The Tale of Falcon 1

Liftoff of Flight 4 of the Falcon 1 from Kwajalein, September 28, 2008. SpaceX achieved an elliptical orbit (621 x 643 km) at 9.3° inclination and carried into orbit a dummy payload at 165 kg designed and built for the mission [SpaceX].

Paul D. Spudis
The Once and Future Moon
Smithsonian Air & Space
  

Elon Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) in 2002.  Its stated business objective was the development of launch services for a fraction of the cost of the then-available commercial launch providers – to the greatest extent practicable, they would create reusable pieces of its launch system, thereby greatly lowering the cost of space access.  Toward that end, SpaceX sponsored the development of its own launch vehicle and engines, using a vertically integrated business model in which SpaceX would design, fabricate, prepare and operate a launch system.

Alan Boyle’s recent review of commercial efforts to supply the International Space Station naturally included coverage of the successful flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon’s delivery demonstration.  The article focused on the way commercial space is financed, specifically how NASA is sponsoring the development of some of these capabilities.  This financial arrangement is the basis for a point repeatedly voiced by critics of the heralded vision of “New Space” replacing “government” space – a company like SpaceX is not actually commercial in the traditional free market sense, but simply another government-funded contractor using a different procurement model.

Falcon 1 was the first rocket developed by SpaceX.  It is a two-stage launch vehicle capable of putting a metric ton (1000 kg.) into low Earth orbit.  Falcon 1 uses a single Merlin, a SpaceX-developed, LOX-kerosene rocket engine producing ~570,000 newtons of thrust (for comparison, a single Shuttle main engine burns LOX-hydrogen fuel and produces about 2,300,000 newtons of thrust).  The Falcon 1 was designed to put relatively small satellites into low earth orbit.  With such payload capacity, it is also capable of sending 100-200 kg microsats beyond LEO, into cislunar space.

Much of the private start-up capital for SpaceX was used to develop the Falcon 1.  They also received some government funding from other than NASA.  The Department of Defense (DOD) had need for reliable, quick, and cheap space access for small payloads.  To that end, SpaceX received funding from several DOD entities, including several million dollars from the U.S. Air Force under a program to develop launch capability for DARPA (a defense research agency).  Space X was given access to and the use of DOD launch facilities at the Reagan Test Site (formerly Kwajalein Missile Range) in the Marshall Islands.

The early days of Falcon 1 development were not pretty.  The first launch failed after 25 seconds of flight.  The second flight successfully launched and staged, but did not reach orbit.  After the third attempt at flight failed during staging, a review board looked in detail at SpaceX’s launch processing stream and made recommendations for some significant changes.  The next launch was successful in putting a dummy payload into orbit.  In July 2009, six years after Falcon 1 development had begun, SpaceX achieved its first (and so far, only) commercial space success with the launch and orbit of the Malaysian RazakSAT imaging satellite on a Falcon 1 launch.

Typically when a space company finally achieves a long-sought success, it moves rapidly to exploit the new vehicle’s operational status and begins to aggressively market and sell its new launch service.  However, no Falcon 1 launch has occurred since the success of RazakSAT.  A visit to the SpaceX web site describes the Falcon 1 vehicle, but at the bottom of the page it states that a Falcon 1 launch is no longer available for purchase.  Instead, small, one-ton class payloads will be accommodated in the future through “piggyback” rides on the new, Falcon 9 medium-class launch vehicle.

For a company to spend six years and start up money developing a needed launch system, only to abandon it just as success and profit is at hand, is difficult to sort through.  One could be forgiven for imagining that the development of the Falcon 1 as a commercial launch system was never intended but rather a pretext to flight qualify the pieces (specifically the Merlin 1 engine) used in the nine-engine cluster that powers the Falcon 9 launcher.  Interestingly, others have noted that the now-cancelled NASA Constellation Ares I launch vehicle (“The Stick”), purportedly designed to launch the new Orion spacecraft to LEO, likewise appeared to be more of a development effort than a flight project, in that its various pieces (e.g., cryogenic upper stage, five-segment SRB) were all needed to build the large Ares V heavy lift rocket.

Meanwhile, customers in need of low-cost options for launching small payloads are out of luck.  Falcon 9 has yet to launch an ounce of commercial payload and Falcon 1 is not for sale.  Of course, one can launch small satellites using Orbital’s Taurus launch vehicle, but its ~$50-70 M cost and recent record of unreliability (e.g., the Glory satellite launch failure) engender neither comfort nor confidence.  More significantly, after investing in the R&D effort of a new, unproven company that was offering a low cost, small launch vehicle, SpaceX’s original DoD customers, banking on the creation of a quick, inexpensive capability to launch small satellites, saw their support of Falcon 1 go by the board.  It appears that SpaceX dropped their initial operational vehicle for the promotion and promise of far more ambitious and distant goals.

Artist's rendering of the Falcon 9 heavy-lift launch
plans for which are expected in 2013 [SpaceX].

That template seems to work for them – NASA has “invested” more than $500 million in the Falcon 9 over the last five years.  Now, SpaceX holds court to advance their founder’s Mars fantasies and plans for a Falcon “heavy” launch vehicle – designed and marketed as sending very large payloads into space, at unbelievably low prices.  (As an aside, I thought that a New Space article of faith is that heavy lift is a boondoggle and that fuel depots are the way to go beyond LEO.)

When New Space advocates characterize old NASA contractors, legacy launch companies and politicians with NASA centers in their districts as “pigs at the trough of government funding,” they’d be wise to watch out for a “pig” donning falcon feathers.  Debate, like competition is good and helpful but only useful when advocates honestly pitch their abilities, services, products and intentions.   Money is an important consideration, however our nation’s ability to compete in the arena of space must be the overriding concern.  In light of the current situation, that ability is slipping further and further away.  We need to honestly assess what we’re buying before nothing remains of our decades long investment and leadership role in space.

Originally published at his Smithsonian Air & Space blog The Once and Future Moon, Dr. Spudis is a senior staff scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The opinions expressed are those of the author and are better informed than average. 

NASA's Constellation: The Back Story

Doug Messier

Parabolic Arc

A brief review of recent NASA history might be instructive in understanding what the Obama Administration wants to do with the space program. The rationale behind the human spaceflight plan is pretty simple, actually. Much of it is getting lost in the thicket of details.

Catch the Article, HERE.

Ares I-X test may not save Ares I, but could help future NASA funding

Shelby G. Spires
al.com

NASA's spectacular launch of the Ares I-X test rocket last week may not save the Ares I crew rocket developed at Marshall Space Flight Center, but it could pave the way for more NASA funding overall, a local space expert says.

An independent White House panel gave the president several choices for NASA - options like landing on asteroids, flying around Martian moons or building a lunar outpost - but none relied on the Ares I.

All options need a boost to NASA budgets of about $3 billion a year for several years. The successful Ares I-X test could help that effort, said McDaniel.

"This test gives NASA credibility, not that it was needed from the perspective of engineering. It was needed from the political side," said Mark McDaniel, a Huntsville attorney who formerly sat on the NASA Advisory Council and still advises congressmembers on space issues.

Read the analysis, HERE.

Ares I-X SRB may have been dented in-flight

Underwater image showing a large dent in the lower segment of NASA's Ares I-X after splash down in the Atlantic, ending a test flight Oct. 28. [United Space Alliance].

Tariq Malik
Managing Editor
Space.com

NASA has discovered a large dent on its brand-new moon rocket after the booster splashed into the Atlantic Ocean at the end of a test flight this week.

The damage to the new Ares I-X rocket, which launched from Florida Wednesday on a short test flight, was spotted by a diving team sent to recover the booster's first stage. The first stage — a giant solid rocket booster — was dented near its base.

NASA spokesperson Amber Philman told SPACE.com that the space agency is still awaiting word on what may have caused the damage.

Read the story, HERE.

'We stand today on the shoulders of giants'

Shelby G. Spires
al.com

KSC - For seven minutes at least, there were no politics, no reports and no controversies swirling around space travel.

The Ares I-X - the future of manned space flight to some, a financial impossibility to others - successfully leapt into the air at 10:30 a.m. CDT, taking with it the future of the space agency, as Ares I-X deputy program manager Steve Davis put it after the launch.

"What we do today is really like what Huntsville did with the Mercury-Redstone flights" early in the space program, Davis said. "This is a first. Just like Dr. Wernher von Braun's team did then, our goal is knowledge. We stand today on the shoulders of giants."

Read the story, HERE.

Teamwork credited with Ares I-X launch

NASA's Constellation program's Ares I-X test rocket roars off Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center [NASA/Jim Grossmann].

Outstanding teamwork was the theme of the Ares I-X postlaunch news conference as the successful flight test was discussed.

"I can't say enough about this team," said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "They've been together probably a little over three years now, and they went from a concept to flying this vehicle in that period of time, which is the first time this has been done by a human spaceflight team in a long time."

Referring to the weather, which was the only issue of the day, Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley said, "We were ready when Mother Nature was ready, and we took our opportunity and what a great outcome. We're very proud of the result."

"It was a spectacular day," said Bob Ess, Ares I-X mission manager. "The vehicle flew even better than we expected."

"It is just a fantastic day," said Launch Director Ed Mango. "The team really excelled. I can't say enough about the folks who worked together to go make this thing happen. It was a great team, and as you can tell, it was a great vehicle."

NASA's Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight. The flight test lasted about six minutes from its launch from the newly modified Launch Pad 39B until splashdown of the rocket's booster stage nearly 150 miles downrange.

Australian astronaut says Ares test 'could help put tourists on the Moon by 2020'

Carly Crawford
news.com.au

The test launch of Ares I-X, now expected to take place Wednesday morning, will deliver NASA vital technical information that could help set up a manned space station on the moon within a decade. Australian astronaut Andy Thomas says the groundbreaking booster test could help put tourists on the moon by 2020.

Thomas, 58, said moves towards commercial funding for NASA could mean tourists would have the chance to experience space soon after professional astronauts arrived on the moon.

"Once we have that kind of commercial activity, it's inevitable that we'll see space tourism," he said.

He said existing space tourism – such as the kind promoted by Virgin boss Richard Branson – was not true space exploration.

"What he's doing is really high altitude aircraft," Adelaide-born Thomas said.

A high-level US government review of NASA's human space program last week suggested using private money to send astronauts into space.

"It is very much in the interest of the US to commercialize access to low Earth orbit," he said.

Thomas was aware of a select few entrepreneurs and financing firms that had flagged their interest in sponsoring space programs with the US government.

If skies clear at Cape Canaveral the $382 million Ares I-X will blast off on a two-and-a-half-minute flight designed to test a new five-segment Solid Rocket Booster and a controversial configuration hopefully settling disputes about possible crew-threatening thrust oscillation.

A presidential panel last week supported the Ares I-X test flight, but questioned the need to use the Ares I rocket, part of the Constellation program. The panel questioned the cost and design of the craft as well as its necessity.

A Vision briefly becomes reality

It's been the subject of artist's impressions so often the actual sight of an Ares I-X towering over Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center might seem an anticlimax.

Nevertheless, as Robert Block of the Orlando Sentinel's The Wright Stuff rightly points this morning to a treatment of the real thing by "storied and award-winning photojournalist Red Huber," who "has taken a fantastic series of pictures of Aries I-X" at KSC.

"The rocket is due to lift off on its 28-mile, two minute suborbital journey on Tuesday at 8 a.m. though the weather may not cooperate. NASA managers can wait until Noon Tuesday before having to stand down to try again on Wednesday."

Although the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, chaired by Norm Augustine, is not being celebrated for its few very specific recommendations, among their actual recommendation released last week is to scrap the Ares I as America's next humans-only rocket.

The Augustine committee also sees no way to avoid at least a seven-year gap in NASA's manned spaceflight capability after the Space Shuttle is grounded a year from now.

Anyway you look at it, it may be while before any notion of America's future manned spaceflight capability actually presents itself as a sight "to steal your breath away."

Ares I SRB test flawless

ATK employees and guests of ATK and NASA watch from about about a mile away as ATK conducts the first full-scale motor test for the Ares I five-segment solid rocket booster. It went off without a hitch at 1 pm Thursday. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Crossed-fingers for 5-segment SRB test

Mike Kahn, executive at ATK Space Systems, talks about the Ares 1 First Stage rocket motor Thursday morning at the ATK facility west of Brigham City. (Al Hartmann / The Salt Lake Tribune)

Steve Oberbeck
The Salt Lake Tribune

Promontory - Standing near the 12-foot-diameter nozzle of a giant booster motor, NASA's Alex Priskos conceded he was feeling a few butterflies as he waited for the motor to be test-fired early Thursday afternoon.

Utah's Alliant Techsystems, which is developing the motor for the first stage of NASA's Ares 1 rocket, is scheduled to test fire its first developmental motor at 1 p.m.

"I'm always excited and always feel a few butterflies when a motor is tested," Priskos said. "But this motor is going to work well. We've learned a lot using similar motors to launch the space shuttle."

Although strikingly similar to the four-segment booster motors that for years have been used to propel the space shuttle into orbit, the new booster was built with an additional segment to provide more thrust -- and to allow more weight to be lifted into orbit.

According to NASA's Web site, "the Ares I first stage is a single, five-segment reusable solid-rocket booster derived from the Space Shuttle Program's reusable solid-rocket motor, which burns a specially formulated and shaped solid propellant."

Priskos said the Ares 1 rocket will be much safer for astronauts than the space shuttle it will replace. The Ares 1 is scheduled for its maiden flight in 2015.

Former astronaut Jeff Ashby, who now serves as ATK's vice president of business development, said one of the segments of the test motor was flown on the space shuttle the last time he went into orbit.

"It dropped into the ocean and was recovered," he said. "I get a kick out of thinking about that."

Read the full feature, HERE.

Review of Human Space Flight Committee: NASA Constellation program unaffordable

Robert Block
The Write Stuff
Orlando Sentinel

The Augustine Panel re-examining NASA's human spaceflight plans has concluded that the agency's current Constellation Program to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 will not fit into the current presidential budget.

In fact, the panel has found that President Barack Obama's current budget does not allow for any significant human exploration program.

"We are on a path right now for a system on a close order of just double the budget to operate," said panel member Jeff Greason of Constellation, which stemmed from President George W. Bush's 2005 "vision" to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and then move on to Mars.

Greason added that if Santa Claus gave the program to the country fully developed, NASA would still have to cancel it because the agency could not afford to launch it.

Read the Post HERE.