Washington, USA, 28 March 2007: Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) declared the Falcon 1 ready to start launching satellites in September despite a premature engine shut down that prevented the rocket from reaching orbit March 20 during its second demonstration flight.
“Having had several days to examine the data, the second test launch of Falcon 1 is looking increasingly positive,” SpaceX chief Elon Musk wrote in an update posted on the El Segundo, Calif.-based company’s Web site March 27. ”Post flight review of telemetry has verified that oscillation of the second stage late in the mission is the only thing that stopped Falcon 1 from reaching full orbital velocity. The second stage was otherwise functioning well and even deployed the satellite mass simulator ring at the end of flight!”
Musk said that no further demonstration flights are needed before the Falcon 1 is entrusted with the Pentagon’s experimental TacSat-1 remote sensing satellite. “This confirms the end of the test phase for Falcon 1 and the beginning of the operational phase. The next Falcon 1 flight will carry the TacSat 1 satellite for the U.S. Navy, with a launch window that begins in September, followed by Razaksat for the Malaysian Space Agency in November. Beyond that, we have another nine missions on manifest for [Falcon 1] and [Falcon 9].”
“The reason that flight two can legitimately be called a near complete success as a test flight is that we have excellent data throughout the whole orbit insertion profile, including well past second stage shutdown, and met all of the primary objectives established before hand by our customer (The U.S Air Force and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency),” Musk continued. “This allows us to wrap up the test phase of the Falcon 1 program and transition to the operational phase, beginning with the TacSat mission at the end of summer. Let me be clear here and now that anything less than orbit for that flight or any Falcon 1 mission with an operational satellite will unequivocally be considered a failure.”
