Spaceflight
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has hoisted its Falcon 9 rocket's first-stage tank into position on the company's 77.1m (253ft)-tall concrete and steel tripod Vertical Test Stand 3 at its Texas test facility, near Waco. The move is in preparation for engine firing tests later this year. The debut launch of the 4,900kg (10,700lb) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO)-capable Falcon 9 is scheduled for the end of 2008 from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Falcon 9's first-stage tank compares in size to a Boeing 737 fuselage it is 25.8m long and has a diameter of 3.6m. An internal dome separates it into two chambers - the upper for liquid oxygen and the lower for RP-1 rocket-propellant-grade kerosene.
The 2008 launch is for the standard Falcon 9, which the company expects to be superseded by its heavy version two years later. The heavy version is designed to place 12,000kg into GTO, but it is the standard version that is being used for the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services demonstration programme and which SpaceX is offering for International Space Station resupply - and potentially crew transfer - contracts from 2010.
The ISS orbits at about 400km (250 miles) altitude in low-Earth orbit (LEO). The standard Falcon 9 can place 9,900kg into LEO from Cape Canaveral, although the standard and heavy versions have higher mass capabilities to GTO and LEO if launched from the company's Kwajalein Atoll launch site at the US Ronald Reagan ballistic missile test site in the Pacific.
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