SpaceX’s Falcon 1 spacecraft made history tonight as the first privately developed launch vehicle to reach earth orbit from the ground. “About nine and a half minutes after launch, the second stage engine shuts down, and the Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth,” the company said.
This was their fourth attempt. The previous three attempts failed to reach orbit – the last launch, in August, lost two NASA satellites and the ashes of 208 people, including astronaut Gordon Cooper and James Doohan, the actor who played Scotty in the original Star Trek television show.
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), reached the milestone just four years after the company was founded, and with just $120 million in capital ($100 million from founder Elon Musk and another $20 million from Founders Fund).
Falcon 1 is a 70- foot tall two-stage, liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene powered launch vehicle. It lifted off today from Kwajalein Atoll (Omelek Island) in the Pacific Ocean, about 8,000 miles southwest of Los Angeles.
This fourth launch comes less than two months after the previous failure. The next launch will be a Falcon 1 carrying a RazakSat satellite for Malaysia. That launch, if successful, will be followed by the maiden flight of the much larger Falcon 9 rocket in the second quarter of 2009.
We first covered SpaceX in 2007, when a Falcon 1 craft reached space for the first time.
Congratulation…let’s see what the guys from SpaceX can do in the near future…
Finally, SpaceX is in the market. It would get lot of business from Nasa eventually after the shuttle retires in 2010.
Diesel Station
Car Pictures
Just awesome.
Nice to see you have outside interests. Like to see some more material this. Even the telepresence piece is cool. Keep it up, please!
Congrats to SpaceX! Wow, we live in a sci-fi story. It’s so cool.
I wanted to read more about the failed launch, but the link on the word launch int he sentence about the failed launch goes to an article about this successful one.
wow! its cool! really nice achievements.
congrats to elon and rest of spazeX team. this is history.
by the way, where are those dropping objects go?
Short answer: in the ocean.
Slightly longer answer: Stage separation occurs just three seconds before passing the boundary to space. Whilst reentry effects typically become noticable around 120 km (400k ft), the first stage (Merlin 1C engine) would no doubt be broken up to a significant degree. The location in which it lands, is, if I’m correct, the spacecraft cemetery (http://en.wikip...ecraft_cemetery), which is well out of the way of any civilization and is deemed safe to dump space junk into. It’s where we shoved Skylab, Mir, etc., etc.
A good place to find relics, perhaps, but don’t swim there when a launch is going ahead.
Anyway, congrats SpaceX!
..the boundary to space being the Kármán line, at 100 km (62 mi) altitude. http://en.wikip...i/Kármán_line
Surprising to read some real news on TC for a change- about a company that ACTUALLY made something of substance (and almost without VC funding- no model UN games here, just real tech)
Absolutely amazing. Well done Elon Musk, not to mention Tesla Motors as well. Big thinker and big doer. Incredible.
Very interesting. The kind of money used for the project indicates overbudgeting on part of Government’s set ups…. its a brilliant news to bring in competition from private players in this area also…Kudos to Elon Musk and the entire team! cheers, Marvind
Congratulations!!!! Inspiring stuff.
How you justify this as startup Tech news is beyond me.
It is not Tech news. It is hardcore science news.
Ummm – How about the fact that Space X is one the hottest start ups around founded by Elon Musk former co-founder of Pay Pal and also Chairman of Tesla Motors. The company is funded partly by the Founders Fund run by another Pay Pal alumnus Peter Thiel. But for goodness sake man, if private enteprise finally getting into orbit does not reflect the spirit of high tech entpreneurship that Mike founded Techcrunch to cover, well I don`t know what does.
I agree !!
We’re really excited about this big step for the privatized space industry. I try to update my blog regularly with space commerce news so check it out if you’re wanting a resource for similar stories.
Ah quit blowin’ hoops!
Just because some rich guy who was associated with paypal dumped some money into this does not make it tech news!
Quote :
“reflect the spirit of high tech entpreneurship…”
Anyone can have the “spirit” of entrepreneurship. Still doesn’t make it Tech news.
@Arrington:
The more you generalise this place the more you move away from what Techcrunch actually is.
There are enough “general” news companies/sites around. Focus.
Simply amazing.
I haven’t heard much about Bezos’ aerospace activities with Blue Origin lately, anyone know what they’ve been up to?
space cowboys……
Congradulations to Elon Musk!
Good news)
Few will realize the full implications of this. It reminds me of the guy last night on 60 Minutes asking the interviewer “would it be worth it if we could teleport you into Mom and Pop’s living room”?
A few years down the road we will see how companies and experiments like the LHC will affect us. The effects will be great and are unimaginable now.
The 60 minutes comment was about the LHC not this.
God bless America
Soon in the future… my daughter might ask “Dad can I spend Christmas this year in SPACE ?”
Its interesting to see how we are moving forward by leaps and bounds
Soon it will be “can we go to the moon this year?”
Great piece of news and well done to the SpaceX team.
Why stop at the moon? If we gave SpaceX $700 billion, instead of wasting it on a load of bankers, I bet they could build a fleet of starships.
Very exciting. I wonder if/when the propeller-heads at JPL, etc., will move en masse to SpaceX…
This is absolutely amazing. STUNNING. GO SPACEX!
this is a crazy trifecta of connections — think about it Elon Musk, tesla motors, AND space x. This guy will be the richest guy in the world when this all pans out.
I wonder, in what functional respects does this device differ from an ICBM?
ONE MINUTE VERSION OF THE FLIGHT:
9 minutes is way too long!
http://www.yout...h?v=kMAcl-N5l0w
This is stunning news – a genuine historic moment. This takes orbital spaceflight into a new democratic era, away from the control of states and into the hands of private individuals. Elon Musk has demonstrated that this is possible, and for a tiny fraction of what the bloated old dinosaurs and their cost plus scams routinely spend on individual missions. A whole development programme for less than a shuttle launch! Way to go!
amazing!
http://gatesand...s.blogspot.com/
I think this is a great example of how selling your company doesn’t mean the end.