Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is to launch a satellite for the US Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office in June this year, following delivery of SpaceX’s Falcon 1 launch vehicle to the company’s Pacific ocean based-Kwajalein launch site in May and the spacecraft’s arrival in the June.
The mission will take place before the launch of the Malayasian government’s Razaksat spacecraft
Elon Musk declined to tell Flight how much the ORS launch was sold for but would say, “we gave them a discount”
However this good news and the 25 February announcement of the completion of qualification testing for the regeneratively cooled version of the Merlin 1C engine, that will power the company’s Falcon 1 booster, has been followed by Flight discovering that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch schedule is facing delays of at least six months
Read more about that delay at flightglobal.com/spaceflight
