Next Falcon I launch planned within 2 weeks

I just heard from [Theo Pirard] who attended a luncheon Thursday at the Euroconsult Space Business Week event in Paris and heard a brief speech by Elon Musk. Musk said that they plan to carry out the next Falcon I launch in about 2 weeks. It will not have a payload. The fifth Falcon I launch would follow in January and it would orbit the Malaysian Razakzsat spacecraft.

[Update: Theo Pirard, of the Space Information Center/Belgium, was also told by Elon that after Razakzsat, the sixth Falcon 1 launch would carry Tacsat-1 for the Operational Responsive Space (ORS) program. Elon also gave the following answers to his questions:
/-- About Falcon 9: "The test first stage will arrive at the Cape in December. The flight model will fly in mid-2009. It will be followed by two launches in 2009 for the COTS programme of NASA"
/-- About Dragon: "We are working on Dragonlab to launch payload to ISS, also to recover results of experiments".
/-- About SpaceX: "The company is very well. We are working hardly to achieve reliability. No, [the launch failures do not involve] a question of production quality".
]

Posted 09/11/08 | 23:42:20 by TopSpacer | Filed under: Transport Companies

Comments

sounds like ELON is getting desperate.

there are serious problems in the Falcon 1
that are worth fixing. The control system isn't
stable, the first stage engine isn't running smoothly,
the shut down transients aren't well analyzed,
the start up transients aren't well analyzed.

racing to get out to kwaj again, is poor practice

Posted by anon at 09/12/08 21:25:30

TacSat-1? That was declared obsolete over a year ago.

It was originally scheduled as the payload for the maiden flight. Then it was moved to flight two, then three, and then cancelled. Strange that they should overturn that decision.

Posted by Anonymous at 09/13/08 12:58:05

TACSAT 1 was held pending a successful
pair of flights

Posted by anon at 09/13/08 14:23:46

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