Musk Reports on Falcon 9 Status

 

SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced on New Year's Eve that the Falcon 9 rocket that carried satellites to orbit last month and the returned safely to Cape Canaveral is, after inspection and was found free of damage is in Musk's words "ready to fire again." This, rather than falling into the Atlantic Ocean as so many space program rockets have ended for decades.

Musk tweeted that the “Falcon 9 back in the hangar at Cape Canaveral. No damage found, ready to fire again.”

Space X Falcon Failure

Now I know the falcon failed, but you watch just how close they come. Space X is not to far away from from perfecting something NASA spent billions and never quite got right, which is a bit unfair but think about it......

NASA OKs SpaceX's Latest Milestone for ISS Crew Transfers

NASA has approved SpaceX's first push towards launching crews to the International Space Station.  This under the auspices of NASA's  Commercial Crew Transportation Capability  contract.

Can the Private Sector do it Faster & Cheaper than NASA?

Just in case you live in a cave somewhere and were not up to speed as to what SpaceX has up it's sleeve - below is a short animation of their Dragon / Falcon 9 heavy, reusable launch system. What makes this interesting again is a recent report from NASA where they admit that the private sector can accomplish mission critical launches far cheaper than NASA can do it on it's own.

With the system shown here from SpaceX - the estimate is that from build to launch, they can - with the reusable vehicle - launch at roughly $60 million for launch and construction.


Here is the complete Dvice article

SpaceX Testing New Heavy Lift System

From SpaceXhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif via Boing Boing is news on SpaceX's new heavy lifting system, The Falcon Heavy which according to the website:

• (is)the world’s most powerful rocket. (The Falcon Heavy has) the ability to carry satellites or interplanetary spacecraft weighing over 53 metric tons (117,000 lb) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Falcon Heavy can lift nearly twice the payload of the next closest vehicle, the US Space Shuttle, and more than twice the payload of the Delta IV Heavy.

The Falcon Heavy develops over 3.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. To put that into perspective: that kind of thrust is equal to fifteen Boeing 747 aircraft at full power. That makes it one of the most powerful rockets since Apollo's Saturn 5 main stage.

(I KNOW! Saturn 5 WAS the main stage! But lets be honest, when most people see the whole Saturn stack they think Saturn 5! I know...Saturn 3 was the next stage and Saturn 1 was what pushed the "Luna stack" towards Luna insertion. I just KNOW some of you rocket jocks would call me on that if I hadn't said something! lol)

Check out the SpaceX page here

SpaceX successful Falcon9 / Dragon Launch

SpaceX experienced a brilliantly successful launch of it's Falcon 9 launch vehicle, delivering a Dragon, reusable space capsule into orbit.

Here is a description of the Dragon capsule, from SpaceX's site
Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft ... developed by SpaceX .... the Dragon spacecraft is made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to LEO transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo, and/or crew members.

The Dragon was delivered to orbit and according to the SpaceX site

(Dragon re-enters and) Lands on Target in the Pacific Ocean, 500 miles Off of the Coast of Southern California

This also means that SpaceX became the first commercial company in history to re-enter a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit.