Privately-funded Space Exploration Technologies, the company operated by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, received final clearance from the US Air Force on Thursday for its debut rocket launch from Florida.
The company known as SpaceX was set to launch its Falcon 9 rocket between 11am and 3pm yesterday from its newly refurbished launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, just south of the Kennedy Space Center.
Musk, who moonlights as chairman and chief executive of electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors, put the odds of a successful flight at around 75 percent.
“I think we’re probably three-quarters likely to succeed. I hope that fate favors us tomorrow,” Musk said on a conference call with reporters.
The company has flown smaller rockets from the Kwajalein Atoll’s Omelek Island in the Pacific with mixed success, which Musk says is typical of any new technical system, particularly rocketry. The Falcon 9’s goal is to reach orbit and typically, about half of the first flights of new rockets end short of reaching that mark.
The 55m-high, liquid oxygen and kerosene-fueled booster will carry a mock-up of a SpaceX capsule known as the Dragon, which NASA plans to use to fly cargo — and perhaps astronauts — to the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA is retiring its shuttle fleet after two more flights this year to complete assembly of the ISS, a US$100 billion project of 16 nations. No replacement is planned under the NASA budget proposal for the year beginning Oct. 1, which is pending before US Congress.
While NASA shifts its focus to research and technology development, the Obama administration is looking to private firms like SpaceX to pick up NASA’s share of the ISS resupply business. Russia, Europe and Japan fly cargo ships to the ISS, while Russia operates the only space taxi service for crewmembers. China, which has also flown people in orbit, is not part of the ISS partnership.
Yesterday’s planned flight is part of SpaceX’s US$400 million development effort to design and fly discount rockets for governments, companies and research institutes. Of that, US$100 million came from Musk, co-owner of the PayPal electronic payment system that eBay Inc acquired in 2002 for US$1.5 billion.
SpaceX is selling its Falcon 9 rockets, which can carry 12 tonnes to an orbit about 360km above Earth, for about US$50 million — less than half what is typically charged for rides on similar US rockets.
“If the vehicle lifts off the pad, no matter what the outcome is, we’re going to learn something that’s going to make the second flight more likely and the third flight and the fourth flight,” added Ken Bowersox, a SpaceX vice president and former NASA astronaut.
The firm plans to fly up to three Falcon 9/Dragon test missions for NASA, then begin delivering cargo to the ISS under a US$1.6 billion contract next year. NASA also has a US$1.9 billion ISS resupply contract with Orbital Sciences Corp, which plans to debut its Taurus 2 rocket next year.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In