SpaceX status as it stands

As an offering of respite from the space community's froth over Obama's impending 2011 budget I've decided to present a post about the biggest face on the New Space world, SpaceX. As a result of some conversations I've had in the past few weeks regarding SpaceX I've gone back to much of my prior reading and commenting and tried to tease out a status report on SpaceX from the various Musk interviews, SpaceX press releases, and commentary from the journalsphere and blogosphere. And here's what I've arrived at:

Falcon 9:
Maiden flight is set for March 8 at the earliest. A four hour window is slotted for that day provided they are actually ready to launch. All components are currently at the cape facility for the first time. The rocket is set to be assembled by mid-February to begin pre-flight checkouts. Negotiations are already underway with the Air Force for the proper countdown procedures for the flight. This is necessary due to it being under Air Force jurisdiction. A few minor adjustments to the launch pad are also near completion.

COTS flight 1:
Musk's statements to This Week in Space suggest a flight-ready model of Dragon is set to fly later this summer. That's what the spacex.com flight manifest suggests as well, which is a good sign.

Manned Dragon:
Future plans of entrepreneurial rocket companies always get a little more murky. Regarding manned Dragon, Musk has consistently maintained that Falcon9/Dragon are slotted to be manned programs and are designed to fit NASA's published requirements from day 1. NASA officials, particularly the ASAP safety commission, have come out with statements to the contrary. But Musk's statements shortly after the recent ASAP assessment rebut those claims pretty soundly. Essentially no checking had been performed on SpaceX's safety designs and as Musk has claimed for a few years now and I have stated also, Falcon 9/Dragon are far closer to completion than Ares I/Orion. That gives more to go on for a safety assessment, especially since Ares I is, as Musk points out, not even finished from a design perspective. Falcon 9, however, is on the pad. Furthermore Dragon is slotted to have three demo flights and a dozen or so cargo delivery flights to ISS before anyone ever launches on it, a claim also not made by the Ares I/Orion team who plan to put humans on board shortly after the first flight or two.

Speaking to the timeline for manned Dragon, the main contingency is the escape system. I was excited back in June '09 to hear him give a 2-3 year window to the Augustine panel. However I was somewhat concerned with the phrase "from when NASA says go" appended to it. Musk had, prior to that point, not mentioned a timeline and to have the one public mention tied to a government contingency gave me some worry that the 'we'll build it no matter what' attitude from Musk so far had given way to the same dependency strategy seen by government space contractors so far. The Week in Space interview repeated his 2-3 year timeline multiple times, notably sans NASA contingency. Again, there is a new concern here as it's the same timeline he gave over half a year ago. I'm really splitting hairs on the wording and I'm sure we're dealing with a 'cigar is a cigar' issue, but I think close attention to detail is in order here. Either way, we're talking a manned capsule by 2013 (year three is a built in engineering buffer per his Augustine appearance).

Falcon 9 Heavy:
Again, while the concept of F9 heavy is well known and described on SpaceX.com and elsewhere, timelines are a bit scarce. The one tidbit comes from Rob Coppinger's fantastic recordings of the UK's Royal Aeronautical Society meeting in July of '08. Musk came out at that meeting putting a two year timeline on F9 Heavy after F9 mark 1 sees flight. Essentially we'd be talking 2012 as F9 is within a month or two of it's maiden flight. Granted a year and a half offers a lot of opportunity for a change in plans and market conditions as well as possible engineering troubles with F9, but that's encouraging. F9 Heavy could offer the kind of lift needed to go outside LEO. Current targets put it's capability to LEO as higher than any other rocket flying and behind only the Saturn series and the ill-fated N1 for rockets that have ever flown. While many estimates SpaceX has made have fallen short, lift capacity has been on target or exceeded thus far.

Dragon Lunar:
Again, the best source is the RAS meeting in '08. Little mention was really made of it at the time, but a target of $80 million for a manned cislunar flight was put out there by Musk. No timeline was set, but Musk discussed the abilities of PICA-X to survive lunar reentry. He has made no secrets of his intent to push his program beyond LEO and out to Mars. As to whether or not that was an off-the-top-of-his-head prediction or if it was based on a live program currently in development at SpaceX is unknown from what I can see. SpaceX is far more out there than other New Space organizations, but he still keeps some details close to the vest. Note, however, that while Coppinger over at Hyperbola makes mention of the $80 million target from that press conference, he missed a few minutes of recording including, it seems, the lunar Dragon discussion. So we're left to take Rob's word for it.


RAS recordings - http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/hyperbola/2008/07/audio-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-spe.html

Musk's Augustine discussion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O81Zq02eStg

Spaceflight Now's update on Falcon 9 progress - http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/001/100129arrival/

This Week in Space interview with Musk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifwFa5DtIps&feature=player_embedded