The Falcon rocket family is a set of launch vehicles developed and operated by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). The vehicles in this family include the flight-tested Falcon 1 and Falcon 9. The Falcon 1 made its first successful flight on 28 September 2008, after several failures on the initial attempts. The larger Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV)-class Falcon 9 flew successfully into orbit on its maiden launch on 4 June 2010. The Falcon 9 is eventually intended to be a reusable vehicle. SpaceX is currently in production of the prototype Falcon Heavy and is in development for the Stratolaunch Systems air-launched space-booster, a Falcon 9-derivative with four or five engines. Other designs for boosters with even larger payload lifting capabilities are currently being researched, but have not yet been funded.
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On 8 September 2005, SpaceX announced the development of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has nine Merlin engines in its first stage.[1] The design is an EELV-class vehicle, intended to compete with the Delta IV and the Atlas V rockets. Both stages were designed for reuse. A similarly designed Falcon 5 rocket was also envisioned to fit between the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, but development was dropped to concentrate on the Falcon 9.[1]
The company purchased the McGregor, Texas, testing facilities of defunct Beal Aerospace, where it refitted the largest test stand at the facilities for Falcon 9 testing. On 22 November 2008, the stand tested the nine Merlin 1C engines of the Falcon 9, which deliver 350 metric-tons-force (3.4-meganewtons) of thrust, well under the stand's capacity of 1,500 metric-tons-force (15 meganewtons).[2]
The first Falcon 9 vehicle was integrated at Cape Canaveral on 30 December 2008. NASA was planning for a flight to take place in January 2010;[3] however the maiden flight was postponed several times and took place on 4 June 2010.[4] At 2:50pm EST the Falcon 9 rocket successfully reached orbit.
The second flight for the Falcon 9 vehicle was the COTS Demo Flight 1, the first launch under the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract designed to provide "seed money" for development of new boosters.[5] The original NASA contract called for the COTS Demo Flight 1 to occur the second quarter of 2008;[6] this flight was delayed several times, occurring at 1543 GMT on 8 December 2010.[7] The rocket successfully deployed an operational Dragon spacecraft at 1553 GMT.[7] Dragon orbited the Earth twice, and then made a controlled reentry burn that put it on target for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico.[8] With Dragon's safe recovery, SpaceX become the first private company to launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft; prior to this mission, only government agencies had been able to recover orbital spacecraft.[8]
According to the original schedule, in the third flight the Falcon 9 would help the Dragon perform a flyby past the ISS. The fourth flight would include a complete docking with the ISS.[6] However, after the success of the first mission, NASA conditionally agreed on 15 July 2011 that the two flights would be combined. The next Dragon mission will now see a docking with the ISS.[9] On 9 December 2011, NASA formally approved the merger of the COTS 2 and 3 missions into the COTS 2 flight, but yet again delayed the tentative launch date by another month to 7 February 2012.[10]
Falcon 1e is an upgraded version of the Falcon 1 with a larger fairing and payload mass. By December 2010, Falcon 1e has replaced the services of Falcon 1 though it has yet to make a physical debut[11]. Continued development and use of the Falcon 1/1e have been stagnant while the company focuses on the Falcon 9/Dragon program.[12]
The Falcon 1 is a small, partially reusable rocket capable of placing several hundred kilograms into low earth orbit.[13] It also functioned as a testbed for developing concepts and components for the larger Falcon 9.[13] Initial Falcon 1 flights were launched from the US government's Reagan Test Center on the island atoll of Kwajalein in the Pacific Ocean, and represented the first attempt to fly a ground-launched rocket to orbit from that site.[14]
On 26 March 2006, the Falcon 1's maiden flight failed only seconds after leaving the pad due to a fuel line rupture.[15][15] After almost a full-year, the second flight was launched on 22 March 2007 and also ended in failure, due to spin stablization problem that automatically caused sensors to turn off the Merlin first stage engine.[14] The third Falcon 1 flight used a new regenerative cooling system for the first stage Merlin engine, and its development was responsible the almost 17-month flight delay.[16] The new cooling system turned out to be the major reason the mission failed; because the first stage rammed into the second stage engine bell at staging, due to excess fuel, left over from the cooling system, powering the engine a few seconds longer than it was supposed to.[16] On 28 September 2008, the Falcon 1 succeeded in reaching orbit on its fourth attempt, becoming the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket to do so.[17] The Falcon 1 carried its first successful commercial payload into orbit on 13 July 2009, on its fifth launch.[18]
A Falcon 5 launcher was planned, but its development was stopped in favor of the Falcon 9.[19] Like the Falcon 9, it was slated to be human-rated and reusable.[19] Its design may be incorporated for use in the Stratolaunch Systems air-launch system, because SpaceX has the contract to provide the launch vehicle technology, which has similar preliminary specifications to the 2006 version of the Falcon 5.[20]
SpaceX also plans to develop a Heavy configuration, using a cluster of three Falcon 9 first stages with 27 uprated Merlin 1D engines and propellant cross-feed.[21] SpaceX is aiming for the first demo flight of the Falcon Heavy in 2013.[21]
On 13 December 2011 SpaceX, and its partners, announced that it would develop an air-launched, four or five engine, multiple-stage launch vehicle, based on the Falcon 9 booster, called the Falcon 9 Air[22] as part of the Stratolaunch Systems project.[23] Stratolaunch will initially place satellites of up to 6,100 kg (13,000 pounds) into low-earth orbit; and once it is established as a reliable system, a human-rated version will also be explored.[24] The system can take-off from airfields with a minimum 3,700 m (12,100 feet) length, and the carrier aircraft is supposed to fly to 9,100 m (30,000 feet) and travel to a launch point up to 2,200 km (1,200 nautical miles) away from the airfield.[23] For the human-rated version, no exact details have been released on what spacecraft will be used; however, it will use a feathered-return, low-drag reentry system similar to Scaled Composites's sub-orbital SpaceShipOne spacecraft.[24]
Stratolaunch Systems is a collaborative project that includes SpaceX, Scaled Composites, and Dynetics, with funding by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen's Vulcan investment and project management company.[25] The start up will build a mobile launch system with three primary components: a carrier aircraft to be designed by Burt Rutan and built by Scaled Composites; a multi-stage launch vehicle to be developed and built by SpaceX; and a mating and integration system — allowing the carrier aircraft to safely carry and release the booster — to be built by Dynetics, a Huntsville, Alabama-based engineering company.[24] The whole system will be the largest aircraft ever built; with the first test flight of the carrier aircraft expected in 2015 from Scaled Composites' facilities in Mojave, California,[24] and the first test launch of the rocket not expected before 2016.[20]
SpaceX revealed in a June 2009 AIAA presentation a plan for the Raptor project to create a higher performance LOX/liquid hydrogen second stage for Falcon 9.[26]
In a presentation to the Joint Propulsion Conference in July 2010, SpaceX revealed preliminary, but unfunded, design concepts for a larger Merlin 2 engine to replace the nine engine cluster used on the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy cores.[27]
The Merlin 2 would also be used on conceptual super heavy-lift launch vehicles Falcon X, Falcon X Heavy, and Falcon XX. The Falcon X would use three Merlin 2 engines, the Falcon X Heavy scaling up by tripling the first stage cores, and the Falcon XX would be even larger in-line configuration with 6 Merlin 2 engines[27]
By mid-August 2010, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk clarified that while the Merlin 2 engine architecture was a key element of any effort they would make toward their objective of "super-heavy lift" launch vehicles.[28] The potential launch vehicle design configurations shown by Markusic at the propulsion conference were merely conceptual "brainstorming ideas", just a "bunch of ideas for discussion," and not financed SpaceX projects.[28]
| Vehicles | Falcon 91 | Falcon 9 Heavy1 | Falcon X | Falcon X Heavy | Falcon XX |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cores | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Engines (per core) | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| Total thrust (MN) | 5.3 | 16.0 | 16.0 | 48.0 | 45.4 |
| Mass to LEO (Mg) | 11.5 | 34.0 | 38.0 | 125.0 | 140.0 |
1Conceptial Merlin 2 versions, unrelated to normal Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
Table sourced from Aviation Week.[29] [30]
| Launcher Versions | Falcon 1 | Falcon 1e | Falcon 9 | Falcon Heavy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 0 | — | — | — | 2 boosters with 9 × Merlin 1D each;[21] Cross-feeding |
| Stage 1 | 1 × Merlin 1A (2006–2007); | 1 x Merlin 1C | 9 × Merlin 1C | 9 × Merlin 1D[21] |
| Stage 2 | 1 × Kestrel | 1 x Kestrel | 1 × Merlin Vacuum | 1 × Merlin Vacuum[32] |
| Height (max; m) |
21.3 | 26.83 | 50 or 54 | 69.2[21] |
| Diameter (m) |
1.7 | 1.7 | 3.6 | 3.6[21] |
| Initial thrust (kN) |
318 | 454 | 3,400 | 17,000[21] |
| Takeoff weight (tonnes) |
27.2 | 38.56 | 325 | 1,400[21] |
| Fairing diameter (Inner; m) |
1.5 | 1.71 | 3.6 or 5.2 | 5.2[21] |
| Payload (LEO; kg) |
570 | 1010 | 9,900 | 53,000[21] |
| Payload (SSO; kg) |
— | 430 | — | — |
| Payload (GTO; kg) |
— | — | 4,900 | 19,500[21] |
| Price (2011 Mil. USD) |
$6.7 | $9.1 | 2005 announced as $27 with 3.6 m (12 ft) payload fairing; $35 with 5.2 m (17 ft) fairing to LEO.[1] 2009: $44 to LEO or $49.5 to GTO with 5.2 m (17 ft) fairing[33] |
$95 to LEO or between $55-$95 (according to Satellite Mass) to GTO[21] |
| minimal Price/kg (LEO; USD) |
11,754 | 9,010 | 4,737 | 1792 |
| minimal Price/kg (SSO; USD) |
— | 21,163 | — | — |
| minimal Price/kg (GTO; USD) |
— | — | 10,903 | 6,000 |
| Success ratio (successful/total) |
2/5 | — | 2/2 | — |
Table sourced from Space Launch Report and SpaceX Press Releases.[13][21][11][34]
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