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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
It's supposed to be fully stacked at KSC by New Year's Day:
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27259 Pat |
#2
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
Pat Flannery wrote: It's supposed to be fully stacked at KSC by New Year's Day: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27259 Whoops; correction there - it will be all in one piece, but still horizontal...until the erector is ready for it in early January. It will be interesting to see how fast the first launch attempt follows getting it on the pad. Knowing SpaceX, not long at all. Pat |
#3
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone... Pat Flannery wrote: It's supposed to be fully stacked at KSC by New Year's Day: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27259 Whoops; correction there - it will be all in one piece, but still horizontal...until the erector is ready for it in early January. It will be interesting to see how fast the first launch attempt follows getting it on the pad. Knowing SpaceX, not long at all. Also, I don't think SLC-40 is technically part of KSC, it's part of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Pat -- Greg Moore Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC. |
#4
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
In message tatelephone
Pat Flannery wrote: It's supposed to be fully stacked at KSC by New Year's Day: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27259 The same thing with it's predecessors direct from the Ox's mouth... http://www.spacex.com/updates.php Anthony |
#5
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote: Also, I don't think SLC-40 is technically part of KSC, it's part of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Splitter. :-D The first stage isn't as big as I pictured it would be; it looks more like a Atlas/Titan sized stage rather than the Saturn I I thought it would resemble. It will be interesting to see if they can get this thing working on the first try; I still think they should have had a few more successful Falcon 1 launches under their belt before engaging in this degree of scaling things up in regards to the number of Merlin engines used on it. Pat |
#6
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
Anthony Frost wrote: The same thing with it's predecessors direct from the Ox's mouth... http://www.spacex.com/updates.php That layout of the nine Merlins in a square looks really odd, doesn't it? Pat |
#7
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
Pat Flannery wrote: That layout of the nine Merlins in a square looks really odd, doesn't it? As a follow-up to that, are they gimbaling all nine engines? They'd only have to gimbal the four corner engines to control the ascent trajectory. Although wasteful in fuel, you could also control the pitch and yaw by shifting the engines outward in matched pairs on one side of the square rather than varying thrust on them. Pat |
#8
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
"Anthony Frost" wrote in message ... In message tatelephone Pat Flannery wrote: It's supposed to be fully stacked at KSC by New Year's Day: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27259 The same thing with it's predecessors direct from the Ox's mouth... http://www.spacex.com/updates.php I wonder how Boeing and LockMart are feeling about all this. If this thing actually works than Atlas and Delta are cooked, Falcon 9 launches are one-third their price. My guess is that in the end, one or the other will simply try to buy SpaceX. Will the authoritiet allow this, you guys reckon? |
#9
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
"Bob S." wrote in message
... I wonder how Boeing and LockMart are feeling about all this. If this thing actually works than Atlas and Delta are cooked, Falcon 9 launches are one-third their price. My guess is that in the end, one or the other will simply try to buy SpaceX. Will the authoritiet allow this, you guys reckon? Sure; there's still competition - just two launch providers instead of the possible (probable) three if SpaceX make it happen. I think both Boeing and Lockhead are shaking in their boots. Falcon 9 has a major advantage over the Atlas - it's all-American (engine on the Atlas V first stage is Russian); that makes the F9 more attractive to the U.S. military for reconsat launches. And the payload of the F9Heavy is more than sufficient for polar orbital work. Once the F9 has flown a couple of times, the F9H will be able to prove itself very easily. Then, either Boeing or Lockheed, and perhaps both, will be out of the space business without a new launcher that can compete with SpaceX. I've been saying it for a while now - the next couple of years are going to be very interesting! |
#10
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First Falcon 9 now getting assembled for launch
"Alan Erskine" wrote in message ... "Bob S." wrote in message ... I wonder how Boeing and LockMart are feeling about all this. If this thing actually works than Atlas and Delta are cooked, Falcon 9 launches are one-third their price. My guess is that in the end, one or the other will simply try to buy SpaceX. Will the authoritiet allow this, you guys reckon? Sure; there's still competition - just two launch providers instead of the possible (probable) three if SpaceX make it happen. I think both Boeing and Lockhead are shaking in their boots. Falcon 9 has a major advantage over the Atlas - it's all-American (engine on the Atlas V first stage is Russian); that makes the F9 more attractive to the U.S. military for reconsat launches. And the payload of the F9Heavy is more than sufficient for polar orbital work. Once the F9 has flown a couple of times, the F9H will be able to prove itself very easily. Then, either Boeing or Lockheed, and perhaps both, will be out of the space business without a new launcher that can compete with SpaceX. I doubt that. The U.S. DoD doesn't want a monooply either, no matter how good or cheap SpaceX is. The Delta is still the workhorse for most NASA launches so I believe they won't be out of a job very soon. I've been saying it for a while now - the next couple of years are going to be very interesting! The most interesting part will be when Dragon is launched. I'm very interested if Bigelow and SpaceX are going to team up to make commercial space (including tourism) a reality. I think Musk, Bigelow and Branson are true visionaries since they decided that waiting for the government to open up space for the ordinay Jole wasn't going to work, they decided to do it themselves. I commend them for that. |
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