It looks very windy in the Marshall Islands, with scattered birds…
You can see the vent gases going horizontal, and the support lines rocking, and the flag flapping…
3pm update: they are loading liquid oxygen from the first stage back to the storage facility…. sounds like a delay (which is to be expected).
When Elon Musk gets this bird in the air, he will make history…. The Falcon 1 is a new orbital launch vehicle with modern materials (carbon fiber) and electronics (the Shuttle uses 1970’s technology). It has no fins, and dramatically lowers the cost of getting to orbit.
Anticipatory email from SpaceX on Thursday:
“At T-Zero, the hold-down clamps will release and it will begin its journey to orbit, accelerating to 17,000 mph or twenty-five times the speed of sound in less than ten minutes.
The launch will take place from Omelek island, which is in the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands. This mission’s customer is DARPA and the Air Force and the payload will be FalconSat-2, part of the Air Force Academy’s satellite program that will measure space plasma phenomena, which can adversely affect space-based communications, including GPS and other civil and military communications. The target orbit is 400 km X 500 km, just above the International Space Station, at an inclination of 39 degrees.
On launch day, SpaceX will make history for several reasons:
–Falcon 1 will be the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit and the world’s first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
–The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon booster engine to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years.
–The Falcon 1 is the only rocket flying 21st century avionics, which require a small fraction of the power and mass of other systems.
–It will be the world’s only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle (all other launch vehicles are completely expendable).
–The Falcon 1 first stage has the highest propellant mass of any launch vehicle currently flying.
–SpaceX will have developed and activated two new launch sites, including the only American ground launch site near equator.
–Most importantly, Falcon 1, priced at $6.7 million, will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world, despite receiving a design reliability rating equivalent to that of the best launch vehicles currently flying in the US.”
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