Successful Liftoff Signals Spectacular Start To Grueling Test Program
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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