Originally published December 18 2005
Private launch firm SpaceX to launch rocket
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Falcon 1 rocket from SpaceX is the first of many space launches, according to the company’s chief. The rocket's first stage is reusable and it is expected to reach an altitude of about 310 miles.
The private launch firm SpaceX will loft its Falcon 1 rocket on Nov. 25, marking the booster's maiden flight and hopefully the first of many space shots to come, the company's chief said Friday.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of the El Segundo, California-based SpaceX, said his firm's first Falcon 1 rocket will liftoff from its equatorial launch site at 4:00 p.m.
EST (2100 GMT) on a mission to orbit a small U.S. Air Force Academy satellite.
SpaceX's Falcon 1 rocket carries a reusable first stage, the firm's homegrown Merlin engine and a price tag of about $6.7 million, SpaceX officials said.
The rocket's first flight will launch from the U.S. military's Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site on Omelek Island near Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands -- where it will be 9:00 a.m. local time when the countdown reaches zero -- though future spaceflights will also be staged from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, they added.
SpaceX is using its debut of the Falcon 1 rocket to launch FalconSat-2, a student-built satellite to measure space plasma's effect on global positioning system (GPS) satellites and other space-based communications systems, according to the U.S. Air Force Academy.
The October launch target itself was a fallback date for a planned Sept. 30 space shot, which was rescheduled after a problem cropped up during a Merlin engine test at SpaceX's test facility in central Texas.
"We actually delayed the launch a few times to really put extra care into the engines," Musk said.
SpaceX had also hoped to make its first Falcon 1 launch from its Vandenberg launch site, but encountered delays while waiting for a Titan 4 rocket to deliver a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload into orbit.
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