The Space and Missile Systems Center has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, as part of the company's effort to certify its Falcon 9 v1.1 Launch System for National Security Space (NSS) missions. This cooperative agreement facilitates data exchanges and protects proprietary and export-controlled data. The CRADA will be in effect until all certification activities are complete.
A CRADA enables the Air Force to evaluate the Falcon 9 v1.1 launch system according to the Air Force's New Entrant Certification Guide (NECG). As part of the evaluation, SMC and SpaceX will look at the Falcon 9 v1.1's flight history, vehicle design, reliability, process maturity, safety systems, manufacturing and operations, systems engineering, risk management and launch facilities. SMC will monitor at least three certification flights to meet the flight history requirements outlined in the NECG. Once the evaluation process is complete, the SMC commander will make the final determination whether SpaceX has the capability to successfully launch NSS missions using the Falcon 9 v1.1.
“I can confirm that we are nearing the end of fairing testing. SpaceX did determine an issue with our load test setup.”
“We’ve now modified the test setup, because we had an experience with the fairing in an area that was loaded well beyond 100 percent of ultimate possible load – in other words, the issue experienced was not a failure of the fairing design, it was a test issue that has now been resolved.”
SpaceX note they currently remain on schedule – depending on the outcome of the upcoming testing – to begin their next salvo of launches, starting with the CASSIOPE mission, within the current August/September timeframe.
“SpaceX will determine when we have gained enough confidence in understanding the interaction of all components through system testing. Depending on the outcome of the remaining testing, launch windows in this timeframe are still achievable,” added Ms. Ra.
“As always, the safety of our customers’ payloads is our top priority, so we will continue to test until we’re satisfied that we have done all we can to ensure a successful mission outcome.”
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., recently completed two milestones for NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to make commercial human spaceflight services available for government and commercial customers.
These were the fifth and sixth milestones for SpaceX, a partner in NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP). The company is on track to complete all 14 of its CCiCap milestones by mid-2014.
In a human certification plan review May 7, SpaceX outlined all the steps the company plans to take to certify its system for crewed missions, including testing, demonstrations, analyses, inspections, verifications and training events. This was a key milestone to ensure SpaceX's integrated Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule will be safe to carry humans to and from low-Earth orbit beginning in the middle of this decade.
At its pad abort test review, SpaceX presented plans for a pad abort test, currently targeted for later this year or early next year from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida. The review successfully demonstrated the adequacy of the test plan objectives and the pad abort scenario.
"The beauty of having the pad abort test review was it allowed both NASA and SpaceX to start coalescing toward an understanding of what will be tested and how we'll measure success," said Ed Mango, NASA's CCP manager. "We're really looking forward to seeing SpaceX's pad abort system take off from along Florida's Space Coast."
During the upcoming pad abort test, SpaceX will perform a recovery operation following a simulated Falcon 9 anomaly. Plans call for the company to put one of its Dragon capsules on a launch pad test stand, countdown to T-0, ignite the system's SuperDraco abort engines and initiate a separation command. At around 5,000 feet, the spacecraft's parachutes will deploy resulting in a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
"The key thing for me," he begins, "is to develop the technology to transport large numbers of people and cargo to Mars. That's the ultimate awesome thing." Musk envisages a colony with 80,000 people on the red planet. "But of course we must pay the bills along the way. So that means serving important customers like Nasa, launching commercial broadcasting communication satellites, GPS satellites, mapping, science experiments. "There's no rush in the sense that humanity's doom is imminent; I don't think the end is nigh. But I do think we face some small risk of calamitous events. It's sort of like why you buy car or life insurance. It's not because you think you'll die tomorrow, but because you might."
Musk does not look the stereotypical plutocrat. He wears jeans and a T-shirt and sits behind a rather ordinary desk overlooking a car park, beyond which is Hawthorne, California's answer to Slough. He occupies the corner of a ground-floor, open-plan office that barely constitutes a cubicle. Walk just 40 metres, however, and there is a sight to quicken the pulse: SpaceX's factory, a 1m sq ft sprawl where engineers and technicians work on rockets, propulsion systems and casings for satellites. Suspended over the entrance is the cone-shaped capsule of Dragon, which last year became the first commercial vehicle in history to successfully dock with the International Space Station. SpaceX's next step is to fly humans, up to seven per Dragon, starting between 2015-17.
It takes me a moment to realise it's not a rhetorical question. Um, poison the barbarians' water supply, I joke. Musk smiles and shakes his head. The answer is in technology. "The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We're obviously in a very upward cycle right now and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not. There could be some series of events that cause that technology level to decline. Given that this is the first time in 4.5bn years where it's been possible for humanity to extend life beyond Earth, it seems like we'd be wise to act while the window was open and not count on the fact it will be open a long time."
The SpaceX factory is vast and employs 3,000 people but is remarkably clean, bright and quiet. Technicians are casually dressed in shorts or jeans, sneakers or sandals. One group checks on a Falcon 9 launch system; across the corridor another works on protective fairings to encase cargo; a few yards from that a guy with goggles produces spare parts from a 3D printer; in a sealed lab next door colleagues with hairnets and blue coats inspect equipment for a launch later this year, the company's third supply mission for Nasa.
The factory exudes Silicon Valley's no-fuss ethos, a streamlined contrast to Nasa bureaucracy and bloat. The space agency, having retired its shuttle fleet, increasingly outsources launch services to Musk. SpaceX's focus on reusable technology has slashed costs – the company says it can get an astronaut to the space station for $20m, versus $70m charged by Russia for a seat on a Soyuz rocket. SpaceX is testing reusable prototype rockets that can return to Earth intact, rather than burn up in the atmosphere. If successful, rockets could be reused like aeroplanes, cutting the price of a space mission to just $200,000, for fuel.
A private U.S. space shuttle has successfully undergone ground tests in California designed to assess the spacecraft's braking and landing systems, NASA said.
Dream Chaser -- being developed by Sierra Nevada Corp. -- is being tested under NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which is facilitating the development of American-made spacecraft and rocket combinations that can launch from U.S. soil.
A pickup truck pulled the flight vehicle across concrete runways at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base at speeds of 10, 20, 40 and 60 mph to verify the integrity of spacecraft's performance under landing and rollout conditions.
"The dedicated Dream Chaser team has been putting the test spacecraft through comprehensive integrated testing on the runway, ramps and hangar of the historic California site, finding issues on the ground and addressing them in preparation for upcoming free flights," said Cheryl McPhillips, NASA Partner Manager working with Sierra Nevada Corp..
The tests were the fourth in a series of taxi tow tests.
SpaceX and Tesla Motors founder Elon Musk has often been compared to a real life version of Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. Director Jon Favreau has even openly said that Musk inspired his depiction of Stark in the first Iron Man film. But now it seems as though the imitation has come full circle: Musk tweeted last night that he'd "figured out how to design rocket parts just w[ith] hand movements," and would post a video of the process "next week." Favreau tweeted at Musk asking: "Like in Iron Man?" And Musk responded in the affirmative.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants to put humans on Mars in the next 10 to 15 years.
Renowned astrophysicist and StarTalk Radio host Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't think a private enterprise, such as SpaceX, could ever lead a space frontier.
"It's not possible. Space is dangerous. It's expensive. There are unquantified risks," Neil deGrasse Tyson tells us. "Combine all of those under one umbrella; you cannot establish a free market capitalization of that enterprise."
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