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134-403: The earliest prototype was Grasshopper . It was announced in 2011 and began low-altitude, low-velocity hover/landing testing in 2012. Grasshopper was 106 ft (32 m) tall and made eight successful test flights in 2012 and 2013 before being retired. A second prototype of Falcon 9 was the larger and more capable Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicle (F9R Dev, also known as F9R Dev1) based on

268-545: A nuclear halo . Table of thermal and physical properties of helium gas at atmospheric pressure: Helium has a valence of zero and is chemically unreactive under all normal conditions. It is an electrical insulator unless ionized . As with the other noble gases, helium has metastable energy levels that allow it to remain ionized in an electrical discharge with a voltage below its ionization potential . Helium can form unstable compounds , known as excimers , with tungsten, iodine, fluorine, sulfur, and phosphorus when it

402-591: A privately funded development program with the goal to obtain full and rapid reusability of both stages of the launch vehicle. Design was complete on the system for "bringing the rocket back to launchpad using only thrusters" in February 2012. The reusable launch system technology is being considered for both the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy, and is considered particularly well suited to the Falcon Heavy where

536-639: A pyrophoric mixture of triethylaluminium - triethylborane (TEA-TEB) as a first-stage ignitor, the same as was used in the v1.0 version. Like the Falcon 9 v1.0 and the Saturn series from the Apollo program , the presence of multiple first-stage engines can allow for mission completion even if one of the first-stage engines fails mid-flight. The main propellant supply tubes from the RP-1 and liquid oxygen tanks to

670-584: A return to the launch site and a powered landing. They "expect several failures before they 'learn how to do it right.'" SpaceX completed multiple water landings that were successful and they now plan to land the first stage of the flight CRS-5 on an Autonomous drone port in the ocean. Photos of the first test of the restartable ignition system for the reusable Falcon 9—the Falcon 9-R— nine- engine v1.1 circular-engine configuration were released in April 2013. In March 2014, SpaceX announced that GTO payload of

804-441: A superfluid phase, but only at much lower temperatures; as a result, less is known about the properties of the isotope. Helium II is a superfluid, a quantum mechanical state of matter with strange properties. For example, when it flows through capillaries as thin as 10 to 100 nm it has no measurable viscosity . However, when measurements were done between two moving discs, a viscosity comparable to that of gaseous helium

938-511: A 61-second hover flight to an altitude of 250 metres (820 ft). In March 2013, SpaceX announced that, beginning with the first flight of the stretch version of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle (Falcon 9 v1.1)—which flew in September 2013—every first stage would be instrumented and equipped as a controlled descent test vehicle. SpaceX intends to do propulsive-return over-water tests and "will continue doing such tests until they can do

1072-459: A controlled atmospheric descent with autonomous guidance to the target and finally a landing burn to cut vertical velocity to zero just before reaching the ocean or landing pad. SpaceX announced the test program in March 2013, and their intention to continue to conduct such tests until they can return to the launch site and perform a powered landing . The first stage of Falcon 9 Flight 6 performed

1206-421: A few millikelvins. It is possible to produce exotic helium isotopes , which rapidly decay into other substances. The shortest-lived heavy helium isotope is the unbound helium-10 with a half-life of 2.6(4) × 10  s . Helium-6 decays by emitting a beta particle and has a half-life of 0.8 second. Helium-7 and helium-8 are created in certain nuclear reactions . Helium-6 and helium-8 are known to exhibit

1340-547: A floating platform, the autonomous spaceport drone ship , in January 2015. The rocket guided itself to the ship successfully but landed too hard for survival. The first stage of the CRS-6 mission managed a soft landing on the platform; however, excess lateral velocity caused it to quickly tip over and explode. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk indicated that a throttle valve for the engine was stuck and did not respond quickly enough to achieve

1474-524: A gas-like index of refraction of 1.026 which makes its surface so hard to see that floats of Styrofoam are often used to show where the surface is. This colorless liquid has a very low viscosity and a density of 0.145–0.125 g/mL (between about 0 and 4 K), which is only one-fourth the value expected from classical physics . Quantum mechanics is needed to explain this property and thus both states of liquid helium (helium I and helium II) are called quantum fluids , meaning they display atomic properties on

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1608-451: A hard splashdown which destroyed the first stage. Pieces of wreckage were recovered for further study. The next test, using the first stage from SpaceX CRS-3 , led to a successful soft landing in the ocean, however the booster presumably broke up in heavy seas before it could be recovered. After further ocean landing tests, the first stage of the CRS-5 launch vehicle attempted to land on

1742-472: A helium-oxygen bond could be stable. Two new molecular species, predicted using theory, CsFHeO and N(CH 3 ) 4 FHeO, are derivatives of a metastable FHeO anion first theorized in 2005 by a group from Taiwan. Helium atoms have been inserted into the hollow carbon cage molecules (the fullerenes ) by heating under high pressure. The endohedral fullerene molecules formed are stable at high temperatures. When chemical derivatives of these fullerenes are formed,

1876-410: A lower boiling point, can achieve about 0.2 kelvin in a helium-3 refrigerator . Equal mixtures of liquid He and He below 0.8 K separate into two immiscible phases due to their dissimilarity (they follow different quantum statistics : helium-4 atoms are bosons while helium-3 atoms are fermions ). Dilution refrigerators use this immiscibility to achieve temperatures of

2010-434: A macroscopic scale. This may be an effect of its boiling point being so close to absolute zero, preventing random molecular motion ( thermal energy ) from masking the atomic properties. Liquid helium below its lambda point (called helium II ) exhibits very unusual characteristics. Due to its high thermal conductivity , when it boils, it does not bubble but rather evaporates directly from its surface. Helium-3 also has

2144-459: A negative Joule–Thomson coefficient at normal ambient temperatures, meaning it heats up when allowed to freely expand. Only below its Joule–Thomson inversion temperature (of about 32 to 50 K at 1 atmosphere) does it cool upon free expansion. Once precooled below this temperature, helium can be liquefied through expansion cooling. Most extraterrestrial helium is plasma in stars, with properties quite different from those of atomic helium. In

2278-427: A new form of hydrogen with half-integer transition levels. In 1912, Alfred Fowler managed to produce similar lines from a hydrogen-helium mixture, and supported Pickering's conclusion as to their origin. Bohr's model does not allow for half-integer transitions (nor does quantum mechanics) and Bohr concluded that Pickering and Fowler were wrong, and instead assigned these spectral lines to ionised helium, He . Fowler

2412-438: A number of "firsts": SpaceX conducted the fifteenth and final flight of the Falcon 9 v1.1 on 17 January 2016. Fourteen of those fifteen launches have successfully delivered their primary payloads to either Low Earth orbit or Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit . The only failed mission of the Falcon 9 v1.1 was its 14th, SpaceX CRS-7 , 28 June 2015, which was lost during its first stage operation, due to an overpressure event in

2546-516: A phenomenon now called superfluidity . This phenomenon is related to Bose–Einstein condensation . In 1972, the same phenomenon was observed in helium-3 , but at temperatures much closer to absolute zero, by American physicists Douglas D. Osheroff , David M. Lee , and Robert C. Richardson . The phenomenon in helium-3 is thought to be related to pairing of helium-3 fermions to make bosons , in analogy to Cooper pairs of electrons producing superconductivity . In 1961, Vignos and Fairbank reported

2680-494: A planned landing. SpaceX ultimately intends to produce both reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles with full vertical-landing capability. Initial atmospheric testing of prototype vehicles is being conducted on the Grasshopper experimental technology-demonstrator reusable launch vehicle (RLV), in addition to the booster controlled-descent and landing tests described above. The v1.1 first stage uses

2814-595: A plasma, helium's electrons are not bound to its nucleus, resulting in very high electrical conductivity, even when the gas is only partially ionized. The charged particles are highly influenced by magnetic and electric fields. For example, in the solar wind together with ionized hydrogen, the particles interact with the Earth's magnetosphere , giving rise to Birkeland currents and the aurora . Helium liquifies when cooled below 4.2 K at atmospheric pressure. Unlike any other element, however, helium remains liquid down to

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2948-441: A pressurizing and purge gas, as a protective atmosphere for arc welding , and in processes such as growing crystals to make silicon wafers —account for half of the gas produced. A small but well-known use is as a lifting gas in balloons and airships . As with any gas whose density differs from that of air, inhaling a small volume of helium temporarily changes the timbre and quality of the human voice . In scientific research,

3082-448: A production vertical-landing rocket on land in late 2015. The first attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 on land, near its launch site, occurred on Falcon 9 Flight 20 , on 21 December 2015. The landing was successful, and the first stage of the Falcon 9 Full Thrust vehicle was recovered. By May 27, 2016, SpaceX had successfully completed three first-stage landings on a drone ship at sea. Falcon 9 v1.1 Falcon 9 v1.1

3216-430: A rate three times that of air and around 65% that of hydrogen. Helium is the least water- soluble monatomic gas, and one of the least water-soluble of any gas ( CF 4 , SF 6 , and C 4 F 8 have lower mole fraction solubilities: 0.3802, 0.4394, and 0.2372 x 2 /10 , respectively, versus helium's 0.70797 x 2 /10 ), and helium's index of refraction is closer to unity than that of any other gas. Helium has

3350-478: A reconsideration of the Pickering–Fowler series as central evidence in support of his model of the atom . This series is named for Edward Charles Pickering , who in 1896 published observations of previously unknown lines in the spectrum of the star ζ Puppis (these are now known to occur with Wolf–Rayet and other hot stars). Pickering attributed the observation (lines at 4551, 5411, and 10123  Å ) to

3484-445: A result of this creeping behavior and helium II's ability to leak rapidly through tiny openings, it is very difficult to confine. Unless the container is carefully constructed, the helium II will creep along the surfaces and through valves until it reaches somewhere warmer, where it will evaporate. Waves propagating across a Rollin film are governed by the same equation as gravity waves in shallow water, but rather than gravity,

3618-702: A second hop in November 2012 with an 8-second flight that took the testbed approximately 5.4 m (18 ft) off the ground, and a third flight in December 2012 of 29 seconds duration, with extended hover under rocket engine power, in which it ascended to an altitude of 40 m (130 ft) before descending under rocket power to come to a successful vertical landing. Grasshopper made its eighth, and final, test flight on October 7, 2013, flying to an altitude of 744 m (2,441 ft) before making its eighth successful vertical landing . The Grasshopper test vehicle

3752-479: A short-duration ground test (static test) of F9R Dev1 on March 28, 2014, at their McGregor, Texas test site, and made their maiden test flight of the new vehicle, to an altitude of 250 meters (820 ft), on April 17, 2014. The F9R Dev1 flew for the fifth and last time on August 22, 2014. During this flight, anomalous sensor data from the vehicle during its ascent caused the rocket to deviate from nominal flight trajectory, prompting its flight termination system to end

3886-411: A single Merlin 1D engine in place, the center engine which is now used to complete the last phase of the deceleration and vertical landing on full-scale Falcon 9 rockets. A third flight test vehicle—F9R Dev2—was initially planned to be flown only at the high-altitude test range at Spaceport America and at altitudes of up to 91,000 meters (300,000 ft). In September 2014, following the destruction of

4020-461: A smooth landing. Falcon 9 v1.1 was never successfully recovered or reused until its retirement. However the test program continued with Falcon 9 Full Thrust flights, which achieved both the first ground landing in December 2015 and the first ship landing in April 2016. Falcon 9 v1.1 rockets were launched from both Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base . The Vandenberg site

4154-463: A surface extends past the level of helium II, the helium II moves along the surface, against the force of gravity . Helium II will escape from a vessel that is not sealed by creeping along the sides until it reaches a warmer region where it evaporates. It moves in a 30 nm-thick film regardless of surface material. This film is called a Rollin film and is named after the man who first characterized this trait, Bernard V. Rollin . As

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4288-561: A technique which minimizes manufacturing defects and reduces cost, according to a NASA spokesperson. The second-stage tank of Falcon 9 is simply a shorter version of the first-stage tank and uses most of the same tooling, material and manufacturing techniques. This saves money during vehicle production. The fairing design was completed by SpaceX, with production of the 13 m (43 ft)-long, 5.2 m (17 ft)-diameter payload fairing in Hawthorne, California . Testing of

4422-449: A temperature of absolute zero . This is a direct effect of quantum mechanics: specifically, the zero point energy of the system is too high to allow freezing. Pressures above about 25 atmospheres are required to freeze it. There are two liquid phases: Helium I is a conventional liquid, and Helium II, which occurs at a lower temperature, is a superfluid . Below its boiling point of 4.22 K (−268.93 °C; −452.07 °F) and above

4556-464: A γ phase, which is body-centered cubic (bcc). There are nine known isotopes of helium of which two, helium-3 and helium-4 , are stable . In the Earth's atmosphere, one atom is He for every million that are He . Unlike most elements, helium's isotopic abundance varies greatly by origin, due to the different formation processes. The most common isotope, helium-4, is produced on Earth by alpha decay of heavier radioactive elements;

4690-403: Is 0.187 ± 0.009 g/cm . At higher temperatures, helium will solidify with sufficient pressure. At room temperature, this requires about 114,000 atm. Helium-4 and helium-3 both form several crystalline solid phases, all requiring at least 25 bar. They both form an α phase, which has a hexagonal close-packed (hcp) crystal structure, a β phase, which is face-centered cubic (fcc), and

4824-434: Is a chemical element ; it has symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert , monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table . Its boiling point is the lowest among all the elements , and it does not have a melting point at standard pressures. It is the second-lightest and second most abundant element in the observable universe , after hydrogen . It

4958-407: Is a non-renewable resource because once released into the atmosphere, it promptly escapes into space . Its supply is thought to be rapidly diminishing. However, some studies suggest that helium produced deep in the Earth by radioactive decay can collect in natural gas reserves in larger-than-expected quantities, in some cases having been released by volcanic activity. The first evidence of helium

5092-545: Is a two-stage, LOX / RP-1 –powered launch vehicle. The original Falcon 9 flew five successful orbital launches in 2010–2013, all carrying the Dragon spacecraft or a test version of the spacecraft. The Falcon 9 v1.1 ELV was a 60 percent heavier rocket with 60 percent more thrust than the v1.0 version of the Falcon 9. It includes realigned first-stage engines and 60 percent longer fuel tanks, making it more susceptible to bending during flight. The engines were upgraded from

5226-399: Is constructed which is connected to a reservoir of helium II by a sintered disc through which superfluid helium leaks easily but through which non-superfluid helium cannot pass. If the interior of the container is heated, the superfluid helium changes to non-superfluid helium. In order to maintain the equilibrium fraction of superfluid helium, superfluid helium leaks through and increases

5360-553: Is controlled by three voting computers, each of which has two physical processors that constantly check each other. The software runs on Linux and is written in C++ . For flexibility, commercial off-the-shelf parts and system-wide "radiation-tolerant" design are used instead of rad-hardened parts. Falcon 9 v1.1 continues to utilize the triple redundant flight computers and inertial navigation—with GPS overlay for additional orbit insertion accuracy—that were originally used in

5494-447: Is created by the natural radioactive decay of heavy radioactive elements ( thorium and uranium , although there are other examples), as the alpha particles emitted by such decays consist of helium-4 nuclei . This radiogenic helium is trapped with natural gas in concentrations as great as 7% by volume, from which it is extracted commercially by a low-temperature separation process called fractional distillation . Terrestrial helium

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5628-448: Is looking to increase their launch processing by building dual-track parallel launch processes at the launch facility. As of March 2014 , they projected that they would have this in operation sometime in 2015, and were aiming for a 2015 launch pace of about two launches per month. The first launch of the substantially upgraded Falcon 9 v1.1 vehicle successfully flew on 29 September 2013. The maiden Falcon 9 v1.1 launch included

5762-413: Is no exception. Thus, numerical mathematical methods are required, even to solve the system of one nucleus and two electrons. Such computational chemistry methods have been used to create a quantum mechanical picture of helium electron binding which is accurate to within < 2% of the correct value, in a few computational steps. Such models show that each electron in helium partly screens the nucleus from

5896-580: Is now retired. Flight tests at the Texas facility were limited to a maximum altitude of 2,500 ft (760 m) by the initial FAA regulatory permit. From the announcement in 2011 until 2014, SpaceX has achieved each of the schedule milestones that they publicly announced. SpaceX said in February 2012 that they were planning several vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing (VTVL) test flights during 2012, and confirmed in June 2012 that they continued to plan to make

6030-519: Is often jointly credited with detecting the element, along with Norman Lockyer . Janssen recorded the helium spectral line during the solar eclipse of 1868, while Lockyer observed it from Britain. However, only Lockyer proposed that the line was due to a new element, which he named after the Sun. The formal discovery of the element was made in 1895 by chemists Sir William Ramsay , Per Teodor Cleve , and Nils Abraham Langlet , who found helium emanating from

6164-530: Is present at about 24% of the total elemental mass, which is more than 12 times the mass of all the heavier elements combined. Its abundance is similar to this in both the Sun and Jupiter , because of the very high nuclear binding energy (per nucleon ) of helium-4 , with respect to the next three elements after helium. This helium-4 binding energy also accounts for why it is a product of both nuclear fusion and radioactive decay . The most common isotope of helium in

6298-479: Is produced in fusion reactions from hydrogen, though its estimated abundance in the universe is about 10 relative to helium-4. The unusual stability of the helium-4 nucleus is also important cosmologically : it explains the fact that in the first few minutes after the Big Bang , as the "soup" of free protons and neutrons which had initially been created in about 6:1 ratio cooled to the point that nuclear binding

6432-520: Is subjected to a glow discharge , to electron bombardment, or reduced to plasma by other means. The molecular compounds HeNe, HgHe 10 , and WHe 2 , and the molecular ions He 2 , He 2 , HeH , and HeD have been created this way. HeH is also stable in its ground state but is extremely reactive—it is the strongest Brønsted acid known, and therefore can exist only in isolation, as it will protonate any molecule or counteranion it contacts. This technique has also produced

6566-466: Is the second least reactive noble gas after neon , and thus the second least reactive of all elements. It is chemically inert and monatomic in all standard conditions. Because of helium's relatively low molar (atomic) mass, its thermal conductivity , specific heat , and sound speed in the gas phase are all greater than any other gas except hydrogen . For these reasons and the small size of helium monatomic molecules, helium diffuses through solids at

6700-416: Is thus energetically extremely stable for all these particles and has astrophysical implications. Namely, adding another particle – proton, neutron, or alpha particle – would consume rather than release energy; all systems with mass number 5, as well as beryllium-8 (comprising two alpha particles), are unbound. For example, the stability and low energy of the electron cloud state in helium accounts for

6834-402: The 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis severely affected helium production there. 2014 was widely acknowledged to be a year of over-supply in the helium business, following years of renowned shortages. Nasdaq reported (2015) that for Air Products , an international corporation that sells gases for industrial use, helium volumes remain under economic pressure due to feedstock supply constraints. In

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6968-460: The Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle. It was tested at higher altitudes and was capable of much higher velocity but was never tested at high velocity. The F9R Dev1 vehicle was built in 2013–2014 and made its first low-altitude flight test on 17 April 2014; it was lost during a three-engine test at the McGregor test site on 22 August 2014, which ended the low-velocity test program. Further expansion of

7102-557: The Federal Aviation Administration . Shortly thereafter, SpaceX confirmed the existence of the test vehicle development program, and projected it would begin the Grasshopper flight test program in 2012. Releases of public information in 2011 indicated that the subsonic tests would occur in McGregor, Texas in three phases, at maximum flight altitudes of 670 to 11,500 ft (200 to 3,510 m), for durations of 45 to 160 s (0.75 to 2.67 min). At

7236-576: The Federal Government's adjacent White Sands Missile Range facility as previously planned—and signed a three-year lease for land and facilities at the recently operational spaceport. SpaceX indicated in May 2013 that they did not yet know how many jobs might move from Texas to New Mexico. SpaceX began constructing a 30 m × 30 m (98 ft × 98 ft) pad at Spaceport America in May 2013, 7 km (4.3 mi) southwest of

7370-456: The Merlin 1C to the more powerful Merlin 1D engines. These improvements increased the payload capability to LEO from 10,454 kilograms (23,047 lb) to 13,150 kilograms (28,990 lb). The stage separation system was redesigned and reduced the number of attachment points from twelve to three, and the vehicle had upgraded avionics and software as well. The v1.1 booster version arranged

7504-516: The Naval Aircraft Factory -built USS Shenandoah , flew in September 1923. Although the extraction process using low-temperature gas liquefaction was not developed in time to be significant during World War I, production continued. Helium was primarily used as a lifting gas in lighter-than-air craft. During World War II, the demand increased for helium for lifting gas and for shielded arc welding . The helium mass spectrometer

7638-639: The Space Station over a fixed number of flights. SpaceX stated that due to mission assurance process costs, launches for the U.S. military would be priced about 50% more than commercial launches, so a Falcon 9 launch would sell for about $ 90 million to the US government, compared to an average cost to the US government of nearly $ 400 million for current non-SpaceX launches. Falcon 9 payload services include secondary and tertiary payload connection via an ESPA-ring ,

7772-643: The Vandenberg Air Force Base SLC-4E . Since this rocket only had three Merlin 1D engines, and the New Mexico site was to have been used for testing the returned first stages, it was speculated that the discontinued F9R Dev2 was re-purposed as the launch vehicle in the In-Flight Abort Test. In May 2015, a press article stated that due to the technical success of many aspects of the booster rocket landing attempts on

7906-624: The beta decay of tritium . Rocks from the Earth's crust have isotope ratios varying by as much as a factor of ten, and these ratios can be used to investigate the origin of rocks and the composition of the Earth's mantle . He is much more abundant in stars as a product of nuclear fusion. Thus in the interstellar medium , the proportion of He to He is about 100 times higher than on Earth. Extraplanetary material, such as lunar and asteroid regolith , have trace amounts of helium-3 from being bombarded by solar winds . The Moon 's surface contains helium-3 at concentrations on

8040-467: The flight test envelope for the reusable rocket was moved to descending Falcon 9 boosters that had been used on orbital flight trajectories on commercial orbital flights of the Falcon 9. The Grasshopper and F9R Dev tests were fundamental to the development of the reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, which require vertical landings of the near-empty Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy first-stage booster tanks and engine assemblies. The Grasshopper and

8174-413: The lambda point of 2.1768 K (−270.9732 °C; −455.7518 °F), the isotope helium-4 exists in a normal colorless liquid state, called helium I . Like other cryogenic liquids, helium I boils when it is heated and contracts when its temperature is lowered. Below the lambda point, however, helium does not boil, and it expands as the temperature is lowered further. Helium I has

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8308-626: The uranium ore cleveite , which is now not regarded as a separate mineral species, but as a variety of uraninite . In 1903, large reserves of helium were found in natural gas fields in parts of the United States, by far the largest supplier of the gas today. Liquid helium is used in cryogenics (its largest single use, consuming about a quarter of production), and in the cooling of superconducting magnets , with its main commercial application in MRI scanners. Helium's other industrial uses—as

8442-467: The Earth, and for carbon-based or other life) have thus been created since the Big Bang in stars which were hot enough to fuse helium itself. All elements other than hydrogen and helium today account for only 2% of the mass of atomic matter in the universe. Helium-4, by contrast, comprises about 24% of the mass of the universe's ordinary matter—nearly all the ordinary matter that is not hydrogen. Helium

8576-520: The F9R Dev tests led into a series of high-altitude, high-speed controlled-descent tests of post-mission (spent) Falcon 9 booster stages that accompanied the commercial Falcon 9 missions since September 2013. The latter eventually resulted in the first successful booster landing on 21 December 2015. Grasshopper first became known publicly in the third quarter of 2011, when space journalists first wrote about it after analyzing space launch regulations of

8710-641: The F9R Dev1, SpaceX changed the plans, so the F9R Dev2 vehicle would fly first in McGregor for low-altitude testing. The initial FAA permit to fly the Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicle at McGregor in Texas was open until February 2015. On 19 February 2015 SpaceX announced that the F9R Dev2 would be discontinued. During April 2015, SpaceX performed tanking tests on the In-Flight Abort rocket on

8844-697: The Falcon 9 design in the medium-lift range of launch systems. Beginning in April 2014, the Dragon capsules were propelled by Falcon 9 v1.1 to deliver cargo to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. This version was also intended to ferry astronauts to the ISS under a NASA Commercial Crew Development contract signed in September 2014. However, SpaceX ended up using

8978-463: The Falcon 9 v1.0. A test of the ignition system for the Falcon ;9 v1.1 first stage was conducted in April 2013. On 1 June 2013, a ten-second firing of the Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage occurred; a full-duration, 3-minute firing was expected a few days later. By September 2013, SpaceX total manufacturing space had increased to nearly 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m ) and

9112-617: The Falcon 9 v1.1 first-stage tank that had been used for qualification testing in Texas at the SpaceX Rocket Development and Test Facility prior to March. In 2014, the FAA permit was increased to 10,000 ft (3,000 m) for the F9R Dev testing at McGregor, when the first Grasshopper was limited to an altitude of 2,500 ft (760 m). The F9R Dev1 was built on the much longer Falcon 9 v1.1 first stage tanks, and with retractable landing legs . SpaceX performed

9246-470: The Falcon 9 v1.1 in September 2013, which experienced a post-mission second-stage engine restart failure, the second-stage igniter propellant lines were insulated to better support in-space restart following long coast phases for orbital trajectory maneuvers. Falcon 9 Flight 6 was the first launch of the Falcon 9 configured with a jettisonable payload fairing . The Falcon 9 v1.1 uses a first stage powered by nine Merlin 1D engines. Development testing of

9380-453: The ISS—which include the provision of the space capsule payload, a new Dragon cargo spacecraft for each flight—had an average price of $ 133 million. The first twelve cargo transport flights contracted to NASA were done at one time, so no price change is reflected for the v1.1 launches as opposed to the v1.0 launches. The contract was for a specific amount of cargo carried to, and returned from,

9514-465: The Interior to empty the reserve, with sales starting by 2005. Helium produced between 1930 and 1945 was about 98.3% pure (2% nitrogen), which was adequate for airships. In 1945, a small amount of 99.9% helium was produced for welding use. By 1949, commercial quantities of Grade A 99.95% helium were available. For many years, the United States produced more than 90% of commercially usable helium in

9648-619: The United States in 1965 was more than eight times the peak wartime consumption. After the Helium Acts Amendments of 1960 (Public Law 86–777), the U.S. Bureau of Mines arranged for five private plants to recover helium from natural gas. For this helium conservation program, the Bureau built a 425-mile (684 km) pipeline from Bushton, Kansas , to connect those plants with the government's partially depleted Cliffside gas field near Amarillo, Texas. This helium-nitrogen mixture

9782-440: The alpha particles that emerge are fully ionized helium-4 nuclei. Helium-4 is an unusually stable nucleus because its nucleons are arranged into complete shells . It was also formed in enormous quantities during Big Bang nucleosynthesis . Helium-3 is present on Earth only in trace amounts. Most of it has been present since Earth's formation, though some falls to Earth trapped in cosmic dust . Trace amounts are also produced by

9916-412: The behavior of the two fluid phases of helium-4 (helium I and helium II) is important to researchers studying quantum mechanics (in particular the property of superfluidity ) and to those looking at the phenomena, such as superconductivity , produced in matter near absolute zero . On Earth, it is relatively rare—5.2 ppm by volume in the atmosphere . Most terrestrial helium present today

10050-446: The element's chemical inertness, and also the lack of interaction of helium atoms with each other, producing the lowest melting and boiling points of all the elements. In a similar way, the particular energetic stability of the helium-4 nucleus, produced by similar effects, accounts for the ease of helium-4 production in atomic reactions that involve either heavy-particle emission or fusion. Some stable helium-3 (two protons and one neutron)

10184-401: The engines in a structural form SpaceX called Octaweb , with eight engines arranged in a circular pattern around a single center engine. The v1.0 used a rectangular pattern of engines. The Octaweb pattern was aimed at streamlining the manufacturing process. Later v1.1 vehicles include four extensible landing legs, used in the controlled-descent test program . Following the first launch of

10318-515: The existence of a different phase of solid helium-4, designated the gamma-phase. It exists for a narrow range of pressure between 1.45 and 1.78 K. After an oil drilling operation in 1903 in Dexter, Kansas produced a gas geyser that would not burn, Kansas state geologist Erasmus Haworth collected samples of the escaping gas and took them back to the University of Kansas at Lawrence where, with

10452-517: The existence of this new element. The ending "-ium" is unusual, as it normally applies only to metallic elements; probably Lockyer, being an astronomer, was unaware of the chemical conventions. In 1881, Italian physicist Luigi Palmieri detected helium on Earth for the first time through its D 3 spectral line, when he analyzed a material that had been sublimated during a recent eruption of Mount Vesuvius . On March 26, 1895, Scottish chemist Sir William Ramsay isolated helium on Earth by treating

10586-445: The factory had been configured to achieve a production rate of up to 40 rocket cores per year, for both the Falcon 9 v1.1 and the tri-core Falcon Heavy . The November 2013 production rate for Falcon 9 vehicles was one per month. The company stated that this would increase to 18 per year in mid-2014, and would be 24 launch vehicles per year by the end of 2014. As launch manifest and launch rate increases in 2014–2016, SpaceX

10720-451: The few minutes after the Big Bang, before the early expanding universe cooled to the temperature and pressure point where helium fusion to carbon was no longer possible. This left the early universe with a very similar ratio of hydrogen/helium as is observed today (3 parts hydrogen to 1 part helium-4 by mass), with nearly all the neutrons in the universe trapped in helium-4. All heavier elements (including those necessary for rocky planets like

10854-416: The first Grasshopper. The F9R Dev1 had a different engine bay than the first Grasshopper vehicle. The F9R Dev1 vehicle in Texas was intended to take off and accelerate with three engines—as the test flight never needs the full thrust to take off a fully loaded Falcon 9 with an orbital payload—while completing the descent and landing with only one engine. The original Grasshopper had flown exclusively with only

10988-519: The first flight of the stretch version of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle—the sixth flight overall of Falcon 9 (then anticipated for summer 2013), every first stage would be instrumented and equipped as a controlled descent test vehicle. SpaceX attempted numerous over-water landings, both over the sea, resulting in soft landings into the water, and onto specialized Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships , barges modified to be landing platforms. None were completely successful. SpaceX eventually succeeded in landing

11122-502: The first test flight within the next couple of months. The Falcon 9 Reusable Development Vehicle, or F9R Dev , was announced in October 2012. F9R Dev1 was initially named, since late 2012 until early 2014, as Grasshopper v1.1. In March 2013 Musk said that SpaceX hoped to reach hypersonic speed before the end of 2013. In March 2013, it was announced that the second Grasshopper-class suborbital flight vehicle would be constructed out of

11256-462: The first test of a controlled descent and propulsive landing over water on 29 September 2013. Although not a complete success, the stage was able to change direction and make a controlled entry into the atmosphere. During the final landing burn, the ACS thrusters could not overcome an aerodynamically induced spin, and centrifugal force deprived the landing engine of fuel leading to early engine shutdown and

11390-402: The future reusable Falcon 9 (F9-R), with only the booster reused, would be approximately 3,500 kg (7,700 lb). Several missions of Falcon 9 v1.1 were followed by post-mission test flights calling for the first-stage booster to execute a flip around maneuver, a boostback burn to reduce the rocket's horizontal velocity, a re-entry burn to mitigate atmospheric damage at hypersonic speed,

11524-420: The heat. Helium II has no such valence band but nevertheless conducts heat well. The flow of heat is governed by equations that are similar to the wave equation used to characterize sound propagation in air. When heat is introduced, it moves at 20 meters per second at 1.8 K through helium II as waves in a phenomenon known as second sound . Helium II also exhibits a creeping effect. When

11658-567: The helium stays inside. If helium-3 is used, it can be readily observed by helium nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy . Many fullerenes containing helium-3 have been reported. Although the helium atoms are not attached by covalent or ionic bonds, these substances have distinct properties and a definite composition, like all stoichiometric chemical compounds. Under high pressures helium can form compounds with various other elements. Helium-nitrogen clathrate (He(N 2 ) 11 ) crystals have been grown at room temperature at pressures ca. 10 GPa in

11792-400: The help of chemists Hamilton Cady and David McFarland, he discovered that the gas consisted of, by volume, 72% nitrogen, 15% methane (a combustible percentage only with sufficient oxygen), 1% hydrogen , and 12% an unidentifiable gas. With further analysis, Cady and McFarland discovered that 1.84% of the gas sample was helium. This showed that despite its overall rarity on Earth, helium

11926-429: The lines to nitrogen . His letter of congratulations to Ramsay offers an interesting case of discovery, and near-discovery, in science. In 1907, Ernest Rutherford and Thomas Royds demonstrated that alpha particles are helium nuclei by allowing the particles to penetrate the thin glass wall of an evacuated tube , then creating a discharge in the tube, to study the spectrum of the new gas inside. In 1908, helium

12060-427: The mineral cleveite (a variety of uraninite with at least 10% rare-earth elements ) with mineral acids . Ramsay was looking for argon but, after separating nitrogen and oxygen from the gas, liberated by sulfuric acid , he noticed a bright yellow line that matched the D 3 line observed in the spectrum of the Sun. These samples were identified as helium by Lockyer and British physicist William Crookes . It

12194-485: The mission by neutralizing the vehicle. No injuries or near-injuries were reported following the breakup of F9R Dev1 and an FAA representative was present during the test. Video from the accident was released by CBS and multiple images from the accident were posted on social media. In 2013, SpaceX moved to using their mainstream Falcon 9 vehicles for VTVL testing, in addition to their existing tests with flying test vehicles. In March 2013, SpaceX announced that, beginning with

12328-497: The neutral molecule He 2 , which has a large number of band systems , and HgHe, which is apparently held together only by polarization forces. Van der Waals compounds of helium can also be formed with cryogenic helium gas and atoms of some other substance, such as LiHe and He 2 . Theoretically, other true compounds may be possible, such as helium fluorohydride (HHeF), which would be analogous to HArF , discovered in 2000. Calculations show that two new compounds containing

12462-441: The new fairing design was completed at NASA's Plum Brook Station facility in spring 2013 where acoustic shock, mechanical vibration, and electromagnetic electrostatic discharge conditions were simulated. Tests were done on a full-size test article in vacuum chamber . SpaceX paid NASA US$ 581,300 to lease test time in the $ 150M NASA simulation chamber facility. The first flight of a Falcon 9 v1.1 ( CASSIOPE , September 2013)

12596-465: The next few months, we'll gradually increase the altitude and speed. ... I do think there probably will be some craters along the way; we'll be very lucky if there are no craters. Vertical landing is an extremely important breakthrough — extreme, rapid reusability." In May 2013, SpaceX announced that the higher-altitude, higher-velocity part of the Grasshopper flight test program would be done at Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico —and not at

12730-497: The nine engines on the first stage are 10 cm (4 in) in diameter. The upper stage is powered by a single Merlin 1D engine modified for vacuum operation. The interstage, which connects the upper and lower stage for Falcon 9, is a carbon fiber aluminum core composite structure. Separation collets and a pneumatic pusher system separate the stages. The Falcon 9 tank walls and domes are made from aluminium-lithium alloy . SpaceX uses an all- friction stir welded tank,

12864-471: The order of 10 ppb , much higher than the approximately 5 ppt found in the Earth's atmosphere. A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986, have proposed to explore the Moon, mine lunar regolith, and use the helium-3 for fusion . Liquid helium-4 can be cooled to about 1 K (−272.15 °C; −457.87 °F) using evaporative cooling in a 1-K pot . Similar cooling of helium-3, which has

12998-475: The other, so that the effective nuclear charge Z eff which each electron sees is about 1.69 units, not the 2 charges of a classic "bare" helium nucleus. The nucleus of the helium-4 atom is identical with an alpha particle . High-energy electron-scattering experiments show its charge to decrease exponentially from a maximum at a central point, exactly as does the charge density of helium's own electron cloud . This symmetry reflects similar underlying physics:

13132-402: The pair of neutrons and the pair of protons in helium's nucleus obey the same quantum mechanical rules as do helium's pair of electrons (although the nuclear particles are subject to a different nuclear binding potential), so that all these fermions fully occupy 1s orbitals in pairs, none of them possessing orbital angular momentum, and each cancelling the other's intrinsic spin. This arrangement

13266-477: The perspective of quantum mechanics , helium is the second simplest atom to model, following the hydrogen atom . Helium is composed of two electrons in atomic orbitals surrounding a nucleus containing two protons and (usually) two neutrons. As in Newtonian mechanics, no system that consists of more than two particles can be solved with an exact analytical mathematical approach (see 3-body problem ) and helium

13400-420: The pressure, causing liquid to fountain out of the container. The thermal conductivity of helium II is greater than that of any other known substance, a million times that of helium I and several hundred times that of copper . This is because heat conduction occurs by an exceptional quantum mechanism. Most materials that conduct heat well have a valence band of free electrons which serve to transfer

13534-522: The prohibitive cost of the gas, German Zeppelins were forced to use hydrogen as lifting gas, which would gain infamy in the Hindenburg disaster . The helium market after World War II was depressed but the reserve was expanded in the 1950s to ensure a supply of liquid helium as a coolant to create oxygen/hydrogen rocket fuel (among other uses) during the Space Race and Cold War . Helium use in

13668-432: The recommended safety margin. The Falcon 9 v1.1 includes several aspects of reusable launch vehicle technology included in its design, as of the initial v1.1 launch in September 2013 (throttleable and restartable engines on the first stage, a first-stage tank design that can structurally accommodate the future addition of landing legs, etc.). The Falcon 9 v1.1's launch occurred two years after SpaceX committed to

13802-569: The reserve to continue to sell the gas. Other large reserves were in the Hugoton in Kansas , United States, and nearby gas fields of Kansas and the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma . New helium plants were scheduled to open in 2012 in Qatar , Russia, and the US state of Wyoming , but they were not expected to ease the shortage. In 2013, Qatar started up the world's largest helium unit, although

13936-422: The restoring force is the van der Waals force . These waves are known as third sound . Helium remains liquid down to absolute zero at atmospheric pressure, but it freezes at high pressure. Solid helium requires a temperature of 1–1.5 K (about −272 °C or −457 °F) at about 25 bar (2.5 MPa) of pressure. It is often hard to distinguish solid from liquid helium since the refractive index of

14070-578: The same interstage adapter first utilized for launching secondary payloads on US DoD missions that utilize the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV) Atlas V and Delta IV . This enables secondary and even tertiary missions with minimal impact to the original mission. As of 2011 , SpaceX announced pricing for ESPA-compatible payloads on the Falcon 9. Helium Helium (from Greek : ἥλιος , romanized :  helios , lit.   'sun')

14204-450: The sea and on the ASDS , SpaceX was planning on using the New Mexico site for testing the returned stages. The first Falcon 9 prototype, Grasshopper , made a total of eight test flights between September 2012 and October 2013. All eight flights were from the McGregor , Texas test facility. Grasshopper began flight testing in September 2012 with a brief, three-second hop, followed by

14338-571: The second leading producer of helium. Through this time, both helium consumption and the costs of producing helium increased. From 2002 to 2007 helium prices doubled. As of 2012 , the United States National Helium Reserve accounted for 30 percent of the world's helium. The reserve was expected to run out of helium in 2018. Despite that, a proposed bill in the United States Senate would allow

14472-553: The second stage oxygen tank. (After CRS-7 there was one final launch of V1.1, on 17 January 2016, to launch the Jason-3 payload.) Investigation traced the accident to the failure of a strut inside the second stage's liquid-oxygen tank. NASA concluded that the most probable cause of the strut failure was a design error: instead of using a stainless-steel eye bolt made of aerospace-grade material, SpaceX chose an industrial-grade material without adequate screening and testing and overlooked

14606-462: The solar spectrum, which he named the D 3 because it was near the known D 1 and D 2 Fraunhofer lines of sodium. He concluded that it was caused by an element in the Sun unknown on Earth. Lockyer named the element with the Greek word for the Sun, ἥλιος ( helios ). It is sometimes said that English chemist Edward Frankland was also involved in the naming, but this is unlikely as he doubted

14740-408: The spaceport's main campus, planning to lease the pad for US$ 6,600 per month plus US$ 25,000 per test flight. Grasshopper consisted of "a Falcon 9 [v1.0] first-stage tank, a single Merlin-1D engine" with a height of 32 m (106 ft). The landing gear was fixed. As Elon Musk stated, Grasshopper could land on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter . F9R Dev1 was constructed out of

14874-429: The time, testing was expected to take up to three years and the initial FAA permit allows up to 70 suborbital launches per year. A half-acre concrete launch facility was constructed to support the test flight program. In September 2012, SpaceX announced that they have requested FAA approval to increase the altitude of some of the initial test flights. Looking forward to the next year, CEO Musk said in November 2012: "Over

15008-419: The two outer cores separate from the rocket much earlier in the flight profile, and are therefore moving at slower velocity at stage separation. A reusable first stage is now being flight tested by SpaceX with the suborbital Grasshopper rocket . By April 2013, a low-altitude, low-speed demonstration test vehicle, Grasshopper v1.0, had made seven VTVL test flights from late-2012 through August 2013, including

15142-450: The two phases are nearly the same. The solid has a sharp melting point and has a crystalline structure, but it is highly compressible ; applying pressure in a laboratory can decrease its volume by more than 30%. With a bulk modulus of about 27 MPa it is ~100 times more compressible than water. Solid helium has a density of 0.214 ± 0.006 g/cm at 1.15 K and 66 atm; the projected density at 0 K and 25 bar (2.5 MPa)

15276-461: The universe is helium-4, the vast majority of which was formed during the Big Bang . Large amounts of new helium are created by nuclear fusion of hydrogen in stars . Helium was first detected as an unknown, yellow spectral line signature in sunlight during a solar eclipse in 1868 by Georges Rayet , Captain C. T. Haig, Norman R. Pogson , and Lieutenant John Herschel, and was subsequently confirmed by French astronomer Jules Janssen . Janssen

15410-478: The upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 version instead for all Crew Dragon missions. Falcon 9 v1.1 was notable for pioneering the development of reusable rockets , whereby SpaceX gradually refined technologies for first-stage boostback, atmospheric re-entry , controlled descent and eventual propulsive landing . This last goal was achieved on the first flight of the successor variant Falcon 9 Full Thrust , after several near-successes with Falcon 9 v1.1. The Falcon 9 v1.1

15544-425: The used first-stage tank of the Falcon 9 v1.1 , it was 160-foot tall, nearly 50% longer than the first Grasshopper. The landing legs were retractable by design, with a telescoping piston mounted on an A-frame. The total span of the four legs was approximately 18 m (60 ft) and the weight less than 2,100 kg (4,600 lb); the deployment system used high-pressure helium . The legs had less weight than on

15678-538: The v1.0 Falcon 9's square arrangement is aimed at streamlining the manufacturing process. As part of SpaceX's efforts to develop a reusable launch system , selected first stages include four extensible landing legs and grid fins to control descent. Fins were first tested on the F9R Dev-1 reusable test vehicle. Grid fins were implemented on the Falcon 9 v1.1 on the CRS-5 mission, but ran out of hydraulic fluid before

15812-490: The v1.1 Falcon 9 first stage was completed in July 2013. The v1.1 first stage has a total sea-level thrust at liftoff of 5,885 kN (1,323,000 pounds-force), with the nine engines burning for a nominal 180 seconds, while stage thrust rises to 6,672 kN (1,500,000 pounds-force) as the booster climbs out of the atmosphere. The nine first-stage engines are arranged in a structural form SpaceX calls Octaweb . This change from

15946-634: The v1.1 version. Falcon 9 v1.1 was a significant evolution from Falcon 9 v1.0, with 60 percent more thrust and weight. Its maiden flight carried out a demonstration mission with the CASSIOPE satellite on 29 September 2013, the sixth overall launch of any Falcon 9. Both stages of the two-stage-to-orbit vehicle used liquid oxygen (LOX) and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellants. The Falcon 9 v1.1 could lift payloads of 13,150 kilograms (28,990 lb) to low Earth orbit , and 4,850 kilograms (10,690 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit , which places

16080-683: The world, while extraction plants in Canada, Poland, Russia, and other nations produced the remainder. In the mid-1990s, a new plant in Arzew , Algeria, producing 17 million cubic metres (600 million cubic feet) began operation, with enough production to cover all of Europe's demand. Meanwhile, by 2000, the consumption of helium within the U.S. had risen to more than 15 million kg per year. In 2004–2006, additional plants in Ras Laffan , Qatar , and Skikda , Algeria were built. Algeria quickly became

16214-536: Was also vital in the atomic bomb Manhattan Project . The government of the United States set up the National Helium Reserve in 1925 at Amarillo, Texas , with the goal of supplying military airships in time of war and commercial airships in peacetime. Because of the Helium Act of 1925 , which banned the export of scarce helium on which the US then had a production monopoly, together with

16348-409: Was available to make elements 3, 4 and 5. It is barely energetically favorable for helium to fuse into the next element with a lower energy per nucleon , carbon. However, due to the short lifetime of the intermediate beryllium-8, this process requires three helium nuclei striking each other nearly simultaneously (see triple-alpha process ). There was thus no time for significant carbon to be formed in

16482-570: Was concentrated in large quantities under the American Great Plains , available for extraction as a byproduct of natural gas . Following a suggestion by Sir Richard Threlfall , the United States Navy sponsored three small experimental helium plants during World War I. The goal was to supply barrage balloons with the non-flammable, lighter-than-air gas. A total of 5,700 m (200,000 cu ft) of 92% helium

16616-500: Was first liquefied by Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes by cooling the gas to less than 5 K (−268.15 °C; −450.67 °F). He tried to solidify it by further reducing the temperature but failed, because helium does not solidify at atmospheric pressure. Onnes' student Willem Hendrik Keesom was eventually able to solidify 1 cm of helium in 1926 by applying additional external pressure. In 1913, Niels Bohr published his "trilogy" on atomic structure that included

16750-493: Was independently isolated from cleveite in the same year by chemists Per Teodor Cleve and Abraham Langlet in Uppsala , Sweden, who collected enough of the gas to accurately determine its atomic weight . Helium was also isolated by American geochemist William Francis Hillebrand prior to Ramsay's discovery, when he noticed unusual spectral lines while testing a sample of the mineral uraninite. Hillebrand, however, attributed

16884-695: Was initially skeptical but was ultimately convinced that Bohr was correct, and by 1915 "spectroscopists had transferred [the Pickering–Fowler series] definitively [from hydrogen] to helium." Bohr's theoretical work on the Pickering series had demonstrated the need for "a re-examination of problems that seemed already to have been solved within classical theories" and provided important confirmation for his atomic theory. In 1938, Russian physicist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa discovered that helium-4 has almost no viscosity at temperatures near absolute zero ,

17018-602: Was injected and stored in the Cliffside gas field until needed, at which time it was further purified. By 1995, a billion cubic meters of the gas had been collected and the reserve was US$ 1.4 billion in debt, prompting the Congress of the United States in 1996 to discontinue the reserve. The resulting Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (Public Law 104–273) directed the United States Department of

17152-457: Was observed on August 18, 1868, as a bright yellow line with a wavelength of 587.49 nanometers in the spectrum of the chromosphere of the Sun . The line was detected by French astronomer Jules Janssen during a total solar eclipse in Guntur , India. This line was initially assumed to be sodium . On October 20 of the same year, English astronomer Norman Lockyer observed a yellow line in

17286-406: Was observed. Existing theory explains this using the two-fluid model for helium II. In this model, liquid helium below the lambda point is viewed as containing a proportion of helium atoms in a ground state , which are superfluid and flow with exactly zero viscosity, and a proportion of helium atoms in an excited state, which behave more like an ordinary fluid. In the fountain effect , a chamber

17420-522: Was possible, almost all first compound atomic nuclei to form were helium-4 nuclei. Owing to the relatively tight binding of helium-4 nuclei, its production consumed nearly all of the free neutrons in a few minutes, before they could beta-decay, and thus few neutrons were available to form heavier atoms such as lithium, beryllium, or boron. Helium-4 nuclear binding per nucleon is stronger than in any of these elements (see nucleogenesis and binding energy ) and thus, once helium had been formed, no energetic drive

17554-517: Was produced in the program even though less than a cubic meter of the gas had previously been obtained. Some of this gas was used in the world's first helium-filled airship, the U.S. Navy's C-class blimp C-7, which flew its maiden voyage from Hampton Roads, Virginia , to Bolling Field in Washington, D.C., on December 1, 1921, nearly two years before the Navy's first rigid helium-filled airship,

17688-431: Was the first launch of the Falcon 9 v1.1 as well as the Falcon 9 family configured with a payload fairing . The fairing separated without incident during the launch of CASSIOPE as well as the two subsequent GTO insertion missions. In Dragon missions, the capsule protects any small satellites, negating the need for a fairing. SpaceX uses multiple redundant flight computers in a fault-tolerant design . Each Merlin engine

17822-421: Was the second version of SpaceX 's Falcon 9 orbital launch vehicle . The rocket was developed in 2011–2013, made its maiden launch in September 2013, and its final flight in January 2016. The Falcon 9 rocket was fully designed, manufactured, and operated by SpaceX. Following the second Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) launch, the initial version Falcon 9 v1.0 was retired from use and replaced by

17956-543: Was used for both the v1.1 maiden flight on 29 September 2013 and its last mission on 17 January 2016. Additional launch sites at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 pad A and Boca Chica , South Texas will launch the rocket's successor variants Falcon 9 Full Thrust and Falcon Heavy . As of October 2015 , the Falcon 9 v1.1 commercial launch price was US$ 61.2 million (up from US$ 56.5 million in October 2013) competing for commercial launches in an increasingly competitive market . NASA resupply missions to

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