Falcon Flubs

Not to sound tarty -- and first to acknowledge Elon Musk for even trying these days, on his own dime, and not asking the government to bail him out if/when times get hard -- but this weekend’s launch of Space
Exploration Technology’s Falcon 1 rocket, which carried a payload for its first paying customers, the U.S. government, didn’t go exactly right for the third flight in a row.

Though Musk once said he might stick by baseballs’ three-strikes-yer-out rule, he’s out in front, as a good leader should, talking up flights four, five, six and beyond. In other words, he will not stop.

“I will never give up and I mean never,” Musk wrote in an email to employees Saturday night.

Earlier in the day, the company fired off a Falcon 1 rocket from the firm’s central Pacific launch site on Omelek Island in the Kwajalein Atoll, located about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.

SpaceX is a privately-owned rocket development and launch services firm founded and funded by Musk, an internet entrepreneur credited as a (the?) key member of the PayPal financial services firm, now owned by eBay.

As Stephen Clark of SpaceFlightNow.com puts it, “Disaster struck about two-and-a-half minutes after a seemingly picture-perfect blastoff at 11:34 p.m. EDT Saturday (0334 GMT Sunday).”

At a press conference later that day, Musk said some problem prevented the first and second stages from separating properly (apparently this is a problem shared by even very experienced space-farers, like the Russian government.)

Writes Clark, “Stage separation was slated to occur two minutes and 39 seconds after liftoff as pyrotechnic bolts fired to sever the physical connections between the stages. The bolts are all redundantly initiated and have never failed aboard other launch vehicles, according to SpaceX.”

Lost in the accident were the U.S. military’s Trailblazer satellite and two small NASA payloads, including an innovative solar sail. The payload also included a cache of cremated remains, including ashes from astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan, notes Clark.

Live long and prosper, Elon.

Caption: Falcon 1, Take 3. Before shot. Courtesy: SpaceX