Yep, They Were Bumped By The Ground-Launched Mid-Course Interceptor Program

As we reported, the SpaceX Falcon 1 launch was delayed by a situation relating to another rocket launch in the Kwajalein Atoll launch complex, nothing directly to do with them. SpaceX issued the following statement, Friday, clarifying the situation, and confirming Aero-News's previous report.

SPACEX HISTORIC MAIDEN LAUNCH DELAYED BY ARMY RANGE TO SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26

The Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) has bumped the SpaceX Falcon 1 maiden flight from its officially scheduled launch date of Friday, November 25 at 1 p.m. PST (9 p.m. GMT).  The new launch time for SpaceX is Saturday, November 26 at 1 p.m. PST (9 p.m. GMT).  The reason for the delay is SMDC needs to perform preparations for a missile defense launch that take priority over the SpaceX launch. 

This is not the first time that SpaceX's schedule has suffered from using launch facilities that are primarily military. The Falcon 1 had originally been planned to be launched from Vandenberg AFB this summer, but complications with a classified Titan IV launch undergoing delay after delay at that site led the prime contractor to demand the removal of SpaceX. Vandenberg was very convenient for SpaceX -- they would actually take the rocket home to El Segundo and bring it back to Vandenberg the way a commuter packs his lunch.

(The half-billion-dollar Titan 4B, last of its line, finally launched on October 20, four months late --  a typical delay for the unreliable and temperamental Titan 4B).

Apart from the official word from SpaceX HQ in El Segundo, California, our sources in the mid-Pacific launch complex tell us that the SpaceX people onsite are confident and displaying high morale. Key personnel are spending the night on Omelek Island in preparation for the launch, which will be at 9 AM local time Sunday in Kwajalein (Remember, they are across the International Date Line from the USA.

One advantage of that timing is that the launch will probably on the evening news. Of course, if you read Aero-News, you might not have to wait until the 6 or 11 news hour, or fear it being pre-empted by a police chase or car crash, to know how the SpaceX crew and Falcon 1 made out.

Falcon 1 carries a payload, FalconSat-2, created by the US Air Force Academy (it was actually built by cadets) and sponsored by DARPA. The satellite had been intended to fly on the Space Shuttle Atlantis, but that mission was scrubbed after the Columbia crash in 2003.

FalconSat-2 is small, shaped like a cube, and only weighs 43 pounds. (SpaceX plans to do some post-separation maneuvering and other tests, since they expect to have plenty of reserve thrust after the satellite has been deployed; Falcon 1 can lift a payload of about 1,300 lb). FalconSat-2 will go into an elliptical orbit inclined 39 degrees to the equator with a 310 mile apogee and 250 mile perigee. The satellite's mission is to collect information on interplanetary plasma, which can affect the satellite communications and navigation systems upon which military and, increasingly, civil operations depend.

Just as the Falcon 1 wasn't first choice for the FalconSat-2 launch, SpaceX had originally planned to launch a Navy Research Laborator TacSat-1 experimental communications satellite, before it launched FalconSat-2. It changed payload sequencess because Kwajalein is a better launch point for FalconSat, and it will use Vandenberg to launch
TacSat-1 next. If Lockheed Martin isn't conducting a six-month troubleshooting master class disguised as a launch on an adjacent pad, anyway.

Fun SpaceX fact: the privately held company was founded only in 2002, and has developed two rocket engines (the Stage 1 Merlin 1B and Stage 2 Kestrel), and semi-reusable booster system for orbital flight, including the most advanced avionics in the industry, in three years.

SpaceX craft and engines are named after raptors. The same engine names were used by Rolls-Royce for a line of V-12 piston engines in the 1930s and 1940s. It has nine signed customers, government and commercial, representing over $200 million in contracts, to date.

FMI: www.spacex.com