WASHINGTON -
Space Exploration Technologies
(SpaceX) held an invitation-only meeting at its Hawthorne, Calif.-based
headquarters on Friday for potential customers of its new DragonLab,
a free-flying version of the reusable Dragon capsule the company is building
for International Space Station resupply missions.
"We're committed to flying it," Max
Vozoff, SpaceX's Dragon product manager, said in an Oct. 29 interview here.
Vozoff said SpaceX's message to attendees of the DragonLab user
conference would be pretty straightforward: "It's a commercial mission flying
with or without you," he said. "There are slots available if you want to come
along."
Between 40 and 50 scientists, engineers and other technical experts
from government, industry and academia were expected to attend and learn about DragonLab during today's event.
So far,
SpaceX has lined up at least one customer for the first DragonLab flight
planned for 2010. Although Vozoff would not tell Space News anything
about its anchor customer, SpaceX told other space officials here that it had
signed up a classified U.S. government customer for DragonLab's debut.
Designed to
launch atop the Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX has in development for a planned 2009
debut, the DragonLab can accommodate up to 13,227 pounds (6,000 kg) of pressurized
and unpressurized upmass and up to 6,613 pounds (3,000 kg) of downmass,
according to a SpaceX specifications sheet. DragonLab is designed for a water
recovery off the California coast.
Vozoff said
DragonLab missions could last from one week to two years, depending on customer
interest. After its initial flight, SpaceX hopes to fly DragonLab once or twice
a year.
SpaceX has just begun to brief
prospective customers on DragonLab, with Vozoff making recent visits to NASA's
Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Johnson Space Center to discuss
the concept and assess interest. He said SpaceX also is seeing substantial
interest in DragonLab from the U.S. Defense Department.
Differences between DragonLab and
the reusable
capsule SpaceX is vying to sell to NASA for cargo missions and eventually
crewed flights are minor, according to Vozoff, and have mainly to do with
internal outfitting and onboard power.
In addition
to the seven to 10 cubic meters of pressurized space
available inside the Dragon's recoverable main capsule, the proposed
configuration includes an unpressurized trunk offering 14 cubic meters of
payload capacity to experiments that need not be returned. Vozoff said
DragonLab is well suited "for people who have flown or want to fly mid-deck
locker experiments" on the space shuttle or space station.
SpaceX is confident
that there is a market for DragonLab. Vozoff cited an Oct. 16 presentation to
the NASA Advisory Council by NASA's assistant associate administrator for the
international space station, Mark Uhran, to back up his claim that a biotech
breakthrough aboard the station could touch off a "gold rush" in microgravity
research that SpaceX, with DragonLab, would be well positioned to capitalize
on.
SpaceX has
yet to demonstrate a successful Falcon 9 flight. The company had its first
launch success in late September with an apparently flawless flight of the
much smaller Falcon 1. The company is on track to deliver its first Falcon 9 to
Cape Canaveral, Fla., early next year for its maiden launch on behalf of an
unnamed U.S. government customer.
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