The second
test flight of a Falcon 1
rocket built by the private spaceflight firm Space Exploration
Technologies (SpaceX) has shifted to early March due to range safety
demands at the company's island
launch site.
SpaceX had
previously targeted
a mid-February launch date for its second
Falcon 1 test mission, but the absence of key range safety personnel will
delay the flight to no earlier than March 9, Elon Musk,
the El Segundo, California-based firm's CEO, said written status update.
"We have
recently been informed by the Kwajalein Army Range that they do not have
sufficient resources to support our launch in mid to late [February]," Musk
said in the Thursday update. "Several range personnel critical to the launch
safety process will be unavailable in that timeframe."
SpaceX
plans to launch the second Falcon 1 rocket, the first to fly since the
booster's unsuccessful
debut last year, from Omelek Island in the west Pacific Ocean [image].
The launch site is sits in the Marshall Islands' Kwajalein Atoll, where the
U.S. Army houses its Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site.
Initially
slated for a late
January liftoff, Space X officials opted to push back the planned space
shot to mid-February due
to concerns over a thrust vector control pitch actuator on the Falcon 1
booster's second stage. The delay moved the planned space shot beyond its slim
two-day January launch window, prompting SpaceX officials to stand down until
after a military Minuteman missile test.
The planned
March 9 space shot is a second demonstration flight for the U.S. Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which also funded the Falcon 1's failed
inaugural launch, and will carry two experimental payloads into orbit, SpaceX
officials have said.
SpaceX's
Falcon 1 rocket is a two-stage booster with a reusable first stage designed to
parachute back to an ocean splashdown after liftoff. The booster stands about
68 feet (21 meters) tall and is designed to lift off from launch pads at the
Kwajalein Atoll or Vandenberg
Air Force Base in California.
The first
Falcon 1 test launch ended
just after liftoff when a fuel
leak and fire caused an engine shutdown 34 seconds into the flight [image].
The failure was later traced to the corrosion of a small
aluminum nut.
Gywnne
Shotwell, SpaceX's vice president for business development, told SPACE.com
last month that the private launch firm has set up new procedures, such as
sheltering Falcon 1 rockets instead of keeping them on the launch pads for
extended periods, to protect the boosters from the corroding effects of salt
water spray at their seaside launch sites.
Earlier
this week, Musk announced that SpaceX is gearing up for three planned Falcon 1
launches in 2007. They include the March 9 test, a summer space shot for the
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and a later launch to orbit a satellite for the
Malaysian Space Agency.
"We are
also building an additional Falcon 1 vehicle in the event that some promising
customer discussions culminate in a fourth Falcon 1 launch this year," he
added.
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