ST.

MARY’S POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE

PALAKKAD,678705
(Under The Patronage of Diocese Palakkad)
Approved by AICTE and affiliated to DTE Kerala

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

2017-2020
SEMINAR REPORT

ON

SPACEX
PRESENTED BY

THOMSON CHERIAN (17021935)

 ST. MARY’S POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE
PALAKKAD,678705
(Under The Patronage of Diocese Palakkad)
Approved by AICTE and affiliated to DTE Kerala

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

CERTIFICATE
This to certify that the seminar report titled SPACEX is the bonafide work done by
THOMSON CHERIAN, REG NO:17021935 of Fifth Semester Mechanical Engineering in
partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of Diploma in Mechanical Engineering
course under DTE Kerala during the course period 2017-2020.

Faculty in-Charge Head of the Department

TONY KOTTOOR PARIJAKSHAN N

Internal Examiner External Examiner

PALAKKAD
DATE :
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am glad to present my seminar report on SPACEX which is prepared as a part of my

fifth and sixth semester seminar in Mechanical Engineering. This seminar work is the outcome
of the guidance provided by dedicated and experienced personal of St. Mary’s Polytechnic
College, Palakkad. I thank God and my parents for helping me start off with good education.

With profound sense of indebtedness, I use this opportunity to express my sincere

thanks to our beloved Principal, Mr. Raimon P Francis for all the help and guidance rendered
during the preparation of seminar report. I also express my sincere gratitude to Mr.
Parijakshan N, Head of the Department, Mechanical Engineering for his healthy cooperation,
constant encouragement and inspiration.

I wish to extend my thanks to my seminar guide, Mr. Tony Kottoor, Faculty in

Mechanical engineering for his kind interest, valuable guidance and support rendered. Last
but not the least I extend my sincere thanks to all my classmates for their help and support.
 ABSTRACT

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft. The
company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology, with the ultimate goal of
enabling people to live on other planets. SpaceX has been putting wins on the board ever since
the company founded by serial entrepreneur Elon Musk became the first privately funded group
to put a payload in Earth orbit, in 2008. Since then, the company has continued to impress,
launching unmanned cargo vehicles to the International Space Station (ISS) and winning a
contract from NASA to fly astronauts as well, as early as 2017.

There have been setbacks—most disastrously last June when a cargo rocket bound for
the ISS exploded in route, costing the crew much-needed supplies and shaking confidence in
the company as a whole. On December 21, however, Musk bounced back, launching a payload
of satellites to orbit and then recovering the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, which landed
upright, settling itself down under the power of its own engines, just six miles from the Cape
Canaveral launch pad. Recoverable, reusable rocket stages that touch down on dry land have
been talked about for decades as a way to keep costs down and speed turnaround times, but no
one had been able to do it until now. Here are 10 other things you need to know about the
SpaceX.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER NO. TITLE PAGE NO.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iii

ABSTRACT iv

1 INTRODUCTION 1
2 HISTORY 2
3 GOALS 3
4 ACHIEVEMENTS 6
5 HARDWARE 8
6 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 10
7 INFRASTRUCTURE 13

8 CONCLUSION 17
9 REFERENCE 18
 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. PAGE NO

5.1.1 6
5.2.1 7
5.3.1 8
6.1.1 10
7.1.1 13
7.4.1 15
SEMINAR REPORT 2017-2020 SPACEX

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., trading as SpaceX, is a private American

aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in
Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space
transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. SpaceX has developed several launch
vehicles and the Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to

reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008), the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and
recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the
International Space Station (Dragon in 2012), the first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket
(Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), and the first private
company to launch an object into orbit around the sun (Falcon Heavy's payload of a Tesla
Roadster in 2018). SpaceX has flown 18 resupply missions to the International Space Station
(ISS) under a partnership with NASA. NASA also awarded SpaceX a further development
contract in 2011 to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon, which would be used to
transport astronauts to the ISS and return them safely to Earth. SpaceX conducted the maiden
launch of its Dragon 2 spacecraft on a NASA-required demonstration flight May 7, 2020.

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CHAPTER 2
HISTORY

SpaceX employees with the Dragon capsule at SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California,

February 2015. In 2001, Elon Musk conceptualized Mars Oasis, a project to land a miniature
experimental greenhouse and grow plants on Mars. "This would be the furthest that life’s ever
traveled" in an attempt to regain public interest in space exploration and increase the budget of
NASA. Musk tried to buy cheap rockets from Russia but returned empty-handed after failing
to find rockets for an affordable price. On the flight home, Musk realized that he could start a
company that could build the affordable rockets he needed. According to early Tesla and
SpaceX investor Steve Jurvetson, Musk calculated that the raw materials for building a rocket
actually were only three percent of the sales price of a rocket at the time. By applying vertical
integration, producing around 85% of launch hardware in-house, and the modular approach
from software engineering, SpaceX could cut launch price by a factor of ten and still enjoy a
70% gross margin.

In early 2002, Musk was seeking staff for his new space company, soon to be named
SpaceX. Musk approached rocket engineer Tom Mueller (later SpaceX's CTO of Propulsion)
and Mueller agreed to work for Musk, and thus SpaceX was born. SpaceX was first
headquartered in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. The company grew rapidly, from 160
employees in November 2005 to 1,100 in 2010,3,800 employees and contractors by October
2013, nearly 5,000 by late 2015, and about 6,000 in April 2017.

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CHAPTER 3
GOALS

Musk has stated that one of his goals is to decrease the cost and improve the reliability
of access to space, ultimately by a factor of ten. CEO Elon Musk said: "I believe $500 per
pound ($1,100/kg) or less is very achievable." Falcon Heavy Rocket on Launch Pad 39A in
Cape Canaveral, Florida.

A major goal of SpaceX has been to develop a rapidly reusable launch system. As of
March 2013, the publicly announced aspects of this technology development effort include an
active test campaign of the low-altitude, low-speed Grasshopper vertical takeoff, vertical
landing (VTVL) technology demonstrator rocket, and a high-altitude, high-speed Falcon 9
post-mission booster return test campaign. In 2015, SpaceX successfully landed the first orbital
rocket stage on December 21.

In 2017, SpaceX formed a subsidiary, The Boring Company, and began work to
construct a short test tunnel on and adjacent to the SpaceX headquarters and manufacturing
facility, utilizing a small number of SpaceX employees, which was completed in May 2018,
and opened to the public in December 2018.During 2018, The Boring Company was spun out
into a separate corporate entity with 6% of the equity going to SpaceX, less than 10% to early
employees, and the remainder of the equity to Elon Musk.

At the 2016 International Astronautical Congress, Musk announced his plans to build
large spaceships to reach Mars. Using the Starship, Musk plans to land at least two unscrewed
cargo ships to Mars in 2022. The first missions will be used to seek out sources of water and
build a propellant plant. In 2024, Musk plans to fly four additional ships to Mars including the
first people. From there, additional missions would work to establish a Mars colony. Musk's
advocacy for the long-term settlement of Mars, goes far beyond what SpaceX projects to build;
a successful colonization would ultimately involve many more economic actors—whether
individuals, companies, or governments to facilitate the growth of the human presence on Mars
over many decades.

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CHAPTER 4
ACHIEVEMENTS

Major achievements of SpaceX are in the reuse of orbital class launch vehicles and cost
reduction in the spacelaunch industry. Most notable of these being the continued landings and
relaunches of the first stage of Falcon 9. As of November 2019, SpaceX has used a single first
stage booster, B1048, at most four times. SpaceX is defined as a private space company and
thus its achievements can also be counted as firsts by a private company.

Landmark achievements of SpaceX in chronological order include:

1. The first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 flight 4 on 28
September 2008)
2. The first privately developed liquid-fueled rocket to put a commercial satellite in orbit
(RazakSAT on Falcon 1 flight 5 on 14 July 2009)
3. The first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (SpaceX
Dragon on COTS Demo Flight 1 on 9 December 2010)
4. The first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon
C2+ on 25 May 2012)
5. The first private company to send a satellite into geosynchronous orbit (SES-8 on Falcon
9 flight 7 on 3 December 2013)
6. The first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on land (Falcon 9 flight 20 on 22
December 2015)
7. The first landing of an orbital rocket's first stage on an ocean platform (Falcon 9 flight
23 on 8 April 2016)
8. The first relaunch and landing of a used orbital rocket stage (B1021 on Falcon 9 flight
32 on 30 March 2017)
9. The first controlled flyback and recovery of a payload fairing (Falcon 9 flight 32 on 30
March 2017)
10. The first re flight of a commercial cargo spacecraft. (Dragon C106 on CRS-11 mission on

3 June 2017)

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11. The first private company to send a human-rated spacecraft to space (Crew Dragon Demo-

1, on Falcon 9 flight 69 on 2 March 2019)

12. The first private company to autonomously dock a spacecraft to the International Space

Station (Crew Dragon Demo-1, on Falcon 9 flight 69 on 2 March 2019)

13. The first use of a full flow staged combustion cycle engine (Raptor) in a free flying vehicle

(Starhopper, multiple tests in 2019).

14. The first reuse of payload fairing. On 11 November 2019 on Starlink L1 Falcon 9 launch.

Fairing was from the ArabSat-6A mission in April earlier that year.

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CHAPTER 5
HARDWARE
5.1 LAUNCH VEHICLES

Figure: 5.1.1

Falcon 1 was a small rocket capable of placing several hundred kilograms into low
Earth orbit. It functioned as an early test-bed for developing concepts and components for the
larger Falcon 9.] Falcon 1 attempted five flights between 2006 and 2009. With Falcon I, when
Musk announced his plans for it before a subcommittee in the Senate in 2004, he discussed that
Falcon I would be the 'worlds only semi-reusable orbital rocket' apart from the space
shuttle.[] On September 28, 2008, on its fourth attempt, the Falcon 1 successfully reached orbit,
becoming the first privately funded, liquid-fueled rocket to do so.

Falcon 9 is an EELV-class medium-lift vehicle capable of delivering up to 22,800

kilograms (50,265 lb) to orbit, and is intended to compete with the Delta IV and the Atlas
V rockets, as well as other launch providers around the world. It has nine Merlin engines in its
first stage. The Falcon 9 v1.0 rocket successfully reached orbit on its first attempt on June 4,
2010. Its third flight, COTS Demo Flight 2, launched on May 22, 2012, and was the
first commercial spacecraft to reach and dock with the International Space Station. The vehicle
was upgraded to Falcon 9 v1.1 in 2013 and again in 2015 to the current Falcon 9 Full
Thrust version. As of February 2018, Falcon 9 vehicles have flown 49 successful missions with
one failure, the CRS-7 mission. An additional vehicle was destroyed during a routine test
several days prior to a scheduled launch in 2016.

In 2011, SpaceX began development of the Falcon Heavy, a heavy-lift rocket

configured using a cluster of three Falcon 9 first stage cores with a total 27 Merlin 1D engines

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and propellant crossfeed. The Falcon Heavy successfully flew on its inaugural mission on
February 6, 2018 with a payload consisting of Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into heliocentric
orbit The first stage would be capable of lifting 63,800 kilograms (140,660 lb) to LEO with the
27 Merlin 1D engines producing 22,819 KN of thrust at sea level, and 24,681 KN in space. At
the time of its first launch, SpaceX described their Falcon Heavy as "the world's most powerful
rocket in operation.

5.2 ROCKET ENGINES

Figure: 5.2.1

Since the founding of SpaceX in 2002, the company has developed three families
of rocket engines — Merlin and the retired Kestrel for launch vehicle propulsion, and
the Draco control thrusters. SpaceX is currently developing two further rocket
engines: SuperDraco and Raptor. SpaceX is currently the world's most prolific producer of
liquid fuel rocket engines. Merlin is a family of rocket engines developed by SpaceX for use
on their launch vehicles. Merlin engines use LOX and RP-1 as propellants in a gas-generator
power cycle. The Merlin engine was originally designed for sea recovery and reuse. The
injector at the heart of Merlin is of the pintle type that was first used in the Apollo Program for
the lunar module landing engine. Propellants are fed via a single shaft, dual impeller turbo-
pump. Kestrel is a LOX/RP-1 pressure-fed rocket engine, and was used as the Falcon 1 rocket's
second stage main engine. It is built around the same pintle architecture as SpaceX's Merlin
engine but does not have a turbo-pump, and is fed only by tank pressure. Its nozzle
is ablatively cooled in the chamber and throat, is also radiatively cooled, and is fabricated from
a high strength niobium alloy. Both names for the Merlin and Kestrel engines are derived from
species of North American falcons: the kestrel and the merlin.

Draco are hypergolic liquid-propellant rocket engines that utilize monomethyl

hydrazine fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. Each Draco thruster generates 400 newtons

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SEMINAR REPORT 2017-2020 SPACEX

(90 lbf) of thrust. They are used as reaction control system (RCS) thrusters on the Dragon
spacecraft.] SuperDraco engines are a much more powerful version of the Draco thrusters,
which were initially meant to be used as landing and launch escape system engines on the
version 2 Dragon spacecraft, Dragon 2. The concept of using retro-rockets for landing was
scrapped in 2017 when it was decided to perform a traditional parachute descent
and splashdown at sea. Raptor is a new family of methane-fueled full flow staged combustion
cycle engines to be used in its future Starship launch system. Development versions were test
fired in late 2016. On April 3, 2019, SpaceX conducted a successful static fire test in Texas on
its Starhopper vehicle, which ignited the engine while the vehicle remained tethered to the
ground. On July 24, 2019, SpaceX conducted a successful test hop of 20 meters of its
Starhopper test vehicle. On August 28, 2019, SpaceX's Starhopper prototype conducted a
successful test hop of 150-meters.

5.3 DRAGON SPACECRAFT

Figure: 5.3.1

In 2005, SpaceX announced plans to pursue a human-rated commercial space program

through the end of the decade. The Dragon is a conventional blunt-cone ballistic capsule which
is capable of carrying cargo or up to seven astronauts into orbit and beyond. In 2006, NASA
announced that the company was one of two selected to provide crew and cargo resupply
demonstration contracts to the ISS under the COTS program SpaceX demonstrated cargo
resupply and eventually crew transportation services using the Dragon. The first flight of a
Dragon structural test article took place in June 2010, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station during the maiden flight of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle; the mock-
up Dragon lacked avionics, heat shield, and other key elements normally required of a fully

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operational spacecraft but contained all the necessary characteristics to validate the flight
performance of the launch vehicle. An operational Dragon spacecraft was launched in
December 2010 aboard COTS Demo Flight 1, the Falcon 9's second flight, and safely returned
to Earth after two orbits, completing all its mission objectives. In 2012, Dragon became the
first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, and has since
been conducting regular resupply services to the ISS.

In April 2011, NASA issued a $75 million contract, as part of its second-
round commercial crew development (CCDev) program, for SpaceX to develop an integrated
launch escape system for Dragon in preparation for human-rating it as a crew transport vehicle
to the ISS. In August 2012, NASA awarded SpaceX a firm, fixed-price SAA with the objective
of producing a detailed design of the entire crew transportation system. This contract includes
numerous key technical and certification milestones, an unscrewed flight test, a crewed flight
test, and six operational missions following system certification. The fully autonomous Crew
Dragon spacecraft is expected to be one of the safest crewed spacecraft systems. Reusable in
nature, the Crew Dragon will offer savings to NASA. SpaceX conducted a test of an empty
Crew Dragon to ISS in early 2019, and later in the year they plan to launch a crewed Dragon
which will send US astronauts to the ISS for the first time since the retirement of the Space
Shuttle. In February 2017, SpaceX announced that two would-be space tourists had put down
"significant deposits" for a mission which would see the two tourists fly on board a Dragon
capsule around the Moon and back again.

In addition to SpaceX's privately funded plans for an eventual Mars mission,

NASA Ames Research Center had developed a concept called Red Dragon: a low-cost Mars
mission that would use Falcon Heavy as the launch vehicle and trans-Martian injection vehicle,
and the Dragon capsule to enter the Martian atmosphere. The concept was originally
envisioned for launch in 2018 as a NASA Discovery mission, then alternatively for 2022 The
objectives of the mission would be return the samples from Mars to Earth at a fraction of the
cost of the NASA own return-sample mission now projected at 6 billion dollars. In September
2017, Elon Musk released first prototype images of their space suits to be used in future
missions. The suit is in testing phase and it is designed to cope with 2 atm (200 kPa; 29 psi)
pressure in vacuum. The Crew Dragon spacecraft was first sent to space on March 2, 2019.

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CHAPTER 6

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

6.1 REUSABLE LAUNCH SYSTEM

Figure: 6.1.1
SpaceX's reusable launcher program was publicly announced in 2011 and the design
phase was completed in February 2012. The system returns the first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket
to a predetermined landing site using only its own propulsion systems.

SpaceX's active test program began in late 2012 with testing low-altitude, low-speed
aspects of the landing technology. Grasshopper and the Falcon 9 Reusable Development
Vehicles (F9R Dev) were experimental technology-demonstrator reusable rockets that
performed vertical takeoffs and landings.

High-velocity, high-altitude aspects of the booster atmospheric return technology

began testing in late 2013 and have continued through 2018, with a 98% success rate to date.
As a result of Elon Musk's goal of crafting more cost-effective launch vehicles, SpaceX
conceived a method to reuse the first stage of their primary rocket, the Falcon 9, by attempting
propulsive vertical landings on solid surfaces. Once the company determined that soft landings
were feasible by touching down over the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, they began landing
attempts on a solid platform. SpaceX leased and modified several barges to sit out at sea as a
target for the returning first stage, converting them to autonomous spaceport drone
ships (ASDS). SpaceX first achieved a successful landing and recovery of a first stage in
December 2015, and in April 2016, the first stage booster first successfully landed on the
ASDS Of Course I Still Love You.

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SpaceX continues to carry out first stage landings on every orbital launch that fuel
margins allow. By October 2016, following the successful landings, SpaceX indicated they
were offering their customers a ten percent price discount if they choose to fly their payload on
a reused Falcon 9 first stage. On March 30, 2017, SpaceX launched a "flight-proven" Falcon 9
for the SES-10 mission. This was the first time a re-launch of a payload-carrying orbital rocket
went back to space. The first stage was recovered and landed on the ASDS Of Course I Still
Love You in the Atlantic Ocean, also making it the first landing of a reused orbital class rocket.
Elon Musk called the achievement an "incredible milestone in the history of space."

6.2 STARSHIP

SpaceX is developing a super-heavy lift launch system, Starship. Starship is a fully

reusable second stage and space vehicle intended to replace all of the company's existing
launch vehicle hardware by the early 2020s; plus ground infrastructure for rapid launch and
relaunch and zero-gravity propellant transfer technology in low Earth orbit (LEO).

SpaceX initially envisioned a 12-meter-diameter ITS concept in 2016 which was solely
aimed at Mars transit and other interplanetary uses. In 2017, SpaceX articulated a smaller 9-
meter-diameter BFR to replace all of SpaceX launch service provider capabilities—Earth-orbit,
lunar-orbit, interplanetary missions, and potentially, even intercontinental passenger transport
on Earth—but do so on a fully reusable set of vehicles with a markedly lower cost structure. A
large portion of the components on Starship are made of 301 stainless steel. Private
passenger Yusaku Maezawa has contracted to fly around the Moon in Starship in 2023.

Musk's long term vision for the company is the development of technology and
resources suitable for human colonization on Mars. He has expressed his interest in someday
traveling to the planet, stating "I'd like to die on Mars, just not on impact." A rocket every two
years or so could provide a base for the people arriving in 2025 after a launch in
2024. According to Steve Jurvetson, Musk believes that by 2035 at the latest, there will be
thousands of rockets flying a million people to Mars, in order to enable a self-sustaining human
colony.

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6.3 OTHER PROJECTS

In January 2015, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced the development of a new
satellite constellation, called Starlink, to provide global broadband internet service. In June
2015, the company asked the federal government for permission to begin testing for a project
that aims to build a constellation of 4,425 satellites capable of beaming the Internet to the entire
globe, including remote regions which currently do not have Internet access. The Internet
service would use a constellation of 4,425 cross-linked communications satellites in 1,100 km
orbits. Owned and operated by SpaceX, the goal of the business is to increase profitability and
cashflow, to allow SpaceX to build its Mars colony. Development began in 2015, initial
prototype test-flight satellites were launched on the SpaceX PAZ mission in 2017. Initial
operation of the constellation could begin as early as 2020. As of March 2017, SpaceX filed
with the US regulatory authorities plans to field a constellation of an additional 7,518 "V-
band satellites in non-geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services" in an
electromagnetic spectrum that had not previously been "heavily employed for commercial
communications services". Called the "V-band low-Earth-orbit (VLEO) constellation", it
would consist of "7,518 satellites to follow the [earlier] proposed 4,425 satellites that would
function in Ka- and Ku-band". In February 2019, SpaceX formed a sibling company, SpaceX
Services, Inc., to license the manufacture and deployment of up to 1,000,000 fixed satellite
earth stations that will communicate with its Starlink system. In May 2019, SpaceX launched
the first batch of 60 satellites aboard a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, FL.

In June 2015, SpaceX announced that they would sponsor a Hyperloop competition,
and would build a 1-mile-long (1.6 km) subscale test track near SpaceX's headquarters for the
competitive events. The first competitive event was held at the track in January 2017, the
second in August 2017 and the third in December 2018.

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CHAPTER 7
INFRASTRUCTURE

7.1 HEADQUARTERS, MANUFACTURING AND REFURBISHMENT

FACILITIES

Figure: 7.1.1

SpaceX Headquarters is located in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne, California.

The large three-story facility, originally built by Northrop Corporation to build Boeing 747
fuselages, houses SpaceX's office space, mission control, and, as of 2018, all vehicle
manufacturing. In March 2018, SpaceX indicated that it would manufacture its next-
generation, 9 m (30 ft)-diameter launch vehicle, the Starship at a new facility on the Los
Angeles waterfront in the San Pedro area. The company had leased an 18-acre (73,000 m2) site
near Berth 240 in the Los Angeles, however in January 2019 the lease was canceled and the
construction of Starship moved to a new site in South Texas.

The area has one of the largest concentrations of aerospace headquarters, facilities,
and/or subsidiaries in the U.S., including Boeing/McDonnell Douglas main satellite building
campuses, Aerospace Corp., Raytheon, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Air Force Space
Command's Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Lockheed

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Martin, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, and AECOM, etc., with a large pool of aerospace
engineers and recent college engineering graduates.

SpaceX utilizes a high degree of vertical integration in the production of its rockets and
rocket engines. SpaceX builds its rocket engines, rocket stages, spacecraft, principal avionics
and all software in-house in their Hawthorne facility, which is unusual for the aerospace
industry. Nevertheless, SpaceX still has over 3,000 suppliers with some 1,100 of those
delivering to SpaceX nearly weekly.

In June 2017, SpaceX announced they would construct a facility on 0.88 hectares (2.17
acres) in Port Canaveral Florida for refurbishment and storage of previously flown Falcon 9
and Falcon Heavy booster cores.

7.2 DEVELOPMENT AND TEST FACILITIES

SpaceX operates their first Rocket Development and Test Facility in McGregor, Texas.
All SpaceX rocket engines are tested on rocket test stands, and low-altitude VTVL flight testing
of the Falcon 9 Grasshopper v1.0 and F9R Dev1 test vehicles in 2013–2014 were carried out
at McGregor. 2019 low-altitude VTVL testing of the much larger 9-meter (30 ft)-diameter
"Starhopper" is planned to occur at the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site near Brownsville,
Texas, which is currently under construction. On January 23, 2019, strong winds at the Texas
test launch site blew over the nose cone over the first test article rocket, causing delays that
will take weeks to repair according to SpaceX representatives. In the event, SpaceX decided to
forego building another nose cone for the first test article, because at the low velocities planned
for that rocket, it was unnecessary.

The company purchased the McGregor facilities from Beal Aerospace, where it refitted
the largest test stand for Falcon 9 engine testing. SpaceX has made a number of improvements
to the facility since purchase, and has also extended the acreage by purchasing several pieces
of adjacent farmland. In 2011, the company announced plans to upgrade the facility for launch
testing a VTVL rocket, and then constructed a half-acre concrete launch facility in 2012 to
support the Grasshopper test flight program. As of October 2012, the McGregor facility had
seven test stands that are operated "18 hours a day, six days a week" and is building more test
stands because production is ramping up and the company has a large manifest in the next
several years.

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In addition to routine testing, Dragon capsules (following recovery after an orbital

mission), are shipped to McGregor for de-fueling, cleanup, and refurbishment for reuse in
future missions.

7.3 LAUNCH FACILITIES

SpaceX currently operates three orbital launch sites, at Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg
Air Force Base, and Kennedy Space Center, and is under construction on a fourth in
Brownsville, Texas. SpaceX has indicated that they see a niche for each of the four orbital
facilities and that they have sufficient launch business to fill each pad. The Vandenberg launch
site enables highly inclined orbits (66–145°), while Cape Canaveral enables orbits of medium
inclination, up to 51.6°. Before it was retired, all Falcon 1 launches took place at the Ronald
Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Omelek Island.

7.4 CAPE CANAVERAL

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) is used for
Falcon 9 launches to low Earth and geostationary orbits. SLC-40 is not capable of supporting
Falcon Heavy launches. As part of SpaceX's booster reusability program, the former Launch
Complex 13 at Cape Canaveral, now renamed Landing Zone 1, has been designated for use for
Falcon 9 first-stage booster landings.

Figure: 7.4.1

7.5 VANDENBERG

Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) is used for
payloads to polar orbits. The Vandenberg site can launch both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, but
cannot launch to low inclination orbits. The neighboring SLC-4W has been converted to

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Landing Zone 4, where SpaceX successfully landed one Falcon 9 first-stage booster, in October
2018.

7.6 KENNEDY SPACE CENTER

On April 14, 2014, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease for Launch Pad 39A. The pad was
subsequently modified to support Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. SpaceX has launched
13 Falcon 9 missions from Launch Pad 39A, the latest of which was launched on January 19,
2020. SpaceX intends to launch the first crewed missions to the ISS from Launch Pad 39A in
2020.

7.7 BROWNSVILLE
In August 2014, SpaceX announced they would be building a commercial-only launch
facility at Brownsville, Texas. The Federal Aviation Administration released a
draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Texas facility in April 2013, and
"found that 'no impacts would occur' that would force the Federal Aviation Administration to
deny SpaceX a permit for rocket operations," and issued the permit in July 2014. SpaceX
started construction on the new launch facility in 2014 with production ramping up in the latter
half of 2015, with the first suborbital launches from the facility in 2019. Real estate packages
at the location have been named by SpaceX with names based on the theme "Mars Crossing".

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CHAPTER 8
CONCLUSION

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is the world's fastest growing

provider of launch services. SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and
space crafts; pushing the boundaries of rocket science to innovate while lowering costs. The
company was founded in 2002 but Elon Musk, who co-founded Tesla and SolarCity. SpaceX
is headquartered in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX is working to revolutionize space
technology, with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets. SpaceX has
gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones, namely in December 2010, they
were named the only private company to return a spacecraft from low-Earth orbit. The
company is developing fully and rapidly reusable rockets, transforming space exploration by
delivering highly reliable vehicles at radically reduced costs. SpaceX is currently developing
the Falcon Heavy - the world's most powerful rocket - set to lift off later this year, it will be the
most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two. Elon Musk has ambitious plans to colonize
Mars with more than 1 million humans within 100 years.

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REFERENCES

1. Mike Wall (September 10, 2015). "'Red Dragon' Mars Sample-Return Mission Could
Launch by 2022". Space.com. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
2. Ralph, Eric (July 19, 2017). "SpaceX skipping Red Dragon for "vastly bigger ships" on
Mars, Musk confirms". Teslarati. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
3. Bhargav, Sushant (September 9, 2017). "Elon Musk Shares the Look of Full-body SpaceX's
Spacesuit". TechScoop.in. Archived from the original on February 7, 2018.
4. Martin, Sean (August 24, 2017). "REVEALED: The space suit humans on SpaceX rockets
will wear to get to MARS". Express.co.uk. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
5. Rand Simberg (February 8, 2012). "Elon Musk on SpaceX's Reusable Rocket Plans".
Popular Mechanics. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
6. Jacob Aron (January 17, 2015). "SpaceX rocket crashes in first attempted boat landing".
New Scientist. Retrieved March 1, 2017.
7. Elon Musk (December 21, 2015). "Background on tonight's launch". SpaceX. Retrieved
March 1, 2017.

Department of Mechanical Engineering 18 SMPC