If you had polled the attitudes of the people watching the launch of the first Falcon 9 on Friday, the most common feeling leading up to liftoff might be something like “hoping for [...]]]>

The Falcon 9 lifts off at 2:45 pm EDT Friday from Cape Canaveral, as seen in this screen capture from the SpaceX webcast.

If you had polled the attitudes of the people watching the launch of the first Falcon 9 on Friday, the most common feeling leading up to liftoff might be something like “hoping for the best but expecting the worst”. People wanted SpaceX to succeed with the Falcon 9 on Friday, but know that first launches of new rockets had no guarantee of success—something that Elon Musk and SpaceX impressed upon the community leading up to the launch.

So when the Falcon 9 lifted off at 2:45 pm EDT today and soared into the skies, eventually placing a demonstration Dragon capsule into nearly the planned orbit, the reaction was something approaching euphoria, even by Musk himself. “It’s been one of the best days of my life,” he said in a teleconference with reporters a couple of hours after the launch. “It’s certainly been one of the greatest days for the people of SpaceX.”

The launch had some drama, as well. The launch window opened at 11 am, but because of problems with an antenna for the rocket’s newly-approved flight termination system, they weren’t ready to launch until 1:30 pm. In the final seconds of the countdown, though, just as the nine rocket engines were about to ignite, the launch was aborted.

Musk said the abort was caused by a reading from an igniter on engine number three on the first stage. “The pressure rise on engine three was higher than expected,” he said, triggering the abort. “We looked at the data and concluded that… we were being a little too conservative” in the allowable values for the pressure in the engine. “So we widened that band [of allowable values], reconfigured the engine three computer, and it lifted off without a problem.”

About the only discernable problem during the launch was a roll in the second stage that appeared to speed up as the burn continued. “There was a little more roll than expected. It didn’t affect the mission,” Musk said. “That is definitely something that we want to refine,” he said, adding they didn’t immediately know the reasons for the roll.

So how did the launch feel, Elon? “When the rocket achieved orbit, there was tremendous relief and elation at SpaceX,” he said. “Upon liftoff there was sort of relief that it cleared the pad; things were obviously extremely tense here.” And his plans to celebrate? “I think with a lot of margaritas.”

After consuming those drinks, Musk and his team plans to spend about a month reviewing the data from the launch to fully characterize it and look for any issues (in addition to the second stage roll) that need to be corrected. Musk said he still planned to launch the next Falcon 9 mission, the first of three planned NASA COTS missions, later this summer. The Falcon 9 for that mission has already been built and is sitting in Texas ready to ship to the Cape; the Dragon spacecraft that it will launch is undergoing final reviews.

If all goes as planned, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will lift off Friday from Cape Canaveral on a mission to demonstrate the capabilities of the new launch vehicle. However, the problem with new launch vehicles is that things often [...]]]>

Falcon 9 on the pad at Cape Canaveral for a static test firing earlier this year.

If all goes as planned, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will lift off Friday from Cape Canaveral on a mission to demonstrate the capabilities of the new launch vehicle. However, the problem with new launch vehicles is that things often don’t go as planned, a concern not just for SpaceX but for the broader commercial spaceflight industry at a key time for it.

SpaceX CEO and CTO Elon Musk was well aware of the difficulties of launching new rockets, something he and SpaceX have already gone through with the smaller Falcon 1, which failed to reach orbit on its first three launches. “Historically, I think it might be something like a 50/50 shot of the first flight succeeeding,” he said in a teleconference with reporters Thursday, referring to the historical record of first launches of new rockets.

He does feel a little more optimistic about the chances of success with Falcon 9, citing the company’s experience and heritage of some Falcon 9 components on the Falcon 1. “My personal assessment of the likelihood of success is probably 70-80 percent,” he said. He did have a colorful way of putting that into perspective. “I should point out that this is less than the probability of success in Russian roulette,” he noted. (Assuming success in Russian roulette is defined as not getting a bullet, you have a 5 out of 6, or 83%, chance of getting an empty chamber.) “So if anybody remembers that scene from The Deer Hunter, that’s tomorrow.”

Well, that’s one way to look at it. It’s also worth noting that success is not a binary condition for this test flight: there’s a spectrum of outcomes between complete success and complete failure. “One hundred percent success would be reaching orbit” with the model of the Dragon spacecraft the rocket is carrying, Musk said. “But I think that, given that this is a test flight, whatever percentage of getting to orbit we achieve would still be considered a good day.” He added it would be a “great day” if both stages work correctly.

SpaceX is finally ready to launch the Falcon 9, having overcome the last obstacle to launch, the certification by the Air Force of a flight termination system that would be used if the rocket veers off course and has to be destroyed. Getting that approved took much longer than SpaceX anticipated. “There were I think some elements of it we underestimated, some elements that our suppliers underestimated,” he said.

If this launch was just about SpaceX it would be one thing: the company has been through the process of developing and testing a launch vehicle before, and from their accounts seem prepared for a failure, either partial or total. However, the launch also comes at a time when commercial spaceflight has been thrust into the political spotlight by plans by the Obama Administration to have NASA rely more on commercial launch providers, including a $6-billion initiative to develop commercial crew capabilities. That has put a lot of scrutiny on this launch from those skeptical of, or outright opposed to, the president’s plans.

“I feel like sort of a political punching bag, a whipping boy, I suppose,” Musk said. “The opponents of the commercial approach have taken a very calculated strategy of attacking SpaceX” while ignoring alternative vehicles, like United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets, that have already demonstrated the ability to safely launch spacecraft on more than 30 missions since 2002.

The Falcon 9 launch, he continued, “should not be a verdict on commercial space. Commercial space is the only way forward” because of the unsustainably high costs of government programs. He later said that “if some company like SpaceX doesn’t succeed, then the future of space is not a bright one.”

SpaceX will be webcasting the launch starting at 10:40 am EDT (1440 GMT) Friday, 20 minutes before the four-hour launch window opens. They also have the same time block reserved on Saturday should the get scrubbed Friday by technical issues or the weather. In addition, Spaceflight Now will have its own webcast featuring Miles O’Brien, David Waters, and former astronaut Leroy Chiao starting at 10 am EDT.

One of the most intriguing NewSpace companies is Blue Origin, perhaps because they’re also one of the most secretive. Backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos—and thus without the [...]]]>

Illustration of Blue Origin's orbital crew vehicle, designed to be launched on an Atlas 5, as shown on a NASA slide at an FAA conference last week.

One of the most intriguing NewSpace companies is Blue Origin, perhaps because they’re also one of the most secretive. Backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos—and thus without the funding concerns of many other companies in this field—the company has been working for several years on its “New Shepard” vehicle that takes off and lands vertically. While the company has done a few test flights in 2006-2007 that required experimental permits from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, it hasn’t done any such flights recently, and speculation continues about what the company is, or isn’t, up to, and how long it might be before they have a vehicle flying.

The company has been closely guarded, revealing few details about its developments: its posting in January 2007 about its first test flight (which took place the previous November) has been its biggest bit of publicity. Those who have gotten a look inside the company, though, have been duly impressed. One of those is Dan Rasky of NASA Ames, who visited the company as part of an effort to develop a technology roadmap for commercial RLVs. “I joke with people that if you want to see what a billionaire’s clubhouse looks like, go visit Blue Origin,” he said at a public workshop last week in Washington.

However, Blue Origin isn’t quite as black as it has been. Late last year they announced that they has selected three investigations that would be the first suborbital research payloads the company plans to fly. At that time the company said that the crewed flight opportunities for New Shepard would be in 2012, with the possibility of flying remote-controller or autonomous payloads as early as 2011.

More recently, the company won a small contract from NASA’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program that has provided a bit more of a peek of what the company is up to. The $3.7-million contract covers the development of two items: work on “pusher” launch escape system and a composite pressure vessel. The escape system would use thrusters below a crew cabin that pushes the cabin away from its launcher in the event of a malfunction, instead of the “tractor” escape systems mounted on top of a crew capsule that pulls it away; the company had been planning something like that for its New Shepard vehicle, whose crew module is designed to separate from the propulsion module and land separately. A composite pressure vessel would, most likely, provide a lighter-weight option for any sort of vehicle that Blue Origin might be developing.

What is interesting is that Blue Origin is actively looking beyond suborbital spaceflight to orbital missions. Proof of that came in a presentation last week by Alan Lindenmoyer, who managers NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Programs, including CCDev. Speaking at the FAA Commercial Space Transportation Conference in Washington, he presented slides describing all five CCDev awards, including for Blue Origin. The Blue Origin slide, shown below, revealed that the company was proposing a “bi-conic space vehicle” that could be launched on an Atlas 5 402, a variant of the Atlas 5 with two Centaur engines in its upper stage and no strap-on solid rocket boosters. The slide notes that the composite pressure vessel that would be tested under the CCDev contract would be structural test article of their planned suborbital vehicle “as a subscale demonstrator for the orbital Space Vehicle”.

Blue Origin CCDev award details

Robert Milliman of Blue Origin, who was present at the February 2 NASA press conference in Washington where NASA unveiled the CCDev winners, as well as existing COTS/CRS awardees Orbital Sciences and SpaceX, didn’t provide many details about what the company’s plans were. “The [Blue Origin] team is dedicated to creating technologies for an enduring human presence in space,” he said before briefly describing the technologies funded under their CCDev award.

In very brief comments after the press conference, he said that Blue Origin was still focused on its suborbital program right now, proceeding “step by step”. He didn’t provide any specifics, such as schedule, about the company’s development of New Shepard or any future orbital vehicle, other than to say that flight tests are “coming up”.

It’s not surprising that Blue Origin sees suborbital as a step towards orbital flight, although the concept they proposed for their CCDev contract indicates that, at least in the relatively near term, they’re less likely to scale up New Shepard into an orbital vehicle than use some of that technology for a crewed vehicle that could be launched on an ELV.

A Blue Origin representative is scheduled to speak Thursday at the Next-Generation Suborbital Research Conference in Boulder, Colorado. Maybe we’ll learn a few more details about their vehicle plans. And maybe not.

We do now, though, have [...]]]> The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) made an unusual announcement Monday: it would hold a press conference Thursday morning about the first Canadian space tourist, who would perform “the first philanthropic mission to the International Space Station”. The identity of that person, and the nature of that mission, were not immediately disclosed.

We do now, though, have a better idea of at least who will be going. NASA Watch first reported Tuesday morning that the tourist is Guy Laliberté, the founder of Cirque du Soleil. With a net worth as high as $2.5 billion, he certain has the means to pay for such a trip; moreover, this year is the 25th anniversary of the founding of Cirque. The Canadian Press also confirmed it was Laliberté, citing “a source close to the mission”.

Whoever the mystery Canadian customer is, he’ll be flying to the ISS on the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft, scheduled for launch in late September on a regular taxi mission to the ISS. Space Adventures announced in April that a seat on that mission might be available since a Kazakh cosmonaut scheduled to fly had apparently been removed by the Russian space agency. At an April press telecon Eric Anderson didn’t indicate who it would be or how long they would have to fill the seat. Also unclear now is how much time, if any, Laliberté has spent training in Russia already.

Another area of interest is what the CSA’s role is in this mission. They are participating in the press conference, with CSA president Steve Maclean scheduled to speak. Canada’s standing on the ISS is higher now than ever, with Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk already on the station for a long-duration mission and another Canadian, Julie Payette, scheduled to visit the station later this month on the STS-127 shuttle mission.