SpaceX launch vehicles

SpaceX manufactures launch vehicles to operate its launch provider services and to execute its various exploration goals. SpaceX manufactures and operates two members of the Falcon 9 family, the Falcon 9 Block 5 medium-lift launch vehicle and the Falcon Heavy heavy-lift launch vehicle – both of which are powered by SpaceX Merlin engines and employ VTVL technologies to reuse the first stage. As of 2024, the company is also developing the fully reusable Starship launch system, which will replace Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Dragon.[1]

SpaceX's first launch vehicle, the Falcon 1, was the first privately developed liquid fueled launch vehicle to be launched into orbit, and used SpaceX's Merlin and Kestrel engines for its first and second stages, respectively. It was launched five times from Omelek Island between 2006 and 2009 – the Falcon 1e and Falcon 5 variants were planned but never developed. The Falcon 9 v1.0, using upgraded Merlin engines on both its stages, was developed as part of the United States Air Force's Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program and NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. It was first launched from Cape Canaveral in 2010 and later replaced by the Falcon 9 v1.1 series in 2013, which was also launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Falcon 9 Full Thrust and Falcon Heavy variants followed in 2015 and 2018. Falcon Heavy launches from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and Falcon 9 additionally launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and Vandenberg.

Nomenclature

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, has stated that the Falcon 1, 9, and Heavy are named after the Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars film series.[2]

Launch vehicles

Falcon Heavy

Falcon Heavy (FH) is a super heavy lift space launch vehicle designed and manufactured by SpaceX. The Falcon Heavy is a variant of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle comprising three Falcon 9 first stages: a reinforced center core, and two additional side boosters. All three boosters are capable of being recovered and reused, although most flights use unrecoverable stripped-down center cores to increase performance. The side boosters assigned to Falcon Heavy's first flight were recovered from two prior Falcon 9 missions. SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon Heavy on February 6, 2018, delivering a payload comprising Musk's personal Tesla Roadster onto a trajectory reaching the orbit of Mars.[3]

Falcon 9 "Full Thrust"

The "Full Thrust" version of Falcon 9 is an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 v1.1. It was used the first time on December 22, 2015, for the ORBCOMM-2 launch at Cape Canaveral SLC-40 launch pad.

In development

Starship

Retired

Falcon 1

The Falcon 1 was a small, planned to be partially reusable rocket capable of placing several hundred kilograms into low earth orbit.[8] It also functioned as a testbed for developing concepts and components for the larger Falcon 9.[8] Initial Falcon 1 flights were launched from the US government's Reagan Test Site 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.[9]

On March 26, 2006, the Falcon 1's maiden flight failed only seconds after leaving the pad due to a fuel line rupture.[10][11]

Cancelled

Falcon 1e

The Falcon 1e was a proposed upgrade of the SpaceX Falcon 1. The Falcon 1e would have featured a larger first stage with a higher thrust engine, an upgraded second stage engine, a larger payload fairing, and was intended to be partially reusable. Its first launch was planned for mid-2011,[32] but the Falcon 1 and Falcon 1e were withdrawn from the market, with SpaceX citing "limited demand," before its debut.[33][34] Payloads that would have flown on the Falcon 1 were instead to be flown on the Falcon 9 using excess capacity.[35]

The Falcon 1e was to be 6.1 m longer than the Falcon 1, with an overall length of 27.4 m, but with the same 1.68 m diameter. Its first stage had a dry mass of 5680 lb, and was powered by an upgraded

Competitive position

SpaceX Falcon rockets are being offered to the launch industry at highly competitive prices, allowing SpaceX to build a large manifest of over 50 launches by late 2013, with two-thirds of them for commercial customers exclusive of US government flights.[52]

In the US launch industry, SpaceX prices its product offerings well below its competition. Nevertheless, "somewhat incongruously, its primary US competitor, United Launch Alliance (ULA), still maintained (in early 2013) that it requires a large annual subsidy, which neither SpaceX nor Orbital Sciences receives, in order to remain financially viable, with the reason cited as a lack of market opportunity, a stance which seems to be in conflict with the market itself.Citation Needed "[53]

SpaceX launched its first satellite to geostationary orbit in December 2013 (SES-8) and followed that a month later with its second, Thaicom 6, beginning to offer competition to the European and Russian launch providers that had been the major players in the commercial

Comparison

For Falcon 1 Flights 3 through 5. Merlin 1A was used for Falcon 1 Flights 1 and 2.[87]

External links

References

Eric Berger. SpaceX president predicts rapid increase in Starship launch rate Ars Technica, November 18, 2024, retrieved November 18, 2024^
Joseph Gordon-Levitt at SpaceX Youtube^
William Harwood. SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch puts on spectacular show in maiden flight

Falcon 9 v1.1

On September 8, 2005, SpaceX announced the development of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has nine Merlin engines in its first stage. The design is an EELV-class vehicle, intended to compete with the Delta IV and the Atlas V, along with launchers of other nations as well. Both stages were designed for reuse. A similarly designed Falcon 5 rocket was also envisioned to fit between[15] the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9, but development was dropped to concentrate on the Falcon 9.[16]

The first version of the Falcon 9, Falcon 9 v1.0, was developed in 2005–2010, and flew five orbital missions in 2010–2013. The second version of the launch system—Falcon 9 v1.1—has been retired meanwhile.

Falcon 9 v1.1 was developed in 2010–2013, and made its maiden flight in September 2013. The Falcon 9 v1.1 is 60 percent heavier, with 60 percent more thrust than the v1.0 version of the Falcon 9. It includes realigned first-stage engines[17] and 60 percent longer fuel tanks, making it more susceptible to bending during flight.[18] The engines themselves have been upgraded to the more powerful Merlin 1D. These improvements increased the payload capability from 10450 to 13150 kg.

The stage separation system has been redesigned and reduces the number of attachment points from twelve to three,[18] and the vehicle has upgraded avionics and software.[18]

The new first stage was also supposed to be used as side boosters on the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle.[19]

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 November 22, 2008, the stand tested the nine Merlin 1C engines of the Falcon 9, which deliver 350 tf of thrust, well under the stand's capacity of 1,500 tf.[20]

The first Falcon 9 vehicle was integrated at Cape Canaveral on December 30, 2008. NASA was planning for a flight to take place in January 2010;[21] however the maiden flight was postponed several times and took place on June 4, 2010.[22] At 2:50pm EST (14:50 ET), 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.[23] The original NASA contract called for the COTS Demo Flight 1 to occur the second quarter of 2008;[24] this flight was delayed several times, occurring at 15:43 GMT on December 8, 2010.[25] The rocket successfully deployed an operational Dragon spacecraft at 15:53 GMT.[25] 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.[26] With Dragon's safe recovery, SpaceX became 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.[26] The first flight of the Falcon 9 v1.1 was September 29, 2013, from Vandenberg Air Force Base carrying several payloads including Canada's CASSIOPE technology demonstration satellite.

Falcon 9 Air

Falcon 9 Air would have been an air-launched multi-stage launch vehicle under development by SpaceX in 2011–2012. Falcon 9 Air was to be carried to launch position and launch altitude by a Stratolaunch Systems carrier aircraft, the world's largest aircraft by wingspan. Payload to low Earth orbit was projected to be 6100 kg.

Propulsion for the rocket was planned to be provided by four Merlin 1D rocket engines, engines that were also to be used in the Falcon 9 v1.1 beginning in 2013, and also on the Falcon Heavy in 2014. Its first flight was notionally planned for 2016.

In December 2011 Stratolaunch Systems announced that it would contract with SpaceX to develop an air-launched, multiple-stage launch vehicle, as a derivative of Falcon 9 technology, called the Falcon 9 Air,[44] as part of the Stratolaunch project.[45] As initially conceived with the SpaceX Falcon 9 Air (F9A) launch vehicle, Stratolaunch was to initially place satellites of up to 6100 kg into low Earth orbit; and once established as a reliable system, announced that it would explore a human-rated version.[46] The system can take off from airfields with a minimum 3700 m length, and the F9A carrier aircraft was proposed to travel to a launch point up to 2200 km away from the airfield and fly at a launch altitude of 9100 m.[45]

A month after the initial announcement, Stratolaunch confirmed that the first stage of the F9A launch vehicle would have only four engines, not the five that were shown in the mission video in December, and that they would be SpaceX Merlin 1D engines.[47]

As initially announced, Stratolaunch Systems was a collaborative project that included subcontractors SpaceX, Scaled Composites, and Dynetics, with funding provided by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen's Vulcan investment and project management company.[48] Stratolaunch set out to build a mobile launch system with three primary components: a carrier aircraft (aircraft concept was designed by Burt Rutan, but the aircraft will be designed 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.[46] The whole system will be the largest aircraft ever built; with the first test flight of the carrier aircraft originally expected in 2015 from Scaled Composites' facilities in Mojave, California,[46] while the first test launch of the rocket was not expected before 2016 at the time of the project getting underway.[49]

As the Stratolaunch development program progressed, it became clear that Stratolaunch and the system integrator, Dynetics, wanted modifications to the SpaceX basic launch-vehicle design that SpaceX felt were not strategic to the direction they were growing the company. These included requested modifications to the launch vehicle to add chines.

Development ceased in the fourth quarter of 2012, as SpaceX and Stratolaunch "amicably agreed to end [their] contractual relationship because the [Stratolaunch] launch vehicle design [had] departed significantly from the Falcon derivative vehicle envisioned by SpaceX and does not fit well with [SpaceX's] long-term strategic business model".

On November 27, 2012, Stratolaunch announced that they would partner with Orbital Sciences Corporation—initially on an air-launched vehicle study contract—instead of SpaceX, effectively ending development of the Falcon 9 Air.[50]

In May 2013, the Falcon 9 Air was eventually replaced in the development plan by the Orbital Sciences Pegasus II air-launched rocket.[51]