First Privately Developed Liquid Fuel Rocket to Launch Today | Hacker News Reader

First Privately Developed Liquid Fuel Rocket to Launch Today

spacex.com

16 pointslupin_sansei17 comments

Web cast here http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

Sounds fun, some cool facts here: http://www.spacex.com/falcon1.php

It makes me wonder how you deal with something like this. If something like this happened in Russia (or "somewhere"), and somehow the US didn't know about it, they would have jets up in the air and the whole country put on red alert as soon as they find out about a rocket being launched, I expect. Does SpaceX have to send letters out to the major nations of the world, or something? Or have I got all this out of movies and there's no real way to track recently launched missiles?

There are definitely ways to track recently launched rockets. See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-Based_Infrared_System

Oh dear. "the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened. "

Video here: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1299

They aborted the launch. Apparently they are taking a cautious approach to launching rockets, which is good.

Look back quickly, as they restarted and have 4 minutes to launch right now. http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

Update: Rocket has launched :)

Update: Report of an anomaly on the vehicle - screen black

Deleted comment

That link (the comment this was referring to is now deleted) is to the second launch of the Falcon 1 which made it further than the launch today, which was the third launch. Today's launch only made it roughly 140 seconds (no stage separation) before the "anomaly".

Actually the anomaly was right at stage separation apparently. Video and comment by Elon Musk: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1299

Where did you see that? Source?

They have a live webcast on the front page of the SpaceX website.

got it, thanks:

http://www.spacex.com/webcast.php

How depressing. I wait all night (UK time till 5am), watch it climb to 50km, and it goes and blacks out!

I hope this turns out okay.

I guess the headline's correct. They did 'launch', it just didn't finish doing so!

The launch is currently scheduled for 20:00 PDT.

The explosion is scheduled for 20:03.

Bets? Any gamblers in the house?

Edit: Ok, let's say T + 3 since they're having trouble getting it up.

Voted up for being right. (However sadly.)

Thanks. And it is sad. I was pretty much hoping to just be a smartass. I love the new space race, however slow it seems to be playing out. I went to the first SS1 launch. But traditional private rockets have a terrible history. I think Rutan's way is best.

Damn, I was off by almost a minute.

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