After a two-year process SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has been certified by the Air Force meaning it can compete with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to launch national security missions.
It marks a significant milestone for SpaceX and gives it a wealthy new…
After a two-year process SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket has been certified by the Air Force meaning it can compete with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to launch national security missions.
It marks a significant milestone for SpaceX and gives it a wealthy new customer, while breaking the monopoly ULA has had on US military launches since it was formed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin in 2006.
Back in April 2014 SpaceX filed a legal challenge against the Air Force over its latest Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) contract with ULA, alleging that the block buy contract for government launches was granted to its rival on a sole-source basis.
That suit was settled in January when the Air Force pledged to open up the EELV contract to more competition, and the settlement included provisions to expedite the certification of Falcon 9 to carry classified and military payloads.
SpaceX has already been contracted by NASA for resupply missions to the International Space Station, which it has been launching since 2012, but the Air Force decision is potentially more significant.
Falcon 9 will be in direct competition with ULA’s Atlas 5, but that rocket’s future is in doubt. Atlas is powered by the Russian-made RD-180 and last year congress – in the wake of the annexation of Crimea – banned future use of the engines for military use beyond 2019, however there appears to be consensus that those measures will be relaxed.
Falcon 9 to rival Atlas 5
ULA unveiled its next-generation replacement for Atlas earlier this year called Vulcan, which will be powered by a US-made engine from Blue Origin. ULA hopes to launch an initial version of Vulcan in 2019, but the BE-4 liquid-fuelled engine it will be powered by is unproven at this stage. Air Force officials have reportedly said the 2019 target for an all-American engine is unrealistic.
SpaceX will get its first opportunity to bid to provide launch services in June when the Air Force releases a request for proposal for next set of GPS III launches.
The Hawthorne, California-based disruptor already has a busy commercial launch manifest and is using one launchpad, at Cape Canaveral in Florida, for most of its missions. It also has a launchpad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California suitable for launches to polar orbit, and test facilities for suborbital rockets in Texas and New Mexico.
SpaceX is developing a brand new commercial spaceport near Brownsville, Texas, which is expected to become the main site for its commercial launches. In addition, it is redeveloping a site at the Kennedy Space Center, and a second launchpad at Vandenberg.
SpaceX declined to comment on whether it would face capacity problems in the near future.
Cutting costs
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO and lead designer, described the certification as “an important step toward bringing competition to national security space launch.”
His comments were echoed by Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James, who said: “SpaceX’s emergence as a viable commercial launch provider provides the opportunity to compete launch services for the first time in almost a decade.
“Ultimately, leveraging of the commercial space market drives down cost to the American taxpayer and improves our military’s resiliency.”
SpaceX has eaten into the incumbent launch providers’ market share in the commercial market through its lower-cost vertically-integrated approach, and will hope to have a similar impact for military launches at a time when the government is tightening its belt.
SpaceX has previously claimed that each launch by ULA costs American taxpayers roughly US$400m per mission – four times as much as a launch by SpaceX.
Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the endorsement of SpaceX was a “win for competition” and added: “I am hopeful that this and other new competition will help to bring down launch costs and end our reliance on Russian rocket engines that subsidises Vladimir Putin and his cronies.”
The Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center verification of the Falcon 9 system cost US$60m, which was funded by the Air Force.
In a statement it said its review encompassed “125 certification criteria, including more than 2,800 discrete tasks, three certification flight demonstrations, verifying 160 payload interface requirements, 21 major subsystem reviews and 700 audits in order to establish the technical baseline from which the Air Force will make future flight worthiness determinations for launch”.
Boeing contracted for manned NASA mission
Elsewhere, NASA has awarded Boeing a contract for its first crew rotation mission to the ISS, and said SpaceX is expected to receive its first order later this year.
The US is looking to restore its ability to put humans into space and ends its reliance on Russia for flights to the ISS.
Boeing’s CST-100 crew capsule will be used for the mission. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is also expected to be used in future. A normal mission would carry four astronauts and around 220 pounds of pressurised cargo, NASA said.
“Determination of which company will fly its mission to the station first will be made at a later time,” the space agency added. The first commercial crew mission is scheduled for 2017 but local reports have suggested the timing may depend on how much funding NASA is given in the US’ next budget, and whether the Boeing and SpaceX crafts, both still in development, are mission-ready.
Julie Robinson, chief scientist of the ISS, said: “Commercial crew launches are critical to the International Space Station Program because it ensures multiple ways of getting crews to orbit.
“It also will give us crew return capability so we can increase the crew to seven, letting us complete a backlog of hands-on critical research that has been building up due to heavy demand for the National Laboratory.”
