HOUSTON - Space
Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) will attempt its second launch of the
Falcon 1 rocket in late January or early February, SpaceX Chief Executive
Officer Elon Musk said here Dec. 5.
The El
Segundo, Calif.-based company previously had been targeting December or early
January for the upcoming launch, a demonstration flight funded by the U.S.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The first
DARPA demonstration flight, conducted in March from the company's private
launch complex on the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, achieved 30-seconds
of powered flight before an engine fire traced back to a corroded nut brought
the mission to an abrupt and premature end.
Musk
offered no explanations for the possible delay until February but had
previously said that launch range conflicts were likely to push the launch out
of December.
In parallel
to preparing for its next Falcon 1 launch, SpaceX also is getting ready for a
January preliminary design review for Dragon, a ballistic capsule the company
is developing with $278 million in assistance from NASA's Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program.
Musk
praised the COTS program as potentially "one of the best NASA programs ever,"
saying "it holds the potential to really save the space station."
"The
national budget is going to get really squeezed and there's not going to be a
lot of money to support the space station" without the low-cost solutions being
fostered by COTS, he predicted.
SpaceX intends
to launch Dragon to the International Space Station on the Falcon 9, a
nine-engine rocket the company is under contract to launch for the first time
in 2008 as part of a classified launch for an unidentified U.S. government
customer.
Musk said
it was "still unclear" whether the first Falcon 9 launch will go out of
Kwajalein or Cape Canaveral, Fla. He said SpaceX was making the necessary
technical and regulatory preparations for either option. "We're dual-pathing
it," he said.
Musk told attendees
of the 2nd Space Exploration Conference - Implementing the
Vision here that SpaceX will produce 30
rocket-booster engines in 2007. A static Falcon 9 multi-engine firing is slated
to take place in March, he said.
As SpaceX's
production activities ramp up, the approximately 250-employee company is
starting to outgrow its current 100,000-square-foot design and manufacturing
facility in El Segundo. Musk said SpaceX will move into a 500,000-square-foot
manufacturing facility in six months.
Musk
appeared on a panel with his fellow COTS competitor, Rocketplane Kistler
President Randy Brinkley. That Oklahoma City-based company has a $207 million
contract with NASA to demonstrate that the K-1 reusable rocket can be used to
resupply the international space station.
Brinkley
said the K-1 is 75 percent completed by mass and will launch for the first time
in 2008.
Brinkley
said the Oklahoma City-based company sees a $4 billion a year market for the K-1
over the next five years. In addition to space station resupply flights,
Brinkley said there are opportunities for the K-1 in commercial and government
satellite launch and U.S. Air Force-sponsored so-called responsive space
activities.
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