SpaceX Falcon rocket developments

[Rick]

SpaceX launch fails a third time

A private rocket carrying three satellites, including a Nasa space sail, has failed to reach orbit.

It is the third unsuccessful launch attempt for the Falcon 1 rocket, built by private space firm SpaceX.

The vehicle's two stages failed to separate two minutes and 20 seconds into launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7539780.stm

[Rick]

SpaceX, the commercial space launch company run by PayPal multimillionaire and tech visionary Elon Musk, has suffered another technical hitch. The third test flight of the Falcon 1 rocket has been unsuccessful, after the upper stage failed to separate properly from the lower.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/04/musk_falcon_prang_hat_trick/

[mickw]

After three consecutive failures, a private spaceflight firm's Falcon 1 rocket successfully blasted into space late Sunday to become the first privately built liquid-fueled booster to reach orbit.

The two-stage Falcon 1 rocket built by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) lifted off at about 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT) from the U.S. Army's Ronald Reagan Ballistic Defense Test Site on the Kwajalein Atoll in the about 2,500 miles (4,023 km) southwest of Hawaii. The successful space shot came less than a month after an engine timing error during stage separation doomed SpaceX's third Falcon 1 test.


More:   http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080928-spacex-falcon1-fourthtest.html

[Rick]

The Falcon 1 rocket developed by SpaceX has finally made a successful launch after three previous failures.

The Californian company's two-stage vehicle lofted a dummy payload from Omelek Island in the central Pacific.

Founded by internet billionaire Elon Musk, SpaceX has a vision of reducing substantially the cost of access to space.

A larger rocket, Falcon 9, is likely to be used by the US to take cargo and even astronauts to the space station.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7641287.stm

[Rick]

Multimillionaire tech visionary Elon Musk has finally achieved a long-sought goal on the fourth attempt, as his privately-funded SpaceX Falcon 1 is now circling the Earth. The rocket, launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific, reached orbital velocity at 00:26 UK time.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/29/musk_falcon_1_flies/

[Rick]

PayPal multihecamillionaire Elon Musk's rocket company, SpaceX, has announced that it will fly a genuinely private-sector space mission - including return to Earth - as soon as 2010.

SpaceX's plan to launch a variant on its "Dragon" capsule, to be called "DragonLab", was announced this week. The basic Dragon is intended to deliver cargo - and one day, perhaps astronauts - to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA's Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) spacelift programme.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/07/spacex_dragonlab_announced/

[Rick]

NASA's plans to ship supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) using commercial spaceships - some provided by famous PayPal and electric-car hecamillionaire Elon Musk - are on hold following a protest by losing bidders in the contracts process.

More: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/21/nasa_crs_contracts_protested_by_majors/

[Rick]

He is the man of the moment - Elon Musk, the chief designer and CEO of SpaceX.

The guy can be forgiven for feeling a little stressed right now.

He admitted as much to the BBC when we went to see him at his Hawthorne, California facility last week. SpaceX is getting very close to the maiden flight of the Falcon 9 rocket, and Musk knows that the eyes of the world will be watching:

    "On launch day, there is serious pucker factor."

For those who haven't been following this quite so closely, the Falcon 9 is probably the leading candidate right now to lead the commercialisation of low-Earth orbit.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/jonathanamos/2009/11/no-pressure-there-then-mr-musk.shtml

[mickw]

NASA's space shuttles are flying their final missions this year, but one commercial spaceflight company in California has a new, privately-built rocket standing ready to replace the aging workhorse.

Space Exploration Technologies' (SpaceX) new Falcon 9 rocket is already assembled in Cape Canaveral, Fla. for a debut in the first half of 2010. A following flight, sometime between May and November, would launch the cargo-carrying Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station.

Dragon could also eventually loft NASA astronauts into space by as early as 2014. Just don't call it a taxi service, said Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX. The company, founded by PayPal entrepreneur Elon Musk, has already launched satellites to orbit on its smaller, unmanned Falcon 1 rockets.

More:   Falcon

[mickw]

A new rocket built by a California-based company to launch commercial spacecraft on cargo trips to the International Space Station for NASA is poised atop its Florida launch pad for some final tests.

The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket built by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) was hoisted into vertical launch position at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Saturday in preparation for its maiden test flight later this year. The company is one of two firms contracted by NASA to provide unmanned cargo shipments to the space station on commercially built spaceships.

More:   Falcon

[Rick]

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has enjoyed a successful maiden test flight after the first launch attempted was aborted.

The rocket, which could one day carry astronauts, blasted-off from its launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1845 GMT.

The California-based firm developed the vehicle with a large subsidy from Nasa.

Friday's first launch attempt was aborted at the last second because an engine parameter fell out of limits.

According to the Spaceflight Now website, a SpaceX spokesperson said the rocket achieved orbit, but they were not sure of the altitude or inclination.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10209704.stm

[Rick]

Yesterday, a lot of Australians reported seeing a bizarre UFO.

Just before 6:00 a.m. local time, numerous reports came in about a spiral of light in the sky with a bright central spot. The light was actually spinning around, like a pinwheel! One site has pretty cool video of it, and pictures are turning up on the web as well.

More: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/06/05/oh-those-falcon-ufos/

[Mike]

I have a sense of Deja Vu.

[Rick]

Unveiling conceptual plans for a family of Falcon X and XX future heavy-lift vehicles at last week's AIAA Joint Propulsion conference here, SpaceX McGregor rocket development facility director Tom Markusic said, "Mars is the ultimate goal of SpaceX."

The company, which until now has focused mostly on development of vehicles to transport cargo and humans to low Earth orbit (LEO), believes its Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launchers could be evolved into a heavy-lift family that will provide the basis for a Mars-capable architecture.

More from Aviation Week

[Rick]

Launch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-ci9xIgNZM

Nominal. Definitely nominal...

[Rick]

From  http://twitter.com/SpaceXer

  1. SpaceX is the first commercial company to reenter a spacecraft from space! less than 20 seconds ago via web
   2. SPLASHDOWN!!! less than a minute ago via web
   3. THREE MAIN PARACHUTES DEPLOYED!!!! 10 minutes ago via web
   4. drogue chutes deployed 13 minutes ago via web
   5. NASA The Dragon spacecraft's main chute is scheduled to deploy in about 20-minutes. 32 minutes ago via CoTweet Retweeted by SpaceXer and 40 others
   6. Dragon is in reentry attitude 42 minutes ago via web
   7. De-orbit burn complete! 42 minutes ago via web
   8. looking good about 1 hour ago via web
   9. 4 Draco thrusters performing deorbit burn now. about 1 hour ago via web
  10. View from Dragon's onboard camera as it orbits the Earth. 3/3 http://twitpic.com/3e3t01 about 2 hours ago via Twitpic
  11. View from Dragon's onboard camera as it orbits the Earth. 2/3 http://twitpic.com/3e3sxo about 2 hours ago via Twitpic
  12. View from Dragon's onboard camera as it orbits the Earth. 1/3 http://twitpic.com/3e3stc about 2 hours ago via Twitpic
  13. Stage 1 recovery—they have telemetry and radar on one of the Talon Pods—boat steaming that way. about 2 hours ago via web
  14. P-Pods have been successfully deployed. about 2 hours ago via web
  15. Dragon is in orbit, communicating with TDRSS, performing maneuvers, operations nominal. about 2 hours ago via web
  16. Dragon performing nominally. about 2 hours ago via web

[Rick]

A private US capsule that could soon be hauling cargo and even astronauts to the space station has splashed down after its maiden flight.

The Dragon ship launched from Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket at 1543GMT (1043 EST) on Wednesday.

The capsule separated about 10 minutes after launch, reaching its 300km-high orbit shortly after.

After completing several manoeuvres some 300km above Earth, the capsule splashed down in the Pacific.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11948329

[mickw]

Top secret payload carried in the Dragon

More: TopSecret

Ref:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0

Seems even billionaires have a sense of humour 

They should have sent a parrot