Elon Musk reveals the Dragon V2 (above) that will serve as the first SpaceX
spacecraft to be human rated. The capsule will feature eight SuperDraco
engines (right) for both launch aborts and for controlled powered landings.
Credit: SpaceX
Boeing will also bring 300, and eventually 500, new
jobs to Florida’s “Space Coast,” whose economy was
hit particularly hard at the end the shuttle program.
“This facility will become point and center, we’ll be
developing the test articles here and then starting
the manufacturing for full services in 2017,” added
Castilleja. “This is where all the pieces and parts will
come in, and we’ll then build everything right here.
One side of the building is for processing the service
modules, and the other side of the facility is for
processing the crew modules. We’ll then ship out to the
Atlas launch pad integration facility and off we go.”
The SpaceX Dragon V2
crewed space capsule
“SpaceX is deeply honored by the trust
NASA has placed in us,” said SpaceX CEO Elon
Musk in a statement this afternoon. “We welcome
today’s decision and the mission it advances with
gratitude and seriousness of purpose. It is a vital step
in a journey that will ultimately take us to the stars
and make humanity a multi-planet species.”
Musk unveiled his Hawthorne, Calif.-based company’s
new Dragon spacecraft, the Dragon V2, at SpaceX
Headquarters in southern California last May.
“When we first created Dragon V1 we didn’t really
know how to create a spacecraft, we never designed
a spacecraft before, so, while there are a lot of
interesting technologies in Dragon V1 it does have a
relatively conventional landing approach by throwing
off parachutes and landing in water off the coast
of CA after it comes back from the ISS,” said Musk,
moments before dropping the curtain on Dragon V2.
“It’s a great spacecraft and a great proof of concept,
it showed us what it took to bring something back from
orbit, which is a very difficult thing to do, but going from
V1 we wanted to take a big step in technology.”
SpaceX currently flies their Dragon V1 to carry out
a $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)
contract with NASA, signed in late 2008, to conduct 12
75
www.RocketSTEM .org 75