Army Missile-Defense Activity Causes Schedule Change

Thanksgiving afternoon, Aero-News received a heads-up that the Falcon 1 launch was going to be "scrubbed," not due to any problems with Falcon 1, but due to "something happening on the range." That was quickly followed by a clarification -- the mission was not being scrubbed per se, it was merely being slid 24 hours. We checked with our military sources and they concurred, saying that the delay was not caused by SpaceX.

Indeed, while a question to SpaceX went unanswered directly, company founder Elon Musk sent the following to the press in general.

Falcon 1 Launch Delayed by Army Range

In order to facilitate preparations for a missile defense launch, the Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) has bumped the SpaceX Falcon 1 maiden flight from its officially scheduled launch date of 1 p.m. California time (9 p.m. GMT) on November 25.  The new launch time is 1 p.m. California time (9 p.m. GMT) on November 26.

---Elon---

Aero-News will continue to bring you the latest on the Falcon 1 launch, both from SpaceX's sources and from our own.

Why was the delay necessary? SpaceX plans to launch their missile from The military conducts launch activities from a tiny island in the Kwajalein Atoll, Omelek. The very next island, Meck, is a center of military activity. The military tests the ground-based mid-course interceptor there.

It seems likely that the military could not secure everything on Meck Island in time for the SpaceX launch, and so they want one more day. The military plans to reduce manning on Meck as a safety precaution during the SpaceX launch from nearby Omelek.

How nearby? The launch photo shows a Mid-Course Interceptor launch from Meck island (on the right) and you can see the tip of Omelek on the left. (Compare this photo to the 1939 map of Kwajalein).

This ballistic missile defense organization program has been cursed with bad luck -- all the very hard things, like hitting a rocket with a rocket from a standing start, have been going well, and all the relatively easy things, like getting a gantry arm to drop free in a launch sequence, have caused highly embarrassing aborts. As the military has already deployed some of the missiles to defend against a possible ballistic missile attack from a rogue state, it has a lot invested in missiles that work.

"This next test is make-or-break for us," an insider tells us.

Similarly, the Falcon 1 launch is a make-or-break deal for SpaceX. Elon Musk, the visionary who made a fortune founding PayPal, has a lot riding on the orbital booster. SpaceX points out the significance of this booster goes far beyond their company, in turn.

Falcon 1 will be the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit. It's the world's first all-new orbital rocket in over a decade; its Merlin main engine is the first all-new American hydrocarbon booster engine to fly in forty years. It's the first booster, apart from the Space Shuttle space transportation system, to be even partially reusable, and it provides the lowest cost to flight of any launch vehicle in the world -- American, Russian, European, Brazilian, Chinese -- at $6.7 million.

The design is rated by engineers as highly reliable, equal in reliability to the most reliable American boosters. But that's still far short of 100%, and nobody would be surprised if Elon Musk was slightly anxious.

FMI: www.spacex.com  www.mda.mil