Liftoff Seen Soon

A Falcon 9 rocket has been fully integrated at Cape Canaveral, Fla., poised for a liftoff early this year, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, announced.

The Falcon 9 is the large SpaceX rocket, and key to its hopes to become a major player in lifting payloads to space, especially to the International Space Station.

NASA recently gave SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB] contracts totaling $3.5 billion, with a potential of almost twice that, to provide logistics supply runs to the space station after NASA space shuttles are grounded in 2010 and the United States loses its ability to reach space, a gap lasting for half a decade. (Please see separate story in this issue.)

Completion of the Falcon 9 came as SpaceX mated the 5.2 m payload fairing to the Falcon 9 first stage. This was the final step in the integration process, completed one day ahead of schedule, according to the company.

With Falcon 9 integrated, focus shifts to the big launch mount and erector. All the pieces have been delivered, and now a tremendous amount of welding will be required to join them all together.

Once the launch mount and erector are complete, Falcon 9 will be transferred onto the erector and it will be raised to vertical early this year.