Internet Entrepreneur Now Targets Space Industry

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, the third company founded by successful Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, today announced the successful firing of the company's Falcon rocket main engine. Musk, 31, who previously co-founded popular online payment service PayPal(TM) and enterprise software company Zip2 Corp., founded SpaceX last June, with the goal of developing launch vehicles that will set new benchmarks for reliable and low-cost access to space.

"Satellites and spacecraft urgently need a more reliable and cost- effective launch vehicle than the options available today. SpaceX is confident that our Falcon rocket will achieve that end in the near future," said Elon Musk, SpaceX Chairman and CEO. "In only nine months we've designed, built and initiated testing of our rocket's main engine, which is a testament to the capability and determination of the SpaceX team to deliver on promised goals in record time."

"This is the most successful engine test program I have managed in more than 15 years of rocket engine development," said Tom Mueller, SpaceX Vice President of Propulsion and former head of liquid rocket propulsion development at TRW Space and Electronics. "It is all the more exceptional given that the engine is a clean sheet design with several new technology innovations."

In initial tests, the liquid oxygen and kerosene engine, named Merlin, achieved full expected thrust of 60,000 lbs and a combustion efficiency of 93%. With further testing, the company expects to exceed a 96% efficiency level. This compares well with the much larger Saturn V Moon rocket's F-1 engine, which used the same propellant combination, but achieved only 93.5% efficiency.

About the Falcon:

The company's initial rocket, named Falcon, is being offered for $6 million per flight to orbit -- less than one-third the cost of currently-available options. Although the Falcon design draws upon the ideas of many prior launch vehicle programs, SpaceX is developing the entire vehicle from the ground up, including both engines, the turbo-pump, the cryogenic tank structure and the guidance system. Falcon is a two-stage, liquid oxygen and kerosene powered rocket capable of placing half a ton into low Earth orbit in the basic configuration and one and a half tons with strap-on liquid boosters.

Falcon is expected to be ready for launch by late 2003, with the actual liftoff date subject to Air Force, NASA and FAA approval. Following this vehicle, SpaceX will develop a large three-stage rocket using the first and second stages of the Falcon as its second and third stages. That vehicle will compete in the heavy-lift payload class currently occupied by Arianespace, Boeing, Lockheed, China Aerospace and Russia's Krunichev.

FMI: www.SpaceX.com