According to the recent tweet from Elon Musk, "Aiming for Falcon rocket static fire at Cape Canaveral on the 16th and launch about three days later", it would appear that SpaceX and all the other involved parties are satisfied with the investigation of the CRS-7 mission failure in June.
The Falcon 9 static test fire will be conducted on the pad and is a prelude to a possible launch on December 19th. Following the test fire, engineers will review the all of the data, and if everything checks out an attempt can be made during the three hour launch window that opens at 8:25 p.m. EST (0125 GMT on Dec. 20). The launch will attempt to deploy 11 second-generation Orbcomm (OG2) communications satellites, delayed several times from its initial December 2014 schedule.
The SpaceX team has been making steady progress in preparing Falcon for it's return to duty. The struts that hold the pressurized tanks in place have been scrutinized and no doubt upgraded, being that they were implicated as the apparent cause of the launches failure. According to Elon Musk, "the likely cause was a broken bracket holding a high-pressure helium reservoir inside the Falcon 9’s second stage liquid oxygen tank. The strut apparently fractured under the stresses of launch, causing the helium tank to break free and rupture the upper stage while the first stage was still firing about two minutes after liftoff".
But, as always, the company is not standing still, and has changed the booster to provide a 33-percent increase in performance according to SpaceX's Lee Rosen (Vice President of Mission and Launch Operations). The slightly taller Falcon 9 "has the same engines that we’ve flown before, but with some upgrades and things like that to increase reliability and performance" according to Mr. Rosen. The upgraded Falcon 9 was test fired on Sept. 21st as can be seen in this video. Sited among the changes are increases in the thrust of both the first and second stages, modifications to the landing legs and grid fins (most likely to increase the chances for a successful landing), and many more tweaks. Contributing to the increased thrust is "densified propellant" - chilling the RP-1 fuel more in order to pack more fuel into the same space.
A return to operations will mean that SpaceeX will be able to chip away at it's mounting launch manifest (which was heavily loaded even before the almost half a year hiatus), with several space station resupply missions to make up in addition to the backlog of commercial launches. However, prior to the failed June mission, the company was demonstrating record turn around times, and so if all goes well it has the ability to get a lot of cargo into space in a relative short amount of time. And, with the successful November 23rd flight of the Blue Origin suborbital rocket - which landed safely after reaching the 100-kilometer (62-mile) boundary with space, the desire to stick the landing with the Falcon 9 rocket has to be an increasing important goal. One that the has been getting closer and closer each flight.
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