SpaceX updates: Falcon Heavy in 2016, astronauts in 2017

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell last week addressed a commercial space conference sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington, D.C. Some highlights from her talk:

• SpaceX plans to make unspecified changes to its Falcon 9 rocket based on results from a recent test-firing of the booster that landed Dec. 21 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. 
• The company still plans to debut its heavy-lift Falcon Heavy rocket at Kennedy Space Center sometime this year, and to fly a test of its Dragon crew abort system for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Shotwell said the company will launch astronauts in 2017.
• SpaceX has two years of “dirt work” ahead as it develops a private launch complex near Brownsville, Texas. Because of the unstable dirt, SpaceX will build a “concrete mountain” like the stand at KSC’s pad 39A, increasing the project's cost. Still, Shotwell said it would be a “relief” when the site is available, citing congestion at federal ranges including Cape Canaveral, where “you have to maneuver around other folks that want to launch.”
• A SpaceX priority this year is ramping up factory production of Falcon 9 rocket cores and Merlin engines. SpaceX hasn’t launched more than six times in a calendar year, but hopes to begin flying every few weeks.
• Shotwell offered no details on when SpaceX would launch next, or why its launch of the SES-9 communications satellite has slipped from mid-January. After the talk, she told Space News the launch was possible in the next couple of weeks.

From the Feb. 6, 2016 Space Notebook.

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