Company Aims For First Successful Commercial Delivery

Space Exploration Technologies announced Tuesday the launch window for ATSB's RazakSAT on Falcon 1 Flight 5 is currently scheduled to open Monday, April 20 at 4:00 pm PDT/ 7:00 pm EDT.

SpaceX's Falcon 1 launch site is located approximately 2500 miles southwest of Hawaii on Omelek Island, part of the Reagan Test Site (RTS) at United States Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Central Pacific. Due to the location of the launch site, the Kwajalein local date at the opening of the launch window will be April 21.

RazakSAT was designed and built by Malaysia's Astronautic Technology Sdn Bhd (ATSB). The satellite will be launched aboard the Falcon 1, a two-stage, liquid oxygen/rocket-grade kerosene vehicle, designed from the ground up by SpaceX.

Falcon 1 will place RazakSAT, equipped with a high resolution Medium-Sized Aperture Camera (MAC), into a near equatorial orbit. The payload is expected to provide high resolution images of Malaysia that can be applied to land management, resource development and conservation, forestry and fish migration.

As ANN reported, SpaceX celebrated its first successful launch in September 2008, on the fourth Falcon I flight. That launch carried a dummy payload... so with this upcoming flight, SpaceX hopes to also mark its first successful delivery of a commercial payload into orbit.

FMI: www.spacex.com