{"id":15764,"date":"2016-01-25T20:00:41","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T12:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/falcon-9-upgrade-receives-blessing-from-u-s-air-force\/"},"modified":"2016-01-25T20:00:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T12:00:41","slug":"falcon-9-upgrade-receives-blessing-from-u-s-air-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/falcon-9-upgrade-receives-blessing-from-u-s-air-force\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcon 9 upgrade receives blessing from U.S. Air Force"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SpaceX's
SpaceX\u2019s upgraded Falcon 9 rocket has flown one time, hauling 11 Orbcomm communications satellites into low Earth orbit in this Dec. 21 liftoff from Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The U.S. Air Force on Monday certified the latest version of SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket, featuring higher-thrust engines, enlarged fuel tanks and a super-chilled propellant mixture, for launches of the military\u2019s most valuable satellites.<\/p>\n

The military\u2019s formal sign-off on the upgraded Falcon 9 clears up any question that the modified launcher is eligible to compete for national security launch contracts.<\/p>\n

Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, commander of the Air Force\u2019s Space and Missile Systems Center in El Segundo, California, updated the certified baseline configuration of the Falcon 9 rocket Monday, the service said in a press release.<\/p>\n

The Air Force certified the Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket for national security space missions in May 2015, but SpaceX flew the last rocket of that configuration Jan. 17 with the launch of the U.S.-European Jason 3 oceanography satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.<\/p>\n

All future Falcon 9 launches will take off in the latest iteration of the booster, which debuted Dec. 21 with the launch of 11 Orbcomm message relay satellites from Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

The upgraded Falcon 9 stands 229 feet (70 meters) tall, about five feet (1.5 meters) taller than the Falcon 9 v1.1.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s nine Merlin 1D first stage engines collectively generate 1.5 million pounds of thrust, up from 1.3 million force-pounds produced by the engines on the Falcon 9 v1.1.<\/p>\n

A single Merlin engine on the upper stage has a maximum 210,000 pounds of thrust in vacuum. The second stage also features a lengthened Merlin engine nozzle and extended propellant tanks. The interstage connecting the Falcon 9\u2019s first and second stages is also changed to accommodate the new Merlin vacuum nozzle, which has a center pusher to aid stage separation<\/p>\n

The propellant mixture feeding the Falcon 9\u2019s engines is also adapted for higher performance.<\/p>\n

The densified liquid oxygen on the upgraded Falcon 9 is chilled to minus 340 degrees Fahrenheit, colder than typical launch-grade liquid oxygen at minus 298 degrees. The RP-1 fuel is stored at 20 degrees Fahrenheit, down from the room temperature 70-degree level more commonly used in rocketry, according to Elon Musk, SpaceX\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

The colder storage temperatures allow the launch team to load more propellant into the rocket, essentially packing the fluid\u2019s molecules closer together to free up room for additional fuel.<\/p>\n

The changes allow the Falcon 9 to haul 30 percent more mass into orbit, according to SpaceX.<\/p>\n

The Air Force said Monday that Greaves approved the Falcon 9 upgrades under his authority to grant certification and updates based on SpaceX\u2019s \u201cdemonstrated capability to design, produce, qualify and deliver their launch system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe certification process provides a path for launch service providers to demonstrate the capability to design, produce, qualify, and deliver a new launch system and provide the mission assurance support required to deliver NSS (national security space) satellites to orbit,\u201d Greaves said in a statement. \u201cThis gives the Air Force confidence that the national security satellites will safely achieve the intended orbits with full mission capability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Air Force established the certification guidelines last year after a two-year process to make SpaceX eligible to win military launch contracts for communications, navigation and surveillance satellites. SpaceX sued the Air Force after it awarded a sole-source block buy launch deal to rival United Launch Alliance, the military\u2019s only certified launch provider until last year.<\/p>\n

SpaceX and the Air Force settled the suit in early 2015. The Falcon 9 won certification in May, and the Air Force late last year held its first national security launch competition in nearly a decade \u2014 since the merger of Lockheed Martin and Boeing\u2019s rocket divisions to form ULA.<\/p>\n

ULA declined to bid in the procurement to launch a future GPS navigation satellite in 2018, citing restrictions imposed by Congress limiting its ability to use Russian rocket engines for military missions with the Atlas 5 rocket.<\/p>\n

ULA\u2019s no-bid effectively handed the launch contract to SpaceX, but lawmakers lifted the Russian engine ban in December, giving the Atlas 5 footing in future head-to-head competitions with the Falcon 9.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX\u2019s upgraded Falcon 9 rocket has flown one time, hauling 11 Orbcomm communications satellites into low Earth orbit in this Dec. 21 liftoff from Cape Canaveral. Credit: SpaceX The U.S. Air Force on Monday certified the latest version of SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket, featuring higher-thrust engines, enlarged fuel tanks and a super-chilled propellant mixture, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2705,479,3764,316,2117],"class_list":["post-15764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-eelv","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-9-upgrade","tag-spacex","tag-us-air-force"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15764"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}