It looks like the SpaceX is gearing up to do some serious making up for all the time lost in the fallout from the September explosion of one of its Falcon 9 rockets. The company now plans to hit its fastest launch rate since it first started operating in 2010. The increase in speed is expected to take place once the company’s latest, Florida launchpad is put into service.
The Florida launchpad is expected to enter service next week and as such, you can start seeing rockets hitting the skies like clockwork after that. As SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell told Reuters in an interview:
We should be launching every two to three weeks.
The plan comes almost 5 months after SpaceX lost a Falcon 9 rocket after it exploded at the company’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The explosion not only destroyed a $200 million Israeli satellite and damage the launch pad, but it also put the launch pace back to zero. SpaceX spent the next few months trying to find out the reasons behind the explosion and amp up its safety.
The company was approaching a steady launch pace in September, when the accident took place. It will now attempt to reach the same pace again and start launching a rocket every couple of weeks. It also has yet another site under construction in Texas.
Meanwhile, the repairs to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are on. As for why SpaceX doesn’t simply build another new launch pad — there is still plenty of benefits incurred by repairing the old pad. The repairing process should cost “far less than half” of a new launch pad, costs for which run around almost $100 million.
SpaceX is also making changes to the Falcon 9’s turbo pumps. The “turbopump” in case you are wondering, providers the rocket engine with propellant. The pump had recently elicited concern from NASA as well as the US Airforce and SpaceX appears to be adressing those very concerns here.
NASA’s concerns are important of course. Even it wasn’t one of the most experienced entities with regards to sending rockets into space, NASA is one of the SpaceX’s largest contractors. The latter has a n assignment to taxi astronauts to and from the International Space Station starting in late 2018. As such, NASA’s concerns are not to be taken lightly by SpaceX. The new turbopumps for instance, will be installed before the first unmanned test flights of the commercial space taxi slated to take place in November.
Speaking on the topic, Shotwell said:
For us, the concern was not the cracks, but do they grow over time? Would these cracks cause a flight failure? 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.
And maybe uh, NASA is just a tad more experienced as well.
Meanwhile, this new launch pad is situated at at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, north of the Cape Canaveral pad.
