Falcon 9 v1.1 Appears on Fast Track To Qualify for Air Force Missions

Mind the word-wrap on the link:

Falcon 9 v1.1 Appears on Fast Track To Qualify for Air Force Missions
http://www.spacenews.com/article/mil...0falcon-9-v11-
appears-on-fast-track-to-qualify-for-air-force-missions

At this point, ULA still has a "sole-source" contract (2012) to provide
36 EELV cores over five years. But, an additional 14 missions will be
competitively awarded. The successful launches of Falcon 9 v 1.1 puts
SpaceX on track to qualify to bid on these additional missions.

I know, the nay-sayers will chime in and now say that SpaceX has yet to
fly a DOD payload. But, they keep plodding along, finding and fixing
problems each time they fly.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

Jeff Findley wrote:
But, they keep plodding along, finding and fixing problems each time
they fly.

Did SpaceX actually say anything about problems found during this last
F9 1.1 flight?

rick jones
--
the road to hell is paved with business decisions...
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

On 1/10/2014 5:40 PM, Rick Jones wrote:
Jeff Findley wrote:
But, they keep plodding along, finding and fixing problems each time
they fly.

Did SpaceX actually say anything about problems found during this last
F9 1.1 flight?

rick jones


Not seen anything negative yet, from SpaceX or elsewhere.

Dave

On 1/10/2014 4:55 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
I know, the nay-sayers will chime in and now say that SpaceX has yet to
fly a DOD payload. But, they keep plodding along, finding and fixing
problems each time they fly.

Jeff


Nay saying is easy. It was only a few years back you could have said
Falcon 9 has yet to fly a commercial payload. And although at the time
that would have been a true statement it was not very informative and
also somewhat misleading if left at face value, unchallenged.

Challenging nay saying is also not very fruitful. At best case you're
likely to be met with the response, "you have made many unsubstantiated
assumptions there, we'll see".

Well in the case of SpaceX, we have seen.

Dave

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:
But, they keep plodding along, finding and fixing problems each time
they fly.

Did SpaceX actually say anything about problems found during this last
F9 1.1 flight?

I'm not aware of any problems found on this last mission. Their
"mission overview" does not say anything about any anomolies:

http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/01/0...ssion-overview

From the customer's point of view, I believe it went quite well (quote
from above link):

THAICOM 6 was injected into a perfect 295 x 90,000 km geosynchronous
transfer orbit at 22.5 degrees inclination, meeting 100% of mission
objectives.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer