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LAUNCH PAD
SpaceX To Attempt Falcon Launch Thursday

SpaceX successfully test-fired the Falcon 1 rocket's engine on March 19. Image credit: SpaceX
by Staff Writers
 El Segundo CA (SPX) Mar 22, 2006
 SpaceX said it plans the first launch of its Falcon 1 rocket Thursday. "We had a great static fire," Elon Musk, the company's founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Falson was held down for almost three seconds of thrust, part of which was under autonomous thrust vector control. All systems were green and no aborts were triggered."

Musk said unless engineers discover a problem after a detailed analysis of the test-firing data, "launch will happen on Thursday at 1 p.m. California time."

The launch plan is to accelerate the two-stage Falcon 1 to Mach 25, or 17,000 miles per hour, in less than 10 minutes, powered by liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene.

If successful, the flight 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 Merlin engine will be the first all-new U.S. hydrocarbon-powered engine for an orbital booster flown in 40 years, and only the second new U.S. booster engine of any kind in 25 years.

Falcon 1 is currently the only semi-reusable orbital rocket in the world, apart from NASA's space shuttle. Priced at $6.7 million, Falcon 1 will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world.

The maiden flight will take place from the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands. The customer for this mission is DARPA and the U.S. Air Force. The payload will be FalconSat-2, part of the Air Force Academy's satellite program to measure space plasma, which can adversely affect space-based communications, including GPS and other civil and military communications.

The rocket's target orbit is between 400 kilometers and 500 kilometers (250 miles to 300 miles), or just above the orbit of the International Space Station and at an inclination of 39 degrees.

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LAUNCH PAD
NASA Is Three For Three In Successful ST5 Launch
 Vandenberg AFB CA (SPX) Mar 22, 2006
 NASA's Space Technology 5 mission got underway without a hitch Wednesday when an L-1011 aircraft dropped a compact Pegasus rocket from its payload bay and Pegasus lifted three micro-satellites into polar orbit.






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