Sun, Jun 06, 2010
Updated 06.06.10: Friday, June 4th, 2010, is a
not a day that ANN and Aero-TV are likely to forget... after an
early morning flight down in our Cirrus to prep for our launch
coverage and a long hot day of great expectations, SpaceX mighty
Falcon 9 roared to life at 1445 and entered the history books.
Even SpaceX Founder Elon Musk only gave this first launch a 75%
chance of success. In a conference call with reporters Thursday,
about 24 hours before the scheduled launch, CEO Musk said
commercial space exploration is "the only way forward." Musk said
relying on massive government programs would require massive
increases in the space budget, and "we'll never do anything
interesting in space."
SpaceX and NASA are in discussions concerning re-supply for the
ISS, and Musk said that schedule has been moved up. The second
Falcon 9 flight will be the first under the NASA COTS program. An
empty Dragon capsule will be boosted to orbit on what is being
called the "COTS 1" flight, but the plan for the "COTS 2" flight is
now to carry non-critical cargo to the ISS. "COTS 3" is now on the
schedule as a backup to COTS 2.
Musk said that part of his optimism about Friday's test launch
is that Falcon 9 shares many components with the smaller Falcon 1
rocket, but he re-iterated that first flights have about a 50-50
success rate. "The first successful Atlas flight was on flight 13,"
Musk said, "and the Atlas V is arguably now the most reliable
vehicle in the U.S. fleet."
The optimism was deserved... barely nine minutes aloft in its
first test, Falcon 9 took up a 250 km circular orbit that was
within 1% of forecast spec and not only brought this first
experimental flight to a successful conclusion but set the bar for
all other commercial launch endeavors to follow. SpaceX is on its
way... and the heavens are no limit where this company and its
mission are concerned.
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