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The Eastern Range have approved the place-holder of March 1 for Falcon 9\u2019s departure from SLC-40, with an instantaneous window targeting 10:10am local time, pending the approval of the customary Flight Readiness Review (FRR).<\/p>\n
The FRR \u2013 as was the case with Shuttle \u2013 will review the previous flight of the Falcon 9 and Dragon as part the approval to proceed to launch, which \u2013 despite being a successful mission \u2013 will be highlighted by the anomaly resolution of the Engine 1 failure during Falcon 9\u2019s ascent on SpX-1.<\/p>\n
![\"F9](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z331.jpg\" "\\"F9")
SpaceX claim they have found the root cause of the engine shutdown and have passed on their findings to NASA management for their feedback.<\/p>\nThe incident occurred around 1:19 into the launch \u2013 as Engine 1 suddenly lost pressure, resulting in an engine shutdown command being issued.<\/p>\n
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The pressure loss resulted in the fairing that protects the engine from aerodynamic loads to rupture, giving the impression of an explosion. However, this was not the case and the remaining eight engines were unaffected by the event.<\/p>\n
Preliminary source information (L2 LINK to F9\/Dragon CRS-1 Post Launch Updates) noted the failure appeared to be related to a fracturing of the Merlin 1C engine\u2019s fuel dome, localized solely in that area on Engine 1, explaining why the engine continued to send data after the event.<\/p>\n
![\"Falcon](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z531.jpg\" "\\"Falcon")
Falcon 9 \u2013 which is designed to cope with two engines out during ascent \u2013 correctly compensated for the loss of engine and created a new ascent profile in real time to ensure Dragon\u2019s entry into orbit for subsequent rendezvous and berthing with the ISS.<\/p>\nThe actual root cause of the incident has not been revealed to the public due to its company sensitive nature. However, SpaceX have said they will release some information into their findings \u201csoon\u201d.<\/p>\n
The next Dragon to fly to the ISS is currently being processed ahead of mating with its carrier rocket at Cape Canaveral. Payload installation is expected to take place in the middle of February.<\/p>\n
SpaceX will be hoping this opening mission of 2013 will follow on from the successes of the previous year that \u2013 on top of their ISS debut with Dragon \u2013 was marked by the signing of 14 launch contracts for missions on their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy vehicles.<\/p>\n
AMOS-6 Contract:<\/p>\n
The first contract signing of 2013 was announced on Tuesday, when Space Communication Ltd. (Spacecom) announced an agreement to launch their AMOS-6 satellite on a Falcon 9 in 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis last year has been one of great success and tremendous growth,\u201d said Gwynne Shotwell, President of SpaceX. \u201cSpacecom was one of our earliest supporters \u2013 SpaceX is proud to be their partner and we look forward to launching their AMOS-6 satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"AMOS-6](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Z710.jpg\" "\\"AMOS-6")
The AMOS-6 satellite, to be built by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), will provide communication services including direct satellite home internet for Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.<\/p>\nAMOS-6 \u2013 to be launched into a geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) \u2013 will replace AMOS-2, which is expected to end its service in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are excited to partner with SpaceX and its tremendous team. AMOS-6 will be larger and stronger than AMOS-2 and AMOS-3 combined, and signals a new age for Spacecom,\u201d commented David Pollack, President and CEO of Spacecom.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we establish our position as a global satellite operator providing more services and capacity, AMOS-6 will be a key element of our business strategy and future.\u201d<\/p>\n
SpaceX currently have an order book that stretches out into 2017, using both their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from their two launch sites on either side of the United States.<\/p>\n
Their west coast site at Vandenberg is set to launch both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy this year.<\/p>\n
(Images: via AIA, SpaceX and L2\u2019s SpaceX Dragon Mission Special Section \u2013 Containing presentations, videos, images (Over 2,500MB in size), space industry member discussion and more. Now includes CRS-1 Image Dump, every single hi res photo taken from the ISS \u2013 350 Hi Res images).<\/p>\n
(Click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ \u2013 to view how you can support NSF and access the best space flight content on the entire internet).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As SpaceX prepare for their next Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission, the company is continuing to fill its order book for their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy fleet. The latest order was announced this week, when contracts were signed for the launch of Spacecom\u2019s AMOS-6 satellite \u2013 set to be sent into orbit on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30397,"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":[2304,1395,479,316],"class_list":["post-39923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-crs","tag-dragon","tag-falcon-9","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39923"}],"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=39923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}