Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program Lessons Learned

This report has been developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) Risk Management team in close coordination with the COTS Program. This document provides a point-in-time, cumulative, summary of actionable key lessons learned derived from the design project. Lessons learned invariably address challenges and risks and the way in which these areas have been addressed. Accordingly the risk management thread is woven throughout the document

Ms. Gwynne Shotwell Keynote Address

As President and COO of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is responsible for day-to-day operations and for managing all customer and strategic relations to support company growth. She joined SpaceX in 2002 as Vice President of Business Development and built the Falcon vehicle family manifest to more than 70 launches, representing more than $10 billion in business. Shotwell is a member of the SpaceX Board of Directors. Shotwell was subsequently recruited to be Director of Microcosm’s Space Systems Division, where she served on the executive committee and directed corporate business development. In 2014, Shotwell was appointed to the United States Export Import Bank\u27s Advisory Committee and the Federal Aviation Administration’s Management Advisory Council. Shotwell has been awarded the World Technology Award for Individual Achievement in Space, has been inducted into the Women In Technology International Hall of Fame and was elected to the honorable grade of Fellow with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Shotwell received, with honors, her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern University in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, and currently serves on the Advisory Council for Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. She has authored dozens of papers on a variety of space related subjects

The Falcon 1 Launch Vehicle: Demonstration Flights, Status, Manifest, and Upgrade Path

Falcon 1, the entry vehicle in the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) launch vehicle family, is designed to provide the world’s lowest cost access to orbit. The vehicle is designed above all for high reliability, followed by low cost and a benign payload flight environment. It is a two-stage, liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene (RP-1) powered launch vehicle capable of placing a 700 kg satellite into a 200km circular orbit, inclined 9.1 degrees. Falcon 1 combines a re-usable, turbo-pump fed first stage powered by a single SpaceX Merlin engine with a pressure fed second stage powered by our Kestrel engine and capable of multiple re-starts. A brief summary of the March 24th, 2006 maiden demonstration launch of Falcon 1 from the SpaceX Omelek Island launch facility in the Kwajalein Atoll is presented along with a detailed account of the more recent Demo 2 mission which took flight on March 21st, 2007 from the same location. Though orbit was not achieved on the Demo 2 mission, a significant majority of mission objectives were met from both programmatic and technical perspectives. Details of the eight flight anomalies experienced during the Demo 2 mission are presented herein. Consistent with SpaceX’s corporate philosophy of rapid and continuous improvement, Falcon 1 has a planned upgrade path based upon experience from the Demonstration missions. These vehicle enhancements will be implemented as a block upgrade and will increase the payload capacity to orbit over that of the current Falcon 1 configuration. The Falcon 1 manifest is presented and includes five additional Falcon 1 launches before the end of 2009 with two taking place from Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll and three from Vandenberg Air Force Base

The Falcon 1 Flight-003 Jumpstart Mission Integration Summary

In 2007, following Demonstration Flight 2 - Falcon 1’s second demonstration mission, SpaceX declared Falcon 1 ready to exit the demonstration program and upgraded the vehicle to operational status. The mission was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the US Air Force (USAF) with objectives centered on testing the vehicle in flight, gathering data and retiring technical risk prior to the first operational flight. This flight resulted in retiring significant risks in both the ground and flight systems. A review of the successes and achievements which led to the decision to go operational is presented along with a description of the interim upgrades made to the vehicle in support of subsequent missions. In 2008, the Jumpstart Mission will be the third flight of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle developed by Space Exploration Technologies in Hawthorne, CThere are two primary customers for this mission; one is the Department of Defense’s Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office and the other is ATSB® of Malaysia. A high-level overview of this mission is discussed along with the future plans for the Falcon 1 launch vehicle, including an additional Falcon 1 mission manifested for 2008 and two others in 2009. Additionally, to better service the needs of the small satellite community, SpaceX plans to upgrade to the Falcon 1 launch vehicle. Beginning in 2010, the enhanced Falcon 1 (Falcon 1e, F1e) will become SpaceX’s standard small launch vehicle. An overview of these changes and how they will positively impact the small satellite community are discussed

The Falcon I Launch Vehicle

Falcon I is the first in a family of launch vehicles designed by Space Exploration Technologies to facilitate low cost access to space. Falcon I is a mostly reusable, two stage, liquid oxygen and kerosene powered launch vehicle. The vehicle is designed above all for high reliability, followed by low cost and a benign flight environment. Launched from Vandenberg, a standard Falcon I can carry over 1000 lbs to sun-synchronous orbit and 1500 lbs due east to 100 NM. To minimize failure modes, the vehicle has the minimum pragmatically possible number of engines (two) and stage separation events (one), as well as dual redundant avionics. Since the first stage is recovered via parachute to a water landing, approximately 80% of the vehicle mass is reusable as compared with 90% for the Space Shuttle. The costs, which nominally assume no advantage for recovery, are $5.9M for a standard Falcon I. First launch is scheduled for fall 2004 from Vandenberg, carrying a US government satellite