Flight of the Falcon: Private Rocket is Launched…

June 7, 2010

Okay, we’ve already posted a few Science du Jour articles on space exploration so we hope that you’ll bear with us for one more. A popular topic for debate centers around the Obama administration’s decision to retire NASA’s space shuttles. Despite this, President Obama has continued to voice his support of manned space flight and has set a goal of returning to the moon by the end of the decade. In addition to putting another (wo)man on the moon, we’ve committed to taking cargo up to the International Space Station (ISS), however NASA’s next launch vehicle, the Ares rocket, isn’t scheduled to hit the main stage until sometime in 2015.

So how are we going to get there? Sure, bike-to-work month has been quite successful, but I hardly see how we can just grab a Schwinn and head on up… This leaves us with two main options: carpooling with the Russians (my how the times have changed) or relying on the commercial sector.

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is a private company that competed and won a $1.6 billion contract through NASA’s commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) to design and build a rocket capable of reaching ISS. Last Friday, SpaceX successfully launched Falcon 9 out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and reached orbit at 155 miles above Earth. The launch itself went smoothly after a minor delay and the only major glitch involved recovery of the first-stage rockets. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, stated “We achieved 100 percent of our objectives on the mission”.

Falcon 9 launched Friday, June 4, 2010

It remains to be seen whether the privatization of human space exploration will replace NASA missions or simply become a complementary approach. However, SpaceX has said it can build a version for astronauts in three years, once it has a full contract.