SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ready for first launch
A rocket that may one day launch astronauts to the space station is set for its maiden flight from Florida. The Falcon 9 has been developed privately by SpaceX of California with a large subsidy from Nasa.
Interestingly absent from this story is the usual details of Elon Musk. You remember Elon, who has become more famous for his divorce and going from 15 billion to broke while launching the well-known startup, Tesla Motors. Only a broke billionaire could be launching a real life rocket anyway. I would be happy to launch a handful of those play rockets… Or maybe some fireworks.
Quote from the article:
Source: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ready for first launch
Interestingly absent from this story is the usual details of Elon Musk. You remember Elon, who has become more famous for his divorce and going from 15 billion to broke while launching the well-known startup, Tesla Motors. Only a broke billionaire could be launching a real life rocket anyway. I would be happy to launch a handful of those play rockets… Or maybe some fireworks.
Quote from the article:
The 47m-tall vehicle, which carries an unmanned dummy cargo capsule, is due to lift off from Cape Canaveral at 11am local time (1500 GMT). He wants the business of taxiing astronauts to and from the orbiting platform handed to the commercial sector; and many commentators believe the Falcon is in a prime position to win that business. "We're on track to go to T-Zero at 11am eastern time (1500 GMT). We're all systems green," said Elon Musk, the CEO and chief designer at SpaceX. Before the rocket can be allowed to launch humans, it has to first demonstrate performance and reliability in the role of lofting robotic spacecraft. The Falcon 9 in its simplest form is a "single stick" vehicle with a two-stage configuration. A cluster of nine SpaceX-developed Merlin-1C engines will power the rocket off the pad. For its maiden flight, the Falcon 9 will launch a cut-down version of its Dragon freighter - a blunt-nosed, 3.6m-wide capsule that will collect engineering performance data during the ascent. On future flights, Dragon will be filled with supplies for the International Space Station. Friday's mission profile should take the Falcon just north of due east of the Cape. The intention is for the rocket to put the dummy capsule in a 250km-high, circular orbit within about 10 minutes. Historically, the maiden flights of rockets have a notoriously high failure rate. Some two-thirds of the rockets introduced in the past 20 years have had an unsuccessful first outing. |
Source: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ready for first launch
