For Star Trek Fans--Scotty Doesn't Make Orbit

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon/003/failure.html

Falcon 1 suffers another setback

BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW

Posted: August 3, 2008

SpaceX, a private company seeking to revolutionize the space business,
suffered their third launch failure in three tries during a Saturday
blastoff of the Falcon 1 rocket.

The problem struck about two-and-a-half minutes after a seemingly
picture-perfect blastoff at 11:34 p.m. EDT Saturday (0334 GMT Sunday)
from the company's launch site on Omelek Island at Kwajalein Atoll in
the central Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX provided a live webcast of the launch, but the company abruptly
cut a video feed from a downward-facing on-board rocket camera. The
booster was approaching the point of a switch to inertial guidance and
separation between the first and second stages.

"We are hearing from the launch control center that there has been an
anomaly on the vehicle," said Max Vozoff, a SpaceX mission manager
providing expert commentary on the webcast.

"We don't have any information about what that anomaly is at this
time," Vozoff said. "We will, of course, be doing an assessment of the
situation and providing information as soon as it becomes available."

The black-and-white booster pierced the speed of sound and endured the
most crushing period of aerodynamic pressure about a minute after
liftoff. Cheers erupted from a crowd of employees gathered to watch
the launch at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.

The first stage is powered by a newly-upgraded Merlin 1C main engine,
which is fed by kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants. The engine
appeared to work normally in the first two minutes of the flight, but
the first stage began oscillating a few moments before SpaceX ended
the webcast.

The launch was delayed more than four-and-a-half hours due to a
catalog of technical issues. A countdown attempt earlier Saturday
evening ended a split-second before blastoff due to a single parameter
that was slightly out of limits.

SpaceX gave little advance notice of the mission, announcing the
launch time less than six hours before opening of the launch window.

Saturday's botched launch marks the third failure in three tries for
the short-lived company.

The Falcon 1's maiden flight in 2006 succumbed to a fuel leak and
engine fire a few seconds after liftoff.

The second mission reached space in March 2007, but the rocket's
second stage spun out of control due to propellant sloshing the liquid
oxygen tank.

Saturday's flight was a critical test for SpaceX already holds
contracts for up to 11 more launches of the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9
rockets, including payloads for NASA, the U.S. military and commercial
customers.

SpaceX's backlog includes demonstration flights for NASA's Commercial
Orbital Transportation Services program. The COTS program selected
SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. to develop new spacecraft to deliver
cargo to the international space station after the space shuttle's
retirement in 2010.

The Falcon 9 rocket, currently under development by SpaceX engineers,
will match the lift capacity of the most powerful Delta and Atlas
rockets in the U.S. fleet.

It was scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral early next year, but
the impact of Saturday's failure on SpaceX's future manifest was
unclear.

SpaceX was also lining up for two more Falcon 1 launches from
Kwajalein later this year. The status of those missions was also
unknown Saturday night.

Lost aboard the Falcon was the U.S. military's Trailblazer satellite,
two small NASA payloads and a cache of cremated human remains,
including the ashes of astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor
James Doohan.

[me note--doesn't seem like a wise investment; if there are space
aliens watching all of this activity as well as the earth in general,
here, they are probably laughing themselves sick--JML]
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