South African born entrepreneur, Elon Musk, made history last month when his Falcon 1 rocket became the first privately developed rocket to orbit the Earth.
The Falcon 1 was launched from Kwajalein Atoll Island in the Pacific Ocean on the 28th of September 2008, from where it successfully orbited Earth. Following three failed orbits, this was the Falcon’s fourth attempt at achieving the feat and marked the culmination of six years of intense work.
"It's been over six years of extremely intense effort and some pretty heart-wrenching episodes with the prior launches. Really the emotion I feel is much more relief than elation," Musk told reporters after the launch.
Since its establishment in 2002 Musk’s company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), has been developing rockets and spacecraft from its headquarters in Los Angeles, California, that will ultimately compete with world governments in providing spacecraft for missions to the International Space Station and beyond.
Musk matriculated from Pretoria Boys High in 1988 before leaving for America in order to avoid military conscription in South Africa. SpaceX is the 37-year old entrepreneur’s third company having previously founded PayPal, an electronic payment system, and Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley automobile start-up.
Musk, who has invested more than US$100 million (almost R1 billion) in SpaceX, believes that his cheap and reliable rockets will successfully carry cargo to the ISS by 2010, thus forging the way for a new market in private and commercial space transport. The company expects to carry astronauts to space at a later stage.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle NASA and other space officials are welcoming the change that SpaceX could bring to the space industry because they see private space travel as the wave of the future since it promises to be much cheaper.
"Rocket science truly is one of the hardest things humans can do, but the technology to transport cargo to the station is mature enough that we strongly believe private enterprise can and must step in," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told the newspaper.
Scientists and astronomers at SpaceX have spent the past week reviewing data from the Falcon 1’s flight. Musk’s update on the SpaceX website reads, “The mood here at SpaceX is just ecstatic! … The data has confirmed that the flight went really well, including the coast and restart.”
The Falcon 1 didn’t carry any cargo for this flight but will carry a Malaysian primary satellite as well as US government secondary satellites to near equatorial orbit on its next flight (Flight 5), scheduled for March 209.
“Flight 6 will probably be a Defense Department satellite in the summer and Flight 7 a commercial satellite mission in the fall,” says Musk. “In 2010, I expect the launch cadence for Falcon 1 to step up to a mission every two to three months.”
For more information visit www.spacex.com
