Falcon 9 Debut Slips Toward Late May

SpaceX's Falcon 9 on the pad at Cape Canaveral. (Credit: Chris Thompson/SpaceX)

Falcon 9 Debut Stands Aside For Shuttle
Aviation Week

The first flight of Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket will fall behind the targeted May 14 launch of space shuttle Atlantis on the STS-132 mission.

The California-based firm, which holds NASA contracts for Falcon 9 development, demonstration and cargo delivery missions to the International Space Station, had been targeting a “no earlier than” May 8 launch date on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station range schedules.

Last week, a new planning date of May 11 surfaced, but in an e-mail May 3, SpaceX chief Elon Musk said that if qualifications of Falcon 9’s Flight Termination System (FTS) go well, launch could take place in mid-May, between the STS-132 launch and the scheduled May 20 launch of a Delta IV booster with the Air Force’s Global Positioning System IIF-SV1 satellite. If range schedules cannot accommodate a mid-May launch date, the flight would be retargeted for late May.

“The critical path item right now is the [qualification] test program for the safe & arm device from Ensign Bickford,” Musk wrote. “If I knew exactly when that would end, I could tell you when we would attempt to launch.

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