On Track For First Falcon 9 Delivery By End Of Year

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) announced Monday its newly revised mission manifest, listing 12 flights of its Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles.

"We are on track to deliver our first Falcon 9 vehicle to Cape Canaveral by the end of 2008," said Gwynne Shotwell, Vice President of Business Development for SpaceX.  "In addition, we’re very pleased to have signed a significant new US government customer for our next Falcon 1 flight, and will be releasing details shortly."

The full SpaceX mission manifest extends into 2011 and lists nine customers on 12 flights, including three demonstration flights of SpaceX’s new Dragon spacecraft for NASA as part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) competition.           

Target date refers to delivery of the flight vehicle to the launch site. The actual launch date is dependent on a variety of factors, which may include regulatory approvals, launch range scheduling, weather, customer payload readiness and vehicle to launch pad integration.

SpaceX is developing a family of launch vehicles intended to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of both manned and unmanned space transportation, ultimately by a factor of 10. With its Falcon line of launch vehicles, SpaceX is able to offer a light, medium and heavy lift capability, delivering spacecraft into any inclination and altitude, from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous transfer orbit to interplanetary missions.

As winner of the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) competition, SpaceX will conduct three flights of its Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft for NASA. This will culminate in Dragon berthing with the International Space Station and returning safely to Earth. When the Shuttle retires in 2010, Falcon 9/Dragon will have the opportunity to replace the Shuttle in providing both up and down transportation services to the Space Station.

FMI: www.spacex.com