Liftoff

Elon Musk and the desperate early days that launched SPACEX

Eric Berger, 2021, Beaverton Library 629.4 BER

Eric Berger is Senior Space Editor at ars technica

• mostly about Falcon 1 development and test
• p001 Starhopper landing test fail, crash, but FAA 500 foot altitude limit prevented fireball
• p005 USC students Brian Bjelde (Rat Chicken) and Phil Kassouf, SpaceX new hures
• p007 Gans Koenigsmann VP avionics
• p009 Adeo Ressi entrepreneur friend

• p010 Chris Thompson Boeing -> SpaceX

• p011 Jim Cantrell
• p011 John Garvey Boeing rocket engines
• p011 Tom Mueller (p29 Merlin engine)
• p011 Reaction Research Society, So Cal rocketry club

• p011 Ignition! by John Drury Clark

• p012 Mike Griffin, future NASA administrator
• p012 Peter Diamandis
• p014 2022 May 6 Space Exploration Technologies

• p015 Hans Koenigsmann Microcosm

• p015 1310 East Grand Ave El Segundo satellite

• p017 Mary Beth Brown, assistant to Musk 2022 August
• p017 Gwynne Shotwell
• p018 Steve Johnson

• p019 Spincraft propellant tank provider

• p020 Phil Kassouf EE Falcon 1 onboard computer
  • interview: south east south triangle at north pole, but also 1+1/2pi miles north of south pole
• p021 Bulent Altan - Musk asks Larry Page to transfer Ms. Altan to Google's LA office
• p022 Florence Li

• p028 Tim Buzza: McGregor test site director

• p033 Reaction Research Society So.Cal website

• p035 Bezos Blue Origin

• p036 "Bezos is not great at engineering, to be frank" says Musk

• p037 Merlin similar to NASA Fastrac rocket engine

• p038 Barber-Nichols turbopump contractor, 150 pounds, 3000 horsepower, evolved to 12000 h.p. in Falcon 9

• p040 Jeremy Hollman, gas generator engineer
• p041 machining firm Mustang Engineering, owner Bob Reagan became SpaceX VP of machining
• p043 pintle injector, TRW sues alleging trade secret theft runway 35

• p044 McGregor site former Beal Aerospace, 10 mi from airport runway 35 ( 5000 ft)

• p049 Anne Chinnery b1966, USAF Academy masters aeronautical engineering 1993, 1999 Microcosm, Launch Engineer SpaceX 2003-2013, now Firefly Aerospace

  • note: Firefly Alpha FLTA002 deployed 3 satellites 1 October 2022

• p052 Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg

  • note: I watched the first launch attempt of AMROC IRR from VAFB 576A3 120.60W 34.78N in 1989, 15 miles north of SLC-3, 120.588W 34.643N

• p055 Shotwell and Koenigsmann look for an equatorial launch site, find Kwajalein Atoll on map, contact Huntsville LtCol Tim Mango

• p056 2003 June Thompson, Koenigsmann, Chinnery
• p059 Vandenberg: dump LOX before approaching rocket and fixing it, refill from another mobile tanker truck
• p060 May 27 successful first stage static test
• p062 George Koopman (1989 ISDC speech), James French, Mike Griffin
• p064 October 1989 launch fail, stuck LOX valve
• p065 SLC-3E for Lockheed Atlas-V. SLC-4 for Titan IV, debris from a Falcon failure too much of a threat
• p066 Falcon 1 could only launch after Titan, six month wait (so far) drained too much money
• p067 Musk tells Tim Buzza we're going to Kwaj (an Army site)

• p069 Hans Koenigsmann loved diving there, especially the sunken Prinz Eugen cruiser

• p071 Hans organized move and installation, forty foot shopping containers, 30 tons, some by air
• p073 only a small concrete bunker on Omelek (open at both ends), poured concrete for launchpad and build hangar
• p073 SpaceX control center on main Kwaj island, surface line-of-sight radio poor, but OK at height of rocket antennas
• p073 pad ready in four months, fall 2005
• p078 late 2005 Nov, first static fire test delayed past 6 hour window, second try Dec 20, unsafe winds
• p079 stuck valve, buckled tank, no 2005 launch

• p079 Microcosm James Wertz Scorpius

• p080 Koenigsmann attempts to connect Musk and Wertz
• p081 Musk interviews Koenigsmann at home, likes personal library with aerospace and SF

• p082 connecting umbilicals daylong task, JLG lift

• p083 Second stage main power distribution box, capacitor fail, voltage rating too small
• p084 return to LA with boards, intern flies to Digikey in Minnesota and back for new capacitors

  • why not a local distributor???

• p088 just after launch, engine fire, shut down half a minute later, fell in flames. Fuel leak near top of engine.

• p089 Kimbal Musk

• p090 payload USAF Academy FalconSAT-2, now in academy museum.

• p096 May 2002, Musk meets Gwynne Shotwell, hires her as VP Sales in September

• p098 Steven Walker DARPA supported SpaceX and Gary Hudson's AirLaunch

• p105 2003 Thanksgiving, Musk shows off Falcon 1 in front of DC Air and Space Museum

• p107-10 Kistler Aerospace fought by Musk, led to COTS

• p112 Lockheed Waterton Canyon
• p114 Malaysians pay $6M to launch RazakSAT, DARPA bought two missions
• p115 wins $278M COTS contract

• p119 Falcon 1 failure fuel leak, blamed on a small B-nut ( Blind-nut? ) on the kerosene line improperly tightened

• p121 in fact, the aluminum B-nut failed due to inter-granular corrosion cracking

• p122 should have used ACF-50 anti-corrosion lubricant, and kept the vehicle in a climate-controlled hangar

• p123 engineer forgot to close second stage LOX vent valve

• p125 2005 Musk hires Jim Maser, former president of Sea Launch, Ukrainian Zenit-3SL rockets launched from equator. Maser left 9 months later.

• p130 Florence Li, structures
• p136 2006 March 21 1:10pm flight 2 launch, second stage spins 1 rev/sec, fail

• p143 Andrew Beal Beal Aerospace

• p144 Elon Musk's estranged father Errol Musk
• p146 Ablative nozzle

• p148 c* / C-star / characteristic velocity

• p152 intern Zachary Dunn photo page 153-1

• p155 "the only landmark ... the tripod" ... a relic from Beal Aerospace

• p156 Dean Ono from El Segundo (p161 former TRW)
• p157 TEA-TEB igniter (triethylaluminum triethylborane) for Merlin
• p158 2018 first Heavy landing, not enough ignition fluid
• p159 Jeremy Hollman and Eddie Tomas
• p162 QA manager Don Kennedy

• p164 flight 3, 180-lb USAF Trailblazer satellite, two NASA cubesats, and Celestis cremains

• p166 Crotch rot

• p169 Minuteman III tests from Vandenberg enter over Omelek, target Illeginni island

• p170 fishing boat Peregrine Falcon for employee use, 15-20 could fit on board

• p174 2008 August 3 launch at 334pm, T+2:40 first stage collides with second stage, p177 after residual fuel burn transient thrust
• p178 solution, add 4 seconds of delay before stage separation
• p182 Musk out of money, divorced, no house, Tesla also cash-strapped
• p183 Parts for one more Falcon 1, build it and fly it in six weeks

• p184 364 pound R-A-T-Sat simulator (Jeff Richichi, Ray Amador, Chris Thompson)

• p185 Brian Bjelde arranged for C-17 transport of first stage, cargo bay 88ft long, 18 ft wide, cost $500K
• p187 20 employees ride along, LOX tank implodes during descent (1/4 inch equalization line through dessicant pack, descent faster than USAF manual described)
• p192 borescope shows torn slosh baffle
• p193 proper repair needs six weeks, only one week available, "haul ass and hope for the best"

• p194 Buzza, Thompson, supplies fly to Kwaj on Musk's Dassault Falcon 900

  • including tank of pyrophoric TEA-TEB ignition fluid
• p196 "... rocket was in fact stripped like a Chevy ... actually put the engine up on blocks"
• p202 2008sep28 window 11a Kwaj is 4p LA. Shotwell at IAC in Scotland with husband Robert, NASA JPL engineer
• p204 launch at 1115a, success, RATSat in orbit for century+
• p215-18, money almost gone, NASA COTS contract sustained SpaceX
• p219 2008 November, Falcon 9 full duration static test
• p221 2008 December 22 NASA COTS contract, then 6 month finance round for Tesla

• p222 Shotwell -> president, 2009 July 14 5th Falcon 1 launches 400 pound Malaysian satellite

• p222 hires Roger Carlson to direct Kwajalein launch operations

• p223 2009 Omelek dismantled
• p226 "aimed for 35 degree inclination" "actual inclination 34.494 degrees" "missed target orbit by 0.006 degrees" HUH?
• p227 Thomas Zurbuchen Aviation Week August 16 2010 P.58 "How to win the Battle For Aerospace Talent"
• p230-2 parachute recovery chimera, evolved to supersonic retropropulsion
• p233 Falcon 9 21st flight 2015 lands at Cape Canaveral
• p234 April 8 2016, landing on a ship
• p235 SpaceX grabbed 2/3 of the worlds commercial satellite launch business by the end of the decade

• p236 2016 March 15 at university seminar, United Launch Alliance VP engineering Brett Tobey admitted Atlas and Delta had no hope of competing on price. He was gone from ULA within days