SpaceX lifts off after chills and thrills

Getting data for the Pentagon
The primary aim of the mission was to gather flight data for the Defense Department, which has positioned itself as a major customer for SpaceX’s future launches. The launch was designed to put the experimental payload into a circular 425-mile-high (685-kilometer-high) orbit.

The payload included two pieces of NASA-developed hardware called the Autonomous Flight Safety System and the Low Cost Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System Transmitter.

SpaceX said the hardware would not actually be deployed during this mission — but eventually, the systems would be used to monitor launches autonomously and terminate flights that went off course.

The rocket's second stage was supposed to reach orbit about 10 minutes after launch, but Musk said the stage encountered a "roll control anomaly" — leading to a premature engine cutoff. On SpaceX's rocket-cam Webcast, the second stage could be seen wobbling just before contact was lost.

Musk said the rocket reached the 187-mile (300-kilometer) altitude mark, but likely fell short of reaching orbit. Although he cautioned reporters that he didn't yet have definitive information, the most likely scenario was that the second stage re-entered the atmosphere after half an orbit, he said.

Late Tuesday night, Musk posted an update to SpaceX's Web site assessing the flight:

"Falcon flew far beyond the 'edge' of space, typically thought of as around 60 miles.  Our altitude was approximately 200 miles, which is just 50 miles below the International Space Station.  The second stage didn't achieve full orbital velocity, due to a roll excitation late in the burn, but that should be a comparatively easy fix once we examine the flight data.  Since it is impossible to ground test the second stage under the same conditions it would see in spaceflight, this anomaly was also something that would have been very hard to determine without a test launch. ..."

Data from the mission will be further analyzed over the days and weeks to come.

Even though the Falcon 1 may not have reached its orbital goal, Shotwell hailed the launch and said the champagne was flowing at SpaceX's Washington office. "The Falcon clearly got to space with a successful liftoff, stage separation, second-stage ignition and fairing separation," she told reporters.

Musk signaled that SpaceX would likely proceed with the Falcon 1's first operational mission later this year. "Unless something very negative shows up, which I think is very unlikely ... I really doubt that there's any need for a third test flight," he told reporters.

The rocket would carry the TacSat-1 military communications satellite as a primary payload, plus a secondary payload of cremated remains provided through Houston-based Space Services Inc. Among those scheduled to be represented on that "memorial spaceflight" are Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and "Star Trek" actor James ("Scotty") Doohan.

‘Good to go’
Shotwell said the customers for SpaceX's next three launches — including U.S. government officials as well as the backers of Malaysia's RazakSat telecommunications satellite — called to voice their support just after Tuesday's liftoff.

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Space Services' chief executive officer, Charles Chafer, told MSNBC.com that his company was "good to go" for SpaceX's next launch.

"I was incredibly impressed by the robustness that the Falcon 1 showed," he said. "I saw today the enormous strides that the team has made."

Chafer said he was confident that SpaceX would resolve the roll problem in time for the next launch — and energize the aerospace industry in the process. "I think some of the existing launch world is saying, 'Oh my God, they're getting close,'" Chafer said.

Space consultant Charles Lurio echoed that sentiment in his own e-mailed reaction: "SpaceX is just this far away from having demonstrated an operational satellite delivery system."

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