SpaceX To Break Ground On California Launch Pad

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — An unused pad at the nation's West Coast launch complex is being retrofitted to send up the world's most powerful rocket.

Private rocket maker Space Exploration Technologies is spending between $20 million and $30 million to renovate the site that will be home to its Falcon Heavy, the largest rocket since the retired Saturn V that hurled astronauts to the moon.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk gathered with state and elected officials Wednesday for a groundbreaking ceremony at the coastal base northwest of Los Angeles.

The launch pad, built in the 1960s and remodeled over the years, has not been used since 2005, when a Titan 4 rocket last launched from there.

Crews demolished existing structures around the pad and will begin work on a massive hangar to store the Falcon Heavy, set to arrive at the base by the end of next year. Its maiden launch is scheduled for 2013.

The Hawthorne-based company will also refurbish its launch facility in Cape Canaveral, Fla., so that the heavy-lift rocket could blast off from both coasts.

SpaceX already has a NASA contract to supply the International Space Station with cargo using its smaller Falcon 9. Though the company has not yet signed customers for the Falcon Heavy, it hopes that its presence at Vandenberg will help it gain Air Force contracts.

"We're battling to compete for the Air Force launch business," Musk said the day before the groundbreaking. "We've really made headway in every market except the Air Force."

The Defense Department relies on United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., to lift its spy satellites into low-Earth orbit.

SpaceX, which takes the unusual step of publishing its launch prices, thinks it can do it more cheaply.

A launch aboard the Falcon Heavy costs between $80 million and $125 million – one third the cost of a Delta 4, according to SpaceX.

Comments

[skyshoes]

05:12 AM on 07/14/2011

Imagine if the pioneers sat around in St. Louis waiting for the government to send one Conestoga west with four highly trained pioneeranaughts on board for thirty years. But only as far as a station house some where about fifty miles or so and back. Schput-DING [sound of chewin tabacky hittin the spitoon as gabby saunters off into the distance]

[rotorhead1871]

11:52 PM on 07/13/2011

cool stuff.....lets rock USA>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[L I Beral]

05:57 PM on 07/13/2011

Do you think that a lot of people who are getting pink slips from NASA will be hired on by these new companies?

[worldtrav]

01:26 AM on 07/14/2011

Not more than half; NASA is a wasteful company whose engineers are on average worse than Russians at cost/effective access to space.

That and SpaceX is probably an equal opportunity employer - not the White Male enclave of NASA.

[jsarets]

01:44 AM on 07/14/2011

Some but not many. SpaceX is in particular snapping up veteran NASA astronauts (e.g. Ken Bowersox and Garrett Reisman) as well as lawyers and beancounters familiar with the byzantine NASA contracting processes. I've also heard they are snapping up top college grads with NASA internships.

But they aren't too fond of the rank-and-file NASA workforce, especially at the NASA centers but also at the big contractors. It's a completely different workplace culture. SpaceX runs a lot like a Silicon Valley outfit. They have a relatively flat management structure, very long hours, and plenty of pressure.

From conversations with my friend who works there, it is my impression that SpaceX is like a religion. You have to believe in the vision and you have to be totally committed. These folks won't stop working 12-hour days until they land on Mars or they burn out. It's an intellectual challenge and spiritual journey for whiz kids, not a place for parents who want to see their children grow up.

Most NASA and traditional aerospace employees aren't ready or willing to hit the ground running in a workplace like that. SpaceX employees are whipped into a frenzy on a quest to change the world and make humanity a truly space-faring civilization. It's very exciting to watch their audacious vision unfold, but it takes a certain kind of person in a certain phase of their life to live up to the expectations.

[retrievals]

01:12 PM on 07/13/2011

If America thinks space travel was expensive when run by the government, wait until they see the bill and inefficiency when for profit private contractors run our space program.

Nothing gets cheaper through privatization .

[Tom95134]

01:25 PM on 07/13/2011

If the market for the product or service is large enough then things get cheaper when privatized. This is a natural hand-off from government provided service to a private company. Just as long as the government doesn't end up paying inflated prices for the ride then I see no problem.

If Hilton Hotels (or Holiday Inn) can build and operate a space station then why shouldn't they operate it as a business.

On the other hand, business may not have the financial resources to open new frontiers and in this case it should be the government doing the exploration. Business would never had taken the chance on an investment to build the Internet. Government did as the ARPANET a government funded research project.

[Counterglow]

01:32 PM on 07/13/2011

I can see how well that privatization thing works where phone and cable...oh, wait.

[retrievals]

02:46 PM on 07/13/2011

IF Hilton wants to build vacation housing on the moon with their own money, fine.

It's when they start making additions to the space station or NASA barracks on the moon with tax dollars when it will cost 10 times natural market pricing.

[taiwanjohn]

02:51 PM on 07/13/2011

Falcon 9: payload to LEO = 10 tons; cost ~ $50M per launch
Falcon Heavy: payload to LEO = 50 tons; cost ~ $120M per launch
Space Shuttle: payload to LEO = 24 tons; cost >$1B per launch

You do the math.

I'm no fan of privatization in general, but this is one instance where it really does work better.

[retrievals]

02:56 PM on 07/13/2011

You don't understand what I'm saying.

If those were government payloads, they'd 4 billion per launch.

[Julian23]

03:30 PM on 07/13/2011

I completely agree with Taiwanjohn. His point is factual. Payload is the most critical aspect of the space program: Satellites, ISS components, Probes, rovers... the list goes on. The fact that SpaceX makes it cheaper and more efficient is a plus!

http://www.boobytech.com

[P51MUSTANG]

12:51 PM on 07/13/2011

Looks like the world's biggest tampon applicator, if you ask me.

[jsarets]

01:01 PM on 07/13/2011

Yes, rockets are phallic. Falcon Heavy is shaped like a lot of other rockets, e.g. the Titan IV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titan_IV_rocket.jpg

[L I Beral]

04:03 PM on 07/13/2011

Good eye!
It may have power, but never the class of the P51.

[edenooch]

12:07 PM on 07/13/2011

time to colonize the moon

[L I Beral]

05:48 PM on 07/13/2011

A great place to ship Boehner and McConnell.

[ThinkCreeps]

06:13 PM on 07/13/2011

Easy target. They're already in orbit.

[Jacquel Chiraco]

12:01 PM on 07/13/2011

Getting the private sector to do what the government did should be applauded, but where are the tea baggers?

[ThinkCreeps]

12:18 PM on 07/13/2011

Blaming the president for stopping NASA from hemorrhaging cash - urgently needed for science and education - into 1970s technology for good old boys in FL, AL, LA and TX by congress.

[lj9283]

12:26 PM on 07/13/2011

And they conveniently leave out the fact that the NASA Budget under the Obama Administrationin 2009 and 2010 was more than in any year of the Bush Administration, or that an additional $1 Billion was funnelled to NASA through the ARRA.

[samairclean]

12:34 PM on 07/13/2011

I'm a conservative (Not a Tea Partier) and I think it's great that the private sector is making such amazing technological strides with space exploration. Historically, technology has advanced at a quicker pace when there is cooperation between the Government and the private sector.
So we agree on that.
But why do you have to use this article as platform for a cheap political shot?
Seems petty.

[gloredon]

03:40 PM on 07/13/2011

The actual design of the Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy are not really all that innovative, technically. They''re based on a common engine designed by the Russians many years ago, with a few newer improvements to help them be more reliable.

[worldtrav]

01:39 AM on 07/14/2011

I think there is a lot of political blame for the abject failure of NASA.

The end of NASA brings into focus the reasons why the Russians have done better in Space than the uS has done.

Firster and cheaper.
True they didn't land on the moon - but the moon was a Pyrrhic victory - the Shuttle combined the high-costs of manned flight with the scale of heavy lift - a horrible math failure. NASA go to hell.

[rojcar]

11:31 AM on 07/13/2011

Great news. The only true way that we can really reach for the stars is to harness the power of the private sector. As has always been true in the past with the Railroads, Airplanes, and the modern Transistor, the best ideas always take off with technological partnerships between government, who can afford the basic research and risk, and private companies that can provide the vision and compentency. This is truly exciting news and with the Shuttle going offline, cannot happen quickly enought.

[jsarets]

11:30 AM on 07/13/2011

This is the new-look American space program. It will take a few years to play out, but the end of the Space Shuttle era is the beginning of a new generation of vehicles that will bring NASA and the American commercial space industry into the 21st century with renewed vigor.

In the Shuttle era, we couldn't go beyond low earth orbit. In the Shuttle era, commercial satellite operators wouldn't bother calling up the American launch services because they weren't even close to competitive with Russia and Europe. Today SpaceX is winning contracts left and right from satellite operators around the world. Not even China can touch SpaceX.

Falcon Heavy will lift up to 53 tons of payload to low earth orbit, which is about two and a half times the payload capacity of the Space Shuttle. The launch vehicle uses an innovative technique called propellant cross-feed to fuel all three parallel booster stages from the two outboard tanks. When the outboard stages are jettisoned, the inboard stage has a full tank of propellant left to burn. This dramatically increases the performance of the rocket.

SpaceX benefits from an extraordinary degree of vertical integration in its manufacturing processes. While other aerospace companies are outsourcing parts from subcontractors all over the world, SpaceX does as much as possible in-house at its growing complex of factories in Hawthorne, CA. For the most part, raw materials come in and finished aerospace vehicles come out. All SpaceX vehicles are made in the USA by American workers.

One of the other advances in the Falcon Heavy which will also be applied to the Falcon 9 is a new more powerful turbopump for the Merlin rocket engine. SpaceX designed and manufactures the Merlin engines in-house, but until now they've used a turbopump manufactured by Barber-Nichols. Seeking increased performance, reduced part counts, and lower costs, SpaceX is now producing a turbopump of their own design at their Hawthorne engine works. The new turbopump increases the thrust of the engine by 15% while reducing weight and cost.

The end result is that Falcon Heavy will hit the mythical price point of $1000 per pound of payload to low earth orbit which is often cited as the point at which spaceflight becomes inexpensive enough to open whole new markets. Nobody else can break $3000/lb, because nobody else builds rockets from scratch like SpaceX does, and nobody else had the courage to start from a clean sheet of paper with modern designs rather than sourcing legacy hardware from decades ago.

A new golden age of the American spaceflight is beginning, and companies like SpaceX, Bigelow, Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and Armadillo are leading the charge. What's happening right now in the American aerospace industry feels a lot like Silicon Valley in the early 1980s. It's like a dam has been breached, and there's a flood of spirited innovation surging downstream. America is back!

[mynamesyow]

01:00 PM on 07/13/2011

Great Post! thanks for all the technical and manufacturing information.
Us tech nerds enjoy it!
F&F!

[clancyben]

04:48 PM on 07/13/2011

Great post

[StansDad]

11:22 AM on 07/13/2011

Soon, PayPal, IN SPAACE

But in all seriousness, if we can keep supporting private space companies, we might see the first space station one could conceivably visit.

[jsarets]

11:52 AM on 07/13/2011

Bigelow Aerospace plans to launch the first commercial space station -- Space Complex Alpha -- in 2014 and 2015, using SpaceX Dragon and Boeing CST-100 spacecraft to transport passengers and supplies to and from the station.

Alpha will consist of three habitable modules and accommodate up to 12 people in a volume of 24,000 cubic feet. The follow-on Space Complex Bravo will come online in 2017 featuring four larger modules accommodating up to 24 people in 47,000 cubic feet.

Bigelow is also designing a much larger module called Olympus which would launch on NASA's planned SLS super-heavy rocket. This gigantic module would have 74,000 cubic feet of volume in just the one module, divided into four floor levels. Like a ten-bedroom mansion in space!

[Jack Daniels Esq]

12:06 PM on 07/13/2011

Thanks for the heads-up in concise English

[StansDad]

12:20 PM on 07/13/2011

There is no way those modules are solid metal like the ISS. How can that even fit on a super heavy lift rocket?

[blurredmolly]

09:29 AM on 07/13/2011

The stars are still within reach. This is great.