SpaceX says human error doomed rocket

Musk himself stressed that he is not discouraged and remains committed to the Falcon’s success. “Both me personally — and SpaceX — are in this for the long run. We’re not going to cut and run if we have a few issues. We’re not going to cut and run if we have a lot of issues. We’re going to see this through.”

During an April joint press conference here with Musk, Lloyd Feldman, the assistant director of the Pentagon’s Office of Force Transformation, said the office was not fazed by the Falcon 1’s botched debut and still intends to launch the experimental TacSat-1 on the rocket’s next mission, which is expected to occur this fall from Kwajalein.

“This is what taking risks tastes like,” Feldman said. “There is no such thing as a smooth learning curve. You only learn by failure.”

Musk said SpaceX will make a number of process changes in light of the launch failure, among them, a further automating of the Falcon 1’s vehicle health monitoring system. He said SpaceX will increase “by an order of magnitude” the number of software aborts that can trigger a launch abort in response to abnormal sensor readings.

None of the fixes SpaceX intends to make are expected to materially impact the cost, Musk said, adding that the company intends to continue to offer Falcon 1 launches for $6.7 million.

Musk also announced during the symposium that SpaceX had signed up a new customer for the Falcon 9, the nine-engine Falcon 1 follow-on rocket the company still intends to introduce in 2007, albeit two to three months later because of the failure.

Musk said MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates of Canada had purchased a Falcon 9 launch slated for 2008, noting that the deal was completed after the Falcon 1’s unsuccessful debut.

MacDonald Dettwiller & Associates officials said the payload for the Falcon 9 launch is Cassiope, a Canadian mission to demonstrate an experimental store and forward data delivery system for transmitting large data packages. The roughly 500 kilogram satellite also includes a science instrument and will be launched into low-Earth orbit.

Musk also visited the U.S. Air Force Academy here April 5 where he offered to launch a future cadet-built satellite for free on a Falcon 9 and to pay the travel expenses for four cadets to attempt.

Musk, 34-year old technology entrepreneur, had his coming out before the traditional aerospace community in 2003 at the National Space Symposium as the featured speaker at a Colorado Space Business Roundtable lunch. He predicted that he would launch the Falcon 1 within 18 months.

MORE FROM SPACE

Space Section Front

Water discovery fuels hope to colonize moon ‘Significant amount’ of water found on moon Geeky ‘tweeters’ to report on shuttle launch All systems go for space shuttle launch   Atlantis’ team carries the ball for NASA Get the most from a promising meteor show World not ending in 2012, says NASA Cosmic Log: Marvelous view ... and a mystery Broken urine recycler may affect space mission   Month in space: What a blast! Space Section Front   Add Space headlines to your news reader: