The first
of a new breed of commercial rockets built by the firm Space
Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is getting a workout at its Florida launch
pad.
The
Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX raised its first Falcon 9 rocket into a vertical
launch position on Saturday at Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to
begin tests that the firm hopes will set the stage for an inaugural liftoff
later this year. The Falcon 9 was hauled back down on Monday as SpaceX pushes
through launch preparation paces.
"The rocket
was lowered today, but we will be going vertical again later in the week to
demonstrate operational responsiveness and to collect additional data from
vehicle instrumentation," SpaceX spokesperson Emily Shanklin told SPACE.com
Monday.
The new
Falcon 9 rocket is the launch vehicle of choice for SpaceX's planned Dragon spacecraft,
which the firm is building to haul NASA cargo to and from the International
Space Station. But SpaceX is also building the Falcon 9 to launch payloads
spaceward for other customers.
Engineers finished
assembling the rocket at the launch site on Dec. 30, then built its launch
support structure to raise the booster last week, hitting each milestone a day
or two early.
"This
entire process has helped us validate key interfaces and operations prior to
executing our launch campaign with the vehicle in its final flight
configuration," said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in a statement. "We
encountered no show-stoppers or significant delays. I am highly confident that
we will achieve our goal of being able to go from hangar to liftoff in under 60
minutes, which would be a big leap forward in capability compared with the days
to weeks required of other launch vehicles."
SpaceX's
Falcon 9 rocket is a booster designed to launch the Dragon spacecraft and other
medium-sized payloads from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station. The two-stage booster stands 180 feet (54.9 meters) tall and is
17 feet (5.2 meters) wide at its widest point. It took SpaceX workers about 30
minutes to haul the Falcon 9 booster into launch position on Saturday.
"Any engineered
system has requirements that can only be recognized through actual assembly of
real hardware," said Brian Mosdell, SpaceX's director of Florida launch
operations. "This rapid integration and stand-up provided our engineers
and technicians with invaluable insights that will greatly streamline our
efforts towards the first Falcon 9 launch in 2009."
The first Falcon
9 rocket could make its launch debut by spring, SpaceX officials have said. The
firm successfully test-fired the booster's first-stage rocket engines last year
to check their performance for their full flight duration. SpaceX also celebrated
the first successful launch of its smaller Falcon 1 rocket in September
2008 after three failed attempts.
SpaceX has
five Falcon 9 launches slated for 2009. Those missions include a debut launch
sponsored by a U.S. government customer which the firm is not naming, as well
as two demonstration flights for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation
Services program.
NASA
awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract last month to launch 12 cargo missions
to the International Space Station through 2016. SpaceX is one of two firms
that nabbed the cargo contract. Orbital Sciences Corp., of Dulles, Va., was the
other firm and pledged to launch eight cargo flights for $1.9 billion.
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