpaceX’s next launch is currently scheduled for 18 June, when the Falcon 9 v1.1 will make its maiden flight deploying the Canadian Cassiope satellite, and several secondary payloads, in the company’s first launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The next Dragon mission, CRS-3, is currently scheduled to launch on 2 October.

(Images: via NASA, SpaceX and L2′s SpaceX Dragon Mission Special Section – Containing presentations, videos, images (Over 2,700MB in size and exclusive), space industry member discussion and more).

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CRS-2:

SpaceX are just over a month away from their next Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS), with preparations on track for the SpX-2 launch from Cape Canaveral.

The Eastern Range have approved the place-holder of March 1 for Falcon 9′s departure from SLC-40, with an instantaneous window targeting 10:10am local time, pending the approval of the customary Flight Readiness Review (FRR).

The FRR – as was the case with Shuttle – will review the previous flight of the Falcon 9 and Dragon as part the approval to proceed to launch, which – despite being a successful mission – will be highlighted by the anomaly resolution of the Engine 1 failure during Falcon 9′s ascent on SpX-1.

SpaceX claim they have found the root cause of the engine shutdown and have passed on their findings to NASA management for their feedback.

The incident occurred around 1:19 into the launch - as Engine 1 suddenly lost pressure, resulting in an engine shutdown command being issued.

The pressure loss resulted in the fairing that protects the engine from aerodynamic loads to rupture, giving the impression of an explosion. However, this was not the case and the remaining eight engines were unaffected by the event.

Preliminary source information (L2 LINK to F9/Dragon CRS-1 Post Launch Updates) noted the failure appeared to be related to a fracturing of the Merlin 1C engine’s fuel dome, localized solely in that area on Engine 1, explaining why the engine continued to send data after the event.

Falcon 9 – which is designed to cope with two engines out during ascent – correctly compensated for the loss of engine and created a new ascent profile in real time to ensure Dragon’s entry into orbit for subsequent rendezvous and berthing with the ISS.

The actual root cause of the incident has not been revealed to the public due to its company sensitive nature. However, SpaceX have said they will release some information into their findings “soon”.

The next Dragon to fly to the ISS is currently being processed ahead of mating with its carrier rocket at Cape Canaveral. Payload installation is expected to take place in the middle of February.

SpaceX will be hoping this opening mission of 2013 will follow on from the successes of the previous year that – on top of their ISS debut with Dragon – was marked by the signing of 14 launch contracts for missions on their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles.

AMOS-6 Contract:

The first contract signing of 2013 was announced on Tuesday, when Space Communication Ltd. (Spacecom) announced an agreement to launch their AMOS-6 satellite on a Falcon 9 in 2015.

“This last year has been one of great success and tremendous growth,” said Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX. “Spacecom was one of our earliest supporters – SpaceX is proud to be their partner and we look forward to launching their AMOS-6 satellite.”

The AMOS-6 satellite, to be built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), will provide communication services including direct satellite home internet for Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

AMOS-6 – to be launched into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) – will replace AMOS-2, which is expected to end its service in 2016.

“We are excited to partner with SpaceX and its tremendous team. AMOS-6 will be larger and stronger than AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 combined, and signals a new age for Spacecom,” commented David Pollack, President and CEO of Spacecom.

“As we establish our position as a global satellite operator providing more services and capacity, AMOS-6 will be a key element of our business strategy and future.”

SpaceX currently have an order book that stretches out into 2017, using both their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from their two launch sites on either side of the United States.

Their west coast site at Vandenberg is set to launch both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy this year.

(Images: via AIA, SpaceX and L2′s SpaceX Dragon Mission Special Section – Containing presentations, videos, images (Over 2,500MB in size), space industry member discussion and more. Now includes CRS-1 Image Dump, every single hi res photo taken from the ISS – 350 Hi Res images).

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SpaceX Crewed Path:

The latest Dragon spacecraft is currently preparing for its third flight to the International Space Station (ISS) under their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA.

This next flight (CRS-2/SpX-2) – scheduled to launch at 10:10am on March 1 from Cape Canaveral – will be carrying critical supplies to the orbital outpost, ahead of completing its mission by providing what is now the rare commodity of downmass capability for returning hardware and experiments.

The mission is pending a final go-ahead from NASA, after SpaceX briefed the agency’s Mike Suffredini and William Gerstenmaier on what is now understood to be a confirmed root cause of the Engine 1 failure during Falcon 9′s previous launch with the CRS-1 (SpX-1) Dragon.

The first stage issue related one of the nine Merlin 1C engines, after – it is understood – the fuel dome above the nozzle ruptured. The engine did not explode, but did cause the fairing that protects the engine from aerodynamic loads to rupture and fall away from the vehicle due to the engine pressure release.

According to SpaceX’s Commercial Crew project manager, Garrett Reisman, some details into the root cause of the failure will be revealed to the public in the coming weeks. However, due to the proprietary nature of SpaceX’s hardware, only SpaceX – and their customer, NASA – will ever get to see the full overview from the joint CRS-1 Post-Flight Investigation Board report.

The results are also likely to include details of the second issue, relating to the upper stage that failed a propellant mass check at SECO-1, resulting in its secondary payload passenger – an Orbcomm satellite – being left in an unworkable orbit, prior to deorbiting.

The key to the continued confidence NASA have in SpaceX comes via the success of the primary mission objectives, as Dragon behaved well on orbit and suffered no ill effects of its launch vehicle having a tantrum during the ride uphill.

With the Dragon that is already flying being a vehicle that is partly crew-rated already, SpaceX are working a parallel process to their current campaigns to complete the drive that will fully enable their spacecraft to safely carry astronauts to the ISS.

This process is currently in the Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCAP) stage, maturing from the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) process that has resulted in three companies earning NASA money to bring their spacecraft up to spec for NASA astronauts.

However, as reported by NASASpaceflight.com’s Pete Harding, it is unlikely that any NASA astronauts will get to ride on a commercial vehicle until late 2016 – as shown in ISS Flight Planning Integration Panel (FPIP) charts (available on L2) on the current plan for ISS crew rotations using what are tagged as USCVs (US Commercial Vehicles).

According to the FPIP chart, the first USCV will launch in December 2016, for a docking to the Node 2 Forward port – via the use of an ISS Docking Adapter (IDA) attached to PMA-2. A Soyuz spacecraft is also pencilled in for the same date as a back-up (all USCVs on the chart have Soyuz back-ups assigned, should the USCV not be available).

The USCV will carry four crewmembers, meaning that once it docks to the ISS, the crew of the station will be boosted to seven – allowing significant extra research activities to be performed. However, one of the crewmembers on the USCV will be Russian – just as one American crewmember will continue to be rotated on the Soyuz.

This is done in order to ensure that a US crewmember is always present on the ISS, even when no USCV is docked to the station. It is not known at this point whether the seat on the USCV will be provided to Russia in exchange for a US seat on the Soyuz.

Per the commercial crew update briefing, only SpaceX have said they will be able to conduct crew launches as early as 2015 – meaning the crew will be selected in-house, as opposed to being assigned by NASA.

This “crew ability” date is based on the milestones laid out past the current range of objectives currently provided through to the end of the CCiCAP phase in 2014, allowing for a notional forward roadmap based on the projections per company.

“We laid out a plan that gets us to flying the first test flight in the middle of 2015, followed by flying a crew to the ISS by the end of 2015,” noted Mr Reisman. “That would be done with a test pilot crew.

Click here for recent Dragon Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/dragon/

“(However,) because this would be done prior to final (NASA) certification, we are not legally allowed to use NASA astronauts to be part of that test pilot crew – so it will be SpaceX test pilots for that crew. We’re not selling tickets, so don’t call our toll-free number.”

Mr Reisman, a two-time Shuttle astronaut, intimated he is not interested in becoming one of the test crew.

In order to get to the promised land of being the first commercial company to launch humans to the ISS, several key elements of the Dragon spacecraft require development – not least the Launch Abort System (LAS).

Dragon sports a series of eight liquid SuperDraco engines, built into the side walls of the Dragon spacecraft, capable of producing up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to drive the Dragon away from its failing launch vehicle.

Advantages of the SuperDraco liquid thruster – when compared to the traditional use of solid propellent – includes how the engine can be put through a series of throttling ranges, in turn allowing for redundancy, with SpaceX claiming they could lose one of the eight abort engines and still recover the vehicle and crew successfully. The engines can also be restarted multiple times.

Another advantage is the fact it’s not a tower system, which normally requires jettison shortly after first stage flight. Any failure of this key sequence of ascent would end the mission, given the flight profile wouldn’t be designed for carrying the LAS along for the ride.

Because the system is integrated into the Dragon itself – as opposed to departing the spacecraft during jettison – the spacecraft can technically abort within much longer periods than the tower version. With Dragon returning with the engines on board, they can also be reused on future launches.

There is also a large amount of commonality between the 18 maneuvering engines built into Dragon and the SuperDraco LAS engines – bar the fact the SuperDraco engines would burn through propellant 200 times faster.

The additional applications of these thrusters, when unused during a nominal mission – is the ability for them to enable a return to a landing strip on land. This is a key goal as part of the fully reusable launch system SpaceX are working on, along with the potential use for landing on exploration missions, such as the surface of Mars.

A large amount of testing has already been conducted via the CCDev-2 portion of the Commercial Crew association with NASA, with the CCiCAP phase taking this literally to new heights.

First up will be the Pad Abort Test Review in March of this year, a key review ahead of a detailed plan – expected in the summer. The actual pad abort test itself will take place in December, resulting in a full-up Falcon 9 and Dragon being integrated on the Cape Canaveral launch site, prior to aborting the Dragon from the pad for a full test.

During the year, reviews will take place into the second abort test, which will result in a Falcon 9 with Dragon launching as per usual, prior to aborting at the “worst possible time” during ascent. That “In Flight Abort Test” is expected in April of 2014.

Large amounts of work will continue with upgrading the flight systems, ranging from displays to the crew to the implementation of the Merlin 1D on the upgraded Falcon 9.

However, SpaceX do not lack the drive to push foward with their human space flight ambitions, not least because their founder, Elon Musk, wants to be on a SpaceX flight to Mars while he’s still young enough.

(Images: via L2′s SpaceX Dragon Mission Special Sections – Containing presentations, videos, images (Over 2,500MB in size), space industry member discussion and more. Now includes CRS-1 Image Dump, every single hi res photo taken from the ISS – 350 Hi Res images - of which produced the lead image for this article).

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Grasshopper:

The Grasshopper – consisting of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage, Merlin 1D engine, four steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure – is aiming to blaze a trail towards what many people think is a near-impossible task, to create the world’s first fully reusable orbital launch system.

The plan revolves around a modified version of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle design, creating a version of the flyback booster concept – one where all of the vehicle’s components return back to Earth for reuse.

Via plans unveiled by SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk, the first and second stages that would fly back to the launch site under their own power. With Dragon already a spacecraft that has proven it can launch, fly in space and return safely, the ultimate goal is to drive down costs by reusing every element of their launch system.

“This is a very difficult thing to do. Even for an expendable launch vehicle, where you don’t attempt any recovery, you only get maybe two to three percent of your lift-off weight to orbit. That’s not a lot of room for error,” noted Mr Musk during his first public announcement of his ambitions for the reusable Falcon 9, during a speech to the National Press Club at the beginning of 2012.

“Now you say ‘OK, now let’s make it reusable’. You have to strengthen the stages, add a lot of weight, a lot of thermal protection – a lot of things that add weight to that vehicle – and still have a useful payload to orbit. You’ve got to add all that’s necessary to bring the stages back to the launch pad to be able to re-fly them and still have useful payload to orbit.

SpaceX are keeping parts of the plan to themselves, as can be expected, but a notional video of the modified version of the Falcon 9/Dragon combination was seen during Mr Musk’s initial announcement.

The video shows the vehicle launching towards a nominal First Stage MECO (Main Engine Cut Off) and staging – as per usual – prior to the the entire first stage rotating 180 degrees via Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters, and then reigniting three of its nine engines to “boost back” the near-empty stage back to the launch site.

Descending back to the launch pad, the First Stage would fire one engine to decelerate to a pinpoint landing on its specially-made landing legs, in an area depicted in the video as the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) Skid Strip runway complex.

This element is currently being tested at SpaceX’s McGregor test site in Texas, with three tests of the Grasshopper incrementally challenging the vehicle to safely rise into the air, hover, and then smoothly return to the ground on its landing legs.

The latest test – which took place on December 17 – was by far the “highest” leap by the Grasshopper. SpaceX also strapped a life-size dummy to the top of the landing leg structure, providing a visible reference to both the size of the test vehicle and its stability during the test.

“The 12-story flight marks a significant increase over the height and length of hover of Grasshopper’s previous test flights, which took place earlier this fall. In September, Grasshopper flew to 1.8 meters (6 feet), and in November, it flew to 5.4 meters (17.7 feet/2 stories) including a brief hover,” noted SpaceX in statement on Sunday.

“Testing of Grasshopper will continue with successively more sophisticated flights expected over the next several months.”

Click here for all SpaceX News articles: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=21862.0

However, Falcon 9 is a two stage launch vehicle, meaning SpaceX will have to continue pushing their Grasshopper through testing, to mimic the challenges that will face the First Stage, ahead of evaluating a test plan for the Upper Stage.

Per the notional concept video – the Upper Stage would be tasked with completing its orbital insertion burn, prior to spacecraft separation, ahead of thrusters rotating the stage 180 degrees, aft forward, ahead of engine restart for another burn to deorbit the Upper Stage.

Protected by what appears to be a version of the PICA-X (a proprietary variant of NASA’s phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA) material) heat shield used by the Dragon spacecraft, the Upper Stage dives back to Earth, protected against the heat and force of re-entry, prior to using what is depicted as four thrusters to decelerate and land on its landing legs.

“With the Upper Stage, after dropping off the satellite or spacecraft, we do a deorbit burn, re-enter – you need a quite powerful heat shield – and steer aerodynamically back to the launch pad, landing propulsively on landing legs,” added Mr Musk added during his National Press Club briefing.

“(Also worth noting,) you don’t need wings to steer aerodynamically, you just need some lift over drag numbers and lift vector.”

Dragon is likely to be the less challenging element of the F9 reusable plan, given it is currently showing no ill signs during its Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) role for NASA.

However, it currently returns to Earth under parachutes, for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The plan – even outside of the reusable ambitions – is for Dragon is to propulsively land on terra firma, via the ingenious use of Dragon’s Draco thrusters – that initially have a standby role as the Launch Abort System (LAS) motors during ascent.

The sum total would be – if successful – for both the entire launch vehicle, and the Dragon spacecraft, to return to its launch site, ready to be processed for use on a future mission, removing the costly need to build new hardware for each launch.

The plan is ambitious, it may prove to be a challenge too far, but Mr Musk wants to give it a try.

“I wasn’t sure it could be solved, but relatively recently I’ve come the conclusion it can be solved and SpaceX is going to try and do it,” Mr Musk claimed at the Press Club briefing. “We could fail, I’m not saying we’re certain of success, but we’re going to try to do it.”

(Images – All via SpaceX).

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SpaceX EELV-class Wins:

OSP-3 is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract within the US Air Force Rocket Systems Launch Program and represents the first Air Force contract designed to provide new entrants to the EELV program an opportunity to demonstrate their vehicle capabilities. This is a key award for SpaceX, who have long fought for the right to win EELV-class missions.

It comes almost 14 months after what SpaceX claim is the “stranglehold” on the US Air Force market appeared to be loosening, following a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the USAF, the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) and NASA that opened up the possibility for the likes of SpaceX to compete for the launch contracts.

Currently, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) EELV fleet of Deltas and Atlas’ carry out the vast majority of USAF launches, which SpaceX class as a “monopoly provider whose prices have consistently risen”. However, ULA have proven themselves to be a highly reliable launch service provider for the USAF, successfully launching many hugely expensive NRO satellites.

The new deal, sanctioned by the United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, awards SpaceX two EELV-class missions, namely DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) and STP-2 (Space Test Program 2), to be launched on SpaceX’s Falcon launch vehicles in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

Click here for recent SpaceX News Articles: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/spacex/

“SpaceX deeply appreciates and is honored by the vote of confidence shown by the Air Force in our Falcon launch vehicles,” said Elon Musk, CEO and chief designer, SpaceX. “We look forward to providing high reliability access to space with lift capability to orbit that is substantially greater than any other launch vehicle in the world.”

The DSCOVR mission – a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA and the USAF – will be launched aboard a Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida – and is currently slated for launch in late 2014

The mission calls for the refurbished and enhanced NASA satellite – which has a mass noted to be “no more than” 750kg and includes a propulsion unit for maneuvering – to be sent to the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point (a point approximately 1,500,000 km from Earth).

From L1, it will observe the Earth and directly monitor space weather around the L1 point, on a primary mission to provide advanced warning of space weather events that will impact both civilian and military activities on the Earth.

DSCOVR consists of the instrument deck, the observatory upper structure, the SMEX-Lite Spacecraft Bus, modular solar arrays and the propulsion module. The instrument deck supports the EPIC and NISTAR instruments, Faraday cup, and star tracker. The observatory upper structure supports the instrument deck, solar arrays and miscellaneous electronics boxes.

The propulsion module houses the 28-inch diameter hydrazine tank made of titanium and the propulsion system. The propulsion module also supports a deployable boom for the magnetometer.

The STP-2 mission will be launched on SpaceX’s new Falcon Heavy from SLC-40 and is targeted for mid-2015.

The goals of the mission are to launch an Integrated Payload Stack (IPS) consisting of two co-prime space vehicles (SVs), up to six auxiliary payloads (APLs) (minimum of two APLs), up to eight separate Poly-PicoSatellite Orbital Deployers (P-PODs) (TBD cubesats), and LSC-provided ballast of up to 5,000kg.

The two co-prime SVs are Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2), built by the Taiwanese and the Demonstration and Science Experiments (DSX). COSMIC-2 is a set of six identical satellites with a deployment structure.

DSX uses an EELV Secondary Payload Adapter (ESPA) for its primary structure, which hosts an avionics and payload module on opposing ports.

The mission trajectory is designed to meet the requirements of multiple experiments with payload deployments in LEO and MEO orbits. SpaceX will treat the COSMIC-2 stack with its integrated payloads as a single spacecraft.

With these two missions supporting the EELV certification process for both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, SpaceX noted they will be able to prove the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles are designed for exceptional reliability, meeting the stringent US Air Force requirements for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.

(Images via SpaceX and FBO.gov)

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Who To Launch With:

Customers wishing to launch their payloads into orbit have several options to choose from, with companies based around the world, sometimes with several launch vehicle options available to cater for their spacecraft.

Arianespace currently have three vehicles on their books, with the Vega the latest rocket to enter the market, enabling small spacecraft to be launched from their base at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Arianespace also added the Soyuz launch vehicle to their roster, becoming the stable mate of their flagship Ariane 5 rocket.

The company currently rely on their Ariane 5 ECA (Cryogenic Evolution type A), the most powerful version in the Ariane 5 range, which successfully lofted its dual payload of the Star One C3 and Eutelsat21B/W6A telecommunication satellites – weighing in at a combined 9.6 tonnes – into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) this month.

The launch represented the 210th mission of an Ariane family launcher since the maiden liftoff of an Ariane 1 version in 1979. The launch was also the 66th Ariane 5 liftoff, the 51st success in a row, as Arianespace hold claim to being the top launch services company on the planet, with an order book full to the brim.

Looking to the future, the Ariane 5 ME (Mid-life Evolution) is currently classed as in development for flight in 2016-2017, sporting a new Upper Stage with an increased propellant volume, powered by the Vinci expander cycle engine that – unlike the ECA’s HM7B engine – can restart up to five times, allowing for direct GEO insertion.

However, Arianespace may opt to push forward with the Ariane 6 – more suited to larger satellites and cheaper production costs – to cater for their target market in the years to come.

This subject is on the agenda for ministers from the European Space Agency’s 20 member states at their meeting in Naples this month.

The main question is whether to advance straight to the Ariane 6, or continue on the path of upgrading to the Ariane 5 ME. ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain has previously mentioned the need for Ariane 6 by directly referencing competitors in India, China – and in the US, namely SpaceX.

It is possible Mr Dordian’s naming of SpaceX as a direct competitor caused Mr Musk to comment on Arianespace’s current flagship, Ariane 5 – during an interview with the BBC’s Jonathan Amos – noting that a failure to evolve the European workhorse would only lead to his Falcon rockets dominating over the Ariane.

“Ariane 5 has no chance. I don’t say that with a sense of bravado but there’s really no way for that vehicle to compete with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy,” noted Mr Musk, who was in London to speak at the Royal Aeronautical Society where he was being honored for his role in commercial space.

“If I were in the position of Ariane, I would really push for an Ariane 6.”

Mr Musk is understandably buoyant about his company’s future in the market, with an order book that is filling up at an extraordinary pace for such a relatively young company, in addition to the upcoming debut of Falcon 9′s big brother, the Falcon Heavy – which will be the most powerful launch vehicle on the planet when it makes its first ride uphill.

One of the keys to Mr Musk’s comment is the pricing of the services provided, with SpaceX entering – and claiming to being able to sustain – a much cheaper cost to the customer than all of its main competitors, both domestic and overseas, such as Arianespace.

“Not only can we sustain the prices, but the next version of Falcon 9 is actually able to go to a lower price,” added Mr Musk during the BBC interview. “So if Ariane can’t compete with the current Falcon 9, it sure as hell can’t compete with the next one.”

However, low costs aren’t everything, as pointed out by Dr George Sowers, ULA VP for Human Launch Services, who was speaking prior to Mr Musk’s interview, when asked about how ULA compete on price.

“The short and direct answer is that ULA has, and will continue, to compete on total value to include price. We have gone head to head with SpaceX on several occasions and have won the majority,” Dr Sowers said to NASASpaceFlight.com in August.

“In the launch business, price is never the sole consideration for the buyer. That’s because launch price is a small percentage of the total program value (which can exceed replacement cost when there’s no money to replace, like the Glory spacecraft).”

ULA operate the Delta IV and the Atlas V – the latter sporting what the company proclaims to be a 100 percent track record since its 2002 debut.

Falcon 9 has only launched four times, with some dicey moments during its short history, most notably with the CRS-1 Dragon launch last month – although all four launches have resulted in primary mission success.

The Atlas V is currently used by NASA and the Department of Defense (DOD) for critical space missions to launch highly expensive payloads into orbit – as seen with the successes with the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and NASA’s Juno probe.

Notably, SpaceX and ULA have a “competitive” history in the national security payload arena, namely the contracts associated with the US Government-sponsored Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.

“In ULA’s market of national security payloads and unique science probes, capability, schedule assurance and reliability often overwhelm any other consideration. As a citizen and taxpayer, I think that’s appropriate,” added Dr Sowers.

“Not to minimize SpaceX’s impressive achievements, but ULA’s customers want to see a track record of success, repeatably delivering complex payloads to orbit, safely and on time.”

Atlas V – like Falcon 9 – is now walking down the path of proving it can be entrusted with launching humans into orbit, with both vehicles facing off in NASA’s commercial crew development program competition. The two launch vehicles are the last rockets standing, as the process moved into the Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCAP) stage.

SpaceX are hoping their Falcon 9 will launch NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) via a crew-capable version of their Dragon spacecraft, while ULA’s Atlas V has both the Boeing CST-100 and SNC’s Dream Chaser under its wing.

(Images: ULA, SpaceX, Arianespace, BBC, SNC and L2).

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Dragon return:

Dragon CRS-1, also known as SpX-1 in NASA nomenclature, enjoyed a successful – but less than nominal – launch on October 8, with a rendezvous, capture, berthing, and hatch opening to the ISS occurring on October 10.

Since then, Dragon has spent the past two weeks and four days – its longest ever flight – berthed to the ISS at the Node 2 Nadir Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) port, while the crew of Expedition 33 unloaded around 880 pounds/400 kilograms of cargo from the Dragon, and loaded in its place nearly 1,700 pounds/760 kilograms of return cargo, or “downmass”, including valuable scientific samples and failed ISS hardware.

Following the conclusion of cargo loading operations, the CBM hatch of the Dragon spacecraft was closed yesterday, following which the Atmosphere Revitalisation System (ARS) hose, two 1553 data cables, and two power jumpers were demated between the ISS and Dragon via the CBM vestibule.

The four CBM Controller Panel Assemblies (CPAs), box-like items that control the berthing sequence, were then installed on the ISS side, and finally the CBM Center Disk Cover (CDC) was installed prior to ISS hatch closure and depressurisation of the CBM vestibule.

For landing day, the long sequence of events that will ultimately lead to Dragon safely bobbing the Pacific Ocean began with the unberthing of Dragon from the Node 2 Nadir CBM, via the release of 16 bolts around the CBM berthing collar on the ISS side, performed in four sets of four bolts to ensure even unloading on the CBM interface.

Once complete, the ISS crew “pulled” Dragon away from the ISS via the use of the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) – which grappled Dragon on Wednesday – controlled from the Robotic Workstation (RWS) in the panoramic-viewed Cupola. Dragon was then be manouvered to the release position approximately 30 feet below the ISS.

Once in the release position, the time came for Dragon and the ISS to part ways, with ISS Commander Suni Williams squeezing the trigger on the Rotational Hand Controller (RHC) on the RWS to release the snares holding the SSRMS Latching End Effector (LEE) to the Dragon Flight Releasable Grapple Fixture (FRGF) – effectively “letting go” of Dragon. This process began on schedule at 1:26 PM GMT.

With the SSRMS retracted safely clear, Dragon then conducted a departure burn to depart to vicinity of the ISS – thankfully less “enthusiastically” than the previous departure burn performed near the ISS, which was the Japanese HTV-3′s now infamous abort burn back on September 12.

Dragon then completed its free-fly on-orbit after around five hours, during which time it completed a critical action – closure of the GNC bay door, to which the FRGF is mounted – before conducting a de-orbit burn at 6:28 PM GMT. The umbilical between Dragon and its Trunk then disengaged, prior to the Trunk separating from the Dragon capsule.

Entry Interface (EI) followed shortly thereafter, with Dragon making its fiery plunge through the atmosphere, protected by its PICA-X heat shield, which is designed to withstand off-nominal re-entries from Mars.

Following deployment of the three parachutes, Dragon was observed to have splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 7:22 PM GMT.

Immediately following splashdown, a team of recovery personnel will begin making their way toward Dragon aboard a small outboard-motor powered boat, following which one member of the recovery team will climb atop the gently bobbing Dragon and attach a harness, whereupon a larger barge will arrive with a crane to lift Dragon out of the water via the harness, and place it on a purpose-built support base aboard the barge.

The process to open Dragon’s side hatch will then immediately commence, in order to remove high-priority, time-critical return cargo and get it back to NASA within 48 hours of splashdown, a capability demonstrated on the previous Dragon splashdown on May 31.

Dragon and its remaining cargo will then make its way back to the Port of Los Angeles via the barge, following which Dragon will be trucked to SpaceX’s facility in McGregor, Texas, where its remaining cargo will be unloaded and transferred to NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), which will conclude the objectives of the CRS-1 mission and officially usher in the CRS era.

Dragon return cargo:

Dragon will be carrying a large load of return cargo – more than it launched with – for this mission, largely due to the fact that this is the first significant chance to return cargo from the ISS since STS-135 and the retirement of the Space Shuttle in July 2011.

Since that time, valuable return cargo items have been piling up aboard the ISS, including scientific samples, failed hardware, and other no longer needed but still valuable/re-usable items such as spacesuit gloves for previous ISS crewmembers.

The ability to once again return these items will replace a significant capability lost with the retirement of the Space Shuttle, and enable increased scientific utilisation of the ISS.

On the scientific side, Dragon will be carrying a GLACIER freezer for entry and landing – as it was for launch – that will be filled with numerous scientific samples stockpiled since July 2011, including astronaut’s urine and blood samples that need to be analysed on Earth as part of on-going crew medical experiments and data gathering activities (for instance, urine can be analysed for calcium levels to give an indication of bone loss in microgravity).

These time-critical samples were loaded aboard Dragon yesterday, just prior to hatch closure, with the GLACIER freezer being transferred from an ISS ExPrESS Rack (ER) to the Dragon.

Several additional samples were placed in Double Cold Bags (DCBs). These frozen samples are the time-critical items that must be retrieved from Dragon immediately following splashdown, in order to prevent them from thawing out.

From the non-scientific perspective, Dragon adds a unique capability to return failed hardware, not just to repair and re-launch it (and thus save the cost of building new hardware), but also to aid in failure investigations as to why the hardware failed in the first place, in order to improve designs for future space vehicles – effectively turning every ISS hardware failure into a gold mine of data for spacecraft designers.

Notable failed hardware items aboard Dragon – which, like the science samples, have been awaiting a ride home to Earth for some time – are the Urine Monitoring System (UMS), which launched to the ISS on STS-135 but experienced issues during installation, a Catalytic Reactor (CR) from the Water Recovery System (WRS), a Fluids Control Pump Assembly (FCPA), an Electronic Unit (EU) from a MELFI freezer, a Camera Light Pan/tilt Assembly (CLPA) that was removed from the SSRMS during US EVA-19 in early September, and an ATV cabin fan.

Dragon’s next flight:

The CRS-2 Dragon flight – AKA SpX-2 – was discussed briefly on Friday during a NASA overview briefing for an upcoming US spacewalk on the ISS. ISS Program Manager Mike “Suff” Suffredini provided an update on the status of the CRS-2 mission in light of the “rapid unplanned disassembly” of a Falcon 9 engine during the launch of CRS-1.

While the exact cause of the engine failure is still unknown, NASA and SpaceX have jointly agreed to delay the shipment of the CRS-2 Falcon 9 first stage from SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas facility, to their SLC-40 hangar at CCAFS in Florida, which was previously planned for last week.

This is to enable the SpaceX teams to inspect and verify that the CRS-2 Falcon 9 first stage is not susceptible to the same kind of failure that occurred on the CRS-1 first stage, once the root cause has been determined.

While the CRS-2 flight was previously planned for January 2013, this date may now slip to the right due to the delayed Falcon 9 first stage shipment to Florida; although a January launch date is not critical from an ISS logistics standpoint.

The delay, however, may have knock-on effects for the CRS-3 (SpX-3) flight, as that flight will use the new Falcon 9 1.1 booster, and so modifications must be made to SpaceX’s SLC-40 launch pad between the CRS-2 and CRS-3 launches, as well as launches for customers other than NASA. Thus, any delay to the CRS-2 flight is likely to delay that modification work from occurring.

Suffredini added however that a NASA team are lending their experience to help SpaceX determine the root cause of the engine failure, and that the ISS is in good shape to cope with any delays, due to a good stockpile of logistics aboard the station.

(Images: via L2′s SpaceX Dragon Mission Special Section – Containing presentations, videos, images (Over 2,500MB in size), space industry member discussion and more. Now includes CRS-1 Image Dump, every single hi res photo taken from the ISS - 350 Hi Res images).

(Click here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/l2/ - to view how you can support NSF and access the best space flight content on the entire internet).

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