UPHAM, N.M. (AP) -- A rocket that was the first launched
from a commercial spaceport in New Mexico--and the first to crash--has been found
in the desert, company officials said Saturday.
The 20-foot SpaceLoft XL rocket was found nearly a week
after it wobbled and went off course seconds after takeoff from Spaceport America
in Upham on Monday afternoon.
The unmanned rocket crashed Monday in the rugged southern
New Mexico desert after reaching about 40,000 feet, well short of UP
Aerospace's goal of sending the rocket into suborbital space, about 70 miles
above Earth.
The company has not disclosed the exact site of the crash.
Eric Knight, the company's CEO, said radar data from the
nearby White Sands Missile Range, the intended landing site, helped searchers
find what was left of the rocket.
The cause of the crash remained a mystery, Knight said.
"Now that we have the rocket we can start doing our
anomaly investigation," he said.
A crew from the Connecticut company had searched the desert
by air and on foot for several days.
Knight said it was unclear Saturday how the rocket, whose
condition he did not describe, would be removed from the desert. Recover will
take a few days, he said.
Plans for a second launch Oct. 21 are still on, Knight said.
Monday's launch was the first at the state-funded Spaceport America,
about 95 miles north of El Paso, Texas.
The site is also the proposed home of a $225 million
spaceport where Sir Richard Branson, the British billionaire founder of the Virgin
Group, has announced plans to base a space tourism company.
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