SpaceX, headed by CEO Elon Musk, plans to launch its Falcon 9 rockets every two or three weeks, the company’s president, Gwynne Shotwell, told Reuters Monday.
The SpaceX launches will start as soon as its new launch pad in Florida opens next week. The launches will be at the fastest rate since SpaceX started launches in 2010.
The planned launches come after a SpaceX rocket exploded on the launch pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida last September. The accident caused damage to the launch site and a $200 million AMOS-6 communications satellite from Israeli company Spacecom.
The repairs at the damaged launch pad should cost “far less than half” of the new launch pad, which is about $100 million, said Shotwell. The new launch pad is at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
In January, months after the incident, only one rocket has been launched. The successful launching of the Falcon 9 rocket took place at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
How SpaceX Will Fix Rocket Engines
SpaceX is adjusting the rocket’s engines to improve performance and resolve potential safety concerns, Shotwell said.
SpaceX plans to change the design of the rocket’s turbopump and a new software fix to eliminate cracks that have raised concerns from NASA and the U.S. Air Force, both which work with SpaceX . NASA hired SpaceX to shuttle astronauts to and from the International Space Station starting late next year. SpaceX is also one of two companies certified to fly military and national security satellites for the Air Force.
The company found two types of cracks during ground tests of its Merlin engines in 2015, Shotwell told Reuters. The cracks were not related to the launch pad explosion in September 2016, she clarified.
“For us, the concern was not the cracks, but do they grow over time? Would these cracks cause a flight failure?” Shotwell said. “I think NASA is used to engines that aren’t quite as robust, so they just don’t want any cracks at all in the turbo machinery.”
The new turbopumps will be installed before Crew Dragon’s first unmanned test flights scheduled for November.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
