In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, close to the equator, Omelek would allow Falcon to launch to almost any orbital inclination.įalcon’s first flight was set from Vandenberg, with the Naval Research Laboratory’s experimental TacSat-1 payload. The second was situated on Omelek Island, part of Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The first, Space Launch Complex 3W at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, was constructed on the site of a former Thor-Agena and Atlas launch complex that was last used in 1995 for the final Atlas-E/F launch. Being smaller and less complex than their other proposed rockets, SpaceX built Falcon 1 first in order to minimise their financial risk if the project was unsuccessful.
Both engines were built in-house by SpaceX. Its first stage was powered by a single Merlin engine, while the upper stage used the smaller, pressure-fed, Kestrel. Capable of placing a 670-kilogram (1,480 lb) payload into low Earth orbit, the rocket used RP-1 kerosene propellant and liquid oxygen oxidizer. Falcon was named after the Millennium Falcon ship in the Star Wars films, with the numbers 1, 5 and 9 denoting the number of first-stage engines on each version of the rocket.įalcon 1 was a two-stage rocket which measured 21.3 meters (70 feet) in length and 1.7 meters (5.5 feet) in diameter. To keep costs down, most major components of the rockets would be built by SpaceX themselves. SpaceX initially envisioned a fleet of three differently-sized rockets: the smallest and simplest was the Falcon 1, with larger Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 vehicles being introduced later to accommodate heavier payloads. However, he was forced to abandon this when he was unable to find an affordable launch solution. Musk had been involved in a project to send plant life to Mars.
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Musk had previously founded software company Zip2 and online payment service PayPal.
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation was founded by Elon Musk in May 2002 with the goals of reducing the cost of access to space, improving reliability and eventually helping to place humans on Mars. The milestone comes less than twelve years after the company’s first, unsuccessful, mission lifted off in March 2006, in which time SpaceX has gone from another hopeful startup to one of the biggest players in the global launch industry. With last Friday’s successful launch of CRS-13, SpaceX marked its fiftieth orbital launch.
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