Gallery: The Launch Pad: SpaceX Falcon 9 Ready for Liftoff
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- Late last night the 178-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket was moved out of its hangar at Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral and positioned on the launch pad. Today the rocket and Dragon capsule sit in the Florida sun waiting for tomorrow's 4:55 a.m. ET launch. The launch pad is leased by SpaceX from the Air Force and is the location of the previous two Falcon 9 launches. Like everything at SpaceX, keeping costs low is the theme on the launch pad just as it is at the factory. The company has reclaimed items from the scrap heap and opted for water instead of concrete to keep the noise down. The pad itself has been in use for decades and was used to launch Titan rockets between 1965 and 2005. Now it is one of two launch sites used by SpaceX, the other being at Vandenberg Air Force base in California. The company plans to develop a third launch pad of its own in the near future. Tomorrow's launch window is a "near instantaneous" opportunity to lift off and make it to the International Space Station. The narrow window is dictated by the orbital path of the ISS and the need to preserve as much propellant as possible for the demonstration mission, rather than chasing the station on orbit. If the launch window is missed, the next satisfactory opportunity would not happen until Tuesday. There are other chances to launch, but they would require too much propellant to rendezvous with the ISS. SpaceX has yet to perform a flawless countdown to launch during any of its previous missions. At a Friday press conference, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell acknowledged the delays during previous countdowns, but put the odds of a launch tomorrow at "better than 50/50." The weather forecast is relatively good, with only a 30 percent chance of weather interfering with the launch. *Photo: Jason Paur/Wired*
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In addition to the launch pad itself, Launch Complex 40 is dominated by four lightning towers. Central Florida is famous for its thunderstorms, and lightning protection is ubiquitous at launch pads across Cape Canaveral. The towers are much taller than the Falcon 9 itself and are designed to serve as the conduit for lightning. The large, white, round tank on the left is the storage tank for the liquid oxygen that serves as the oxidizer for the rocket engines. It was headed for the scrap heap when it was purchased at a bargain basement price by SpaceX. At 3 hours and 50 minutes before launch the liquid oxygen will be transferred into the Falcon 9. Ten minutes later the rocket-grade kerosene known as RP-1 will be loaded. *Photo: Jason Paur/Wired*
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After being constructed in the SpaceX factory in Hawthorne, California, the Falcon 9 and Dragon are transported to Cape Canaveral and stored in a hangar (pictured above) adjacent to the pad. The fourth Falcon 9 rocket – set to lift off later this year – is already being processed in the hangar. Most of the actual construction happens in Hawthorne, but roughly 80 SpaceX employees work full time at the launch pad year round performing a wide range of work, including final assembly and painting the rockets. A sign of the busy launch manifest, a crane is lifting steel beams as SpaceX expands its hangar space at the launch pad. *Photo: Jason Paur/Wired*
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The complete rocket and capsule are assembled horizontally in the hangar while attached to the transporter erector device seen attached to the left of the rocket. The entire assembly is then moved a short distance to the pad, where hydraulic lifters elevate it to the vertical launch position. At the top of the rocket sits the Dragon spacecraft. The first cylindrical section beneath the Dragon is the cargo trunk, which will stay attached to the capsule in orbit. Beneath the trunk is the top of stage two, which is a single-engine rocket used as the final boost to place the Dragon in orbit. The section with the Falcon 9 logo and U.S. flag is called the interstage and is effectively just a cover for the second-stage engine. The rest of the rocket comprises the first stage with the liquid oxygen stored on the top and the RP-1 kerosene just above the Merlin engines. *Photo: Jason Paur/Wired*
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The Dragon is capped with a nose cone, which will be jettisoned after launch. The Draco thrusters on the side of the Dragon are covered in a thin film material to protect them from the elements on the ground. The plastic cover has small pockets that fill with air during the ascent, ripping off the material shortly after launch. The large rectangular squares on the side of the trunk house the solar panels that will be extended once in orbit to power the capsule. SpaceX builds its own solar panels at its Hawthorne factory. The trunk itself is unpressurized but can carry cargo to orbit. *Photo: Jason Paur/Wired*
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An umbilical cord carries power and communication lines to the Falcon 9 while it sits on the launch pad. The software that controls the rocket and Dragon was "locked down" in mid-April after being the cause of earlier launch delays.
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A few of the nine Merlin engines can be identified by the protective blue covers on the cone-shaped nozzles. The nine engines will provide a combined thrust of 1,000,000 pounds. The loaded Falcon 9 weighs roughly 700,000 pounds at launch. Unlike many other rockets, the Falcon 9 will be held for a moment after all nine engines are ignited to confirm the engines are running at full power and all systems are good before the rocket is released for launch. *Photo: Jason Paur/Wired*
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Another of SpaceX's cost-saving measures was the requisite modification to the flame ducts that direct the blast from the Merlin engines. The company knew they needed to modify the existing structure to suppress the noise during launch, but the millions of dollars it was quoted to modify the concrete structure was cost prohibitive. Instead, for tens of thousands of dollars SpaceX installed a steel girder structure that holds a heavy-duty sprinkler system that floods the duct with water to limit the noise during launch.
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An animation from SpaceX shows the launch and rendezvous with the International Space Station. *Video: SpaceX*
