The Pacific
Ocean laps at the sandy beaches of SpaceX's seaside spaceport as the firm's
second Falcon 1 rocket takes flight.
Space Exploration
Technologies (SpaceX), of El Segundo, California, launched its second
Falcon 1 rocket test on March 20, 2007. While the rocket did not reach its
intended orbit, SpaceX officials touted the launch as a success since it
demonstrated the viability of a series of new booster improvement and marked the
firm’s first foray into space.
Here, a
camera on the Falcon 1 rocket’s gantry snaps one of the last close-up views before
the booster’s Merlin 1 engine hauled it off its Omelek Island launch pad on the
Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The clear blue waters of the Pacific
Ocean can be seen washing over a nearby beach.
SpaceX
launched its first Falcon 1 rocket in March 2006, but that mission ended well
before the rocket reached space after a fuel
leak and fire led to an engine shutdown just after liftoff. The March 20,
2007 space shot, by comparision, reached an altitude of about 200 miles (321
kilometers).
“All in
all, this test has flight proven 95+ percent of the Falcon 1
systems, which bodes really well for our upcoming flights of Falcon 1 and
Falcon 9, which uses similar hardware,” SpaceX
CEO Elon Musk said in a post-launch update. “We do not expect any
significant delay in the upcoming flights at this point.”
Musk has
said that SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket is a technology pathfinder of sorts for the
firm, which plans to upgrade many of its systems to build the heavy-lift Falcon
9 booster to launch crew and cargo missions into orbit aboard its Dragon
spacecraft.
-- Tariq Malik
Credit: SpaceX.
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