James Dean

FLORIDA TODAY

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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