{"id":35664,"date":"2016-02-04T22:19:42","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T06:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teslarati.com\/?p=35664"},"modified":"2016-05-30T01:17:22","modified_gmt":"2016-05-30T08:17:22","slug":"spacex-increase-rocket-launches-every-2-3-weeks-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teslarati.com\/spacex-increase-rocket-launches-every-2-3-weeks-year\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX to Increase Rocket Launches to Every 2 to 3 Weeks this Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SpaceX<\/a><\/p>\n

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told the FAA\u2019s annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference on Wednesday\u00a0that her company has an ambitious agenda for 2016. It plans to significantly increase its production of Falcon 9 rockets and\u00a0introduce its Falcon Heavy rocket, which is essentially a Falcon 9 but with two extra first stage boosters derived from the Falcon 9. The Falcon Heavy is intended to be recoverable just like the Falcon 9, but getting three boosters back to earth in serviceable condition will be a major challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really interesting year for us,\u201d Shotwell said. “We\u2019ve had the luxury in years past of having to build only a few rockets a year, so we really weren\u2019t in a production mode.\u00a0Now we\u2019re in this factory transformation to go from building six or eight a year to about 18 cores a year. By the end of this year we should be at over 30 cores per year,\u201d she said. \u201cSo you see the factory start to morph.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX plans to\u00a0double the number of first stages that can be assembled at one time from three to six. It is\u00a0also working to accelerate production of the Merlin engines that power the Falcon 9. If all goes according to plan, it will need to build hundreds of engines a year.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re busy. We\u2019ve got a big manifest, a lot of customers to go take care of,\u201d Shotwell said.<\/p>\n

The next scheduled launch is for an SES-9 communications satellite sometime in February, according to Space News<\/a>. That launch date may get pushed back into early March, however. After that,\u00a0\u201cYou should see us fly every two to three weeks,\u201d Shotwell says.<\/p>\n

SpaceX is still making changes to the Falcon 9 based on information it has learned from the rocket that landed itself back\u00a0on earth<\/a>\u00a0on December 21. That rocket was static fired on January 15.\u00a0\u201cWe fired it up, and actually learned something about the rocket.\u00a0We\u2019re going to make some mods based on what we saw on that stage landing and firing.\u201d CEO\u00a0Elon Musk had previously state that one of the engines showed “thrust fluctuations,” possibly because it ingested some debris.<\/p>\n

With all that going on, SpaceX also plans to conduct\u00a0an\u00a0in-flight abort test for the Commercial Crew Program<\/a>, which uses eight Super Draco thursters\u00a0designed to lift\u00a0a manned spacecraft out of harm’s way in case of\u00a0failure during a launch. Manned spaceflights using the Falcon 9 are due to begin in 2017.<\/p>\n

When Shotwell said 2016 was going to be an “interesting year,” she wasn’t exaggerating.\u00a0Watch a SpaceX simulation of the Falcon Heavy rocket below.<\/p>\n

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