The Falcon 9 private launch rockets opens new era
Posted on June 6, 2010 by cesa
WASHINGTON – The Falcon 9 rocket experiment was launched into space Thursday from a military base at Cape Canaveral (Florida) by opening a new era in the commercial exploitation of space flights by private companies. The launch of the Falcon 9, its first test succeeded after a first attempt was blocked just two seconds from the start because one of the rocket’s sensors had detected a problem. But a second countdown has been rather successful and the Falcon 9, created by private company SpaceX, has raised from the launch pad at 14.35 local carrying into orbit a specimen of a Dragon space capsule that should be used in future to transport goods and astronauts in space.
The SpaceX was founded eight years ago by Elon Musk, who became rich by creating the online payment system PayPal, with the intention of filling a gap in the space services by private companies. Musk has invested 100 million dollars of his personal fortune in the enterprise getting funds for another 300 million dollars from NASA to develop missiles capable of delivering cargo into space. Moreover, SpaceX, which has headquarters offices in huge hangar in California, won a contract from NASA for another 1.6 billion dollars to carry supplies to the ISS in the period between 2011 (when the shuttle spacecraft will be officially Board) and 2015.
To provide services super competitive, every Falcon 9 costs about 50 million dollars, the SpaceX factory in California where rockets are manufactured products in its numerous components that already exist on the market at prices much higher. “We discovered that they could save so much money,” said Musk. The privatization of space services has been encouraged by the administration that Obama canceled the Constellation space program, at the time approved by the Bush administration, judging it too costly. A decision has also caused controversy and sparked protests by astronaut Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon for the waiver create a human colony on the Moon, as proposed by Bush instead. Musk is convinced that its rockets ‘cheap’ someday be able to make a substantial contribution to the conquest of Mars.
