Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by Space X for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond. Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital class reusable rocket. Reusability allows Space X to refly the most expensive parts of the rocket, which in turn drives down the cost of space access. Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital class reusable rocket. Reusability allows Space X to refly the most expensive parts of the rocket, which in turn drives down the cost of space access. Falcon 9 is named for the Millennium Falcon in the “Star Wars” movies. The number 9 refers to the nine Merlin engines that power Falcon 9’s first stage; one Merlin vacuum engine powers the second stage.
SPECIFICATIONS OF FALCON 9
The FALCON 9 from Space X is a Satellite Launch Vehicle Platform with Launch Vehicle Mass 549054 Kg, Launch Vehicle Diameter 3.7 m, Launch Vehicle Height 70 m, Payload Capacity 4020 to 22800 Kg, First Stage Engine Thrust 845000 N. More details for FALCON 9 can be seen below.
| HEIGHT | 70 m / 229.6 ft |
| DIAMETER | 3.7 m / 12 ft |
| MASS | 549,054 kg / 1,207,920 lb |
| PAYLOAD TO LEO | 22,800 kg / 50,265 lb |
| PAYLOAD TO GTO | 8,300 kg / 18,300 lb |
| PAYLOAD TO MARS | 4,020 kg / 8,860 lb |
| THRUST AT SEA LEVEL (1st stage) | 7,607 kN / 1,710,000 lbf |
| THRUST IN VACUUM (1st stage) | 8,227 kN / 1,849,500 lbf |
| BURN TIME (2nd stage) | 397 sec |
| THRUST (2nd stage) | 981 kN / 220,500 lbf |
| DRAGON HEIGHT | 8.1 m / 26.6 ft |
| DRAGON DIAMETER | 3.7 m / 12 ft |
FEATURES OF FALCON 9
Falcon 9’s first stage incorporates nine Merlin engines and aluminum-lithium alloy tanks containing liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellant.
Falcon 9 generates more than 1.7 million pounds of thrust at sea level.
Inter stage
The inter stage is a composite structure that connects the first and second stages, and houses the pneumatic pushers that allow the first and second stage to separate during flight.
Grid fins
Falcon 9 is equipped with four hypersonic grid fins positioned at the base of the interstage. They orient the rocket during reentry by moving the center of pressure.
Engines
The nine Merlin engines on the first stage are gradually throttled near the end of first-stage flight to limit launch vehicle acceleration as the rocket’s mass decreases with the burning of fuel. These engines are also used to reorient the first stage prior to reentry and to decelerate the vehicle for landing.
The second stage, powered by a single Merlin Vacuum Engine, delivers Falcon 9’s payload to the desired orbit. The second stage engine ignites a few seconds after stage separation, and can be restarted multiple times to place multiple payloads into different orbit.
Landing legs
The Falcon 9 first stage is equipped with four landing legs made of state-of-the-art carbon fiber with aluminum honeycomb.
Placed symmetrically around the base of the rocket, they are stowed at the base of the vehicle and deploy just prior to landing.
Dragon
Dragon is capable of carrying up to 7 people and/or cargo in the spacecraft’s pressurized section. In addition, Dragon can carry cargo in the spacecraft’s unpressurized trunk, which can also accommodate secondary payloads.
FAIRING OF FALCON X
Made of a carbon composite material, the fairing protects satellites on their way to orbit. The fairing is jettisoned approximately 3 minutes into flight, and SpaceX continues to recover fairings for reuse on future missions.
| HEIGHT | 13.1 m / 43 ft |
| DIAMETER | 5.2 m / 17.1 ft |
The cost of a fairing is about $6 million which accounts for 10 percent of overall Falcon 9 launch costs. The “bouncy castle” idea led to SpaceX contracting for the fast vessel. The rocket uses a 17-foot (5.2 m) wide, 43-foot (13.1 m) tall payload fairing except when flying SpaceX’s own Dragon spacecraft. Overall, the Falcon 9 is 229.6 feet (70 m) tall with a stage diameter of 12 feet (3.7 m).
CAPACITY OF FALCON 9
Falcon 9 was designed to compete with the Delta family of launchers in that it can lift payloads of up to 8,300 kg (18,300 pounds) to geostationary orbit. Most of the time, the only humans in space are those aboard the ISS, which generally has a crew of 7, and those aboard Tiangong, which generally has a crew of 3. NASA and ESA use the term “human spaceflight” to refer to their programs of launching people into space.
MISSIONS OF FALCON 9
Falcon 9’s typical missions include cargo delivery and crewed flights to the International Space Station (ISS) with the Dragon and Dragon 2 capsules, launch of communications satellites and Earth observation satellites to geostationary transfer orbits (GTO), and low Earth orbits (LEO), some of them at a polar inclination.
Rockets from the Falcon 9 family have been launched 276 times over 13 years, resulting in 274 full mission successes (99.3%), one partial success (SpaceX CRS-1 delivered its cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), but a secondary payload was stranded in a lower-than-planned orbit), and one full failure (the SpaceX CRS-7 spacecraft was lost in flight in an explosion). Additionally, one rocket and its payload AMOS-6 were destroyed before launch in preparation for an on-pad static fire test. The active version, Falcon 9 Block 5, has flown 212 missions, all full successes.
In 2022 Falcon 9 set a new record of 60 launches (all successful) by the same launch vehicle type in a calendar year. The previous record was held by Soyuz-U, which had 47 launches (45 successful) in 1979.
LAUNCH COST OF FALCON 9
A Falcon 9 launch will cost $67 million, up from $62 million, and a Falcon Heavy launch will now run $97 million, up from $90 million. A footnote on Space X’s pricing page notes that “missions purchased in 2022 but flown beyond 2023 may be subject to additional adjustments due to inflation.”