美太空探索技术公司宣布成功发射火箭“猎鹰1”号

Successful launch for Falcon 1 rocket
BY STEPHEN CLARK

Posted: September 28, 2008

The Falcon 1 booster redeemed itself Sunday with an electrifying launch that put an exclamation point on six years of hard work and disappointment for SpaceX, the startup company chartered to revolutionize space travel.

The 70-foot-tall rocket successfully delivered a 364-pound hunk of aluminum to orbit on the launcher's fourth flight, ending a streak of three consecutive Falcon 1 failures dating back to 2006.

"That was freakin' awesome," said Elon Musk, CEO and chief technical officer of Space Technologies Corp.

Musk established SpaceX in 2002 and funded the company from the fortune he earned from starting Zip2 and PayPal.

"We made orbit thanks to the hard of work of SpaceX and all you guys," Musk told a crowd of employees at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.

Musk, who appeared speechless during his address to workers, said his nervous system had been frazzled by the successful launch.

"There are a lot of people that thought we couldn't do it, but as the saying goes, fourth time's the charm," Musk said.

The mission logo for the launch, known as Flight 4 in SpaceX parlance, includes two four-leaf clovers symbolizing the end of the rocket's string of bad luck.

"Getting to orbit, that's just a huge milestone," Musk said. "There are only a handful of countries on Earth that have done it. It's normally a country thing, not a company thing."

The rocket reached the end of a smooth countdown at 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT) Sunday. Unlike previous countdowns riddled by last-second aborts, this time the rocket's Merlin 1C engine ramped up to 78,000 pounds of thrust and the black-and-white launcher was cleared for takeoff.

The rocket flew east from the company's launch site on Omelek Island at Kwajalein Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean. The Falcon 1's first stage completed its burn two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, and the spent booster separated from the rocket's second stage five seconds later.

Stage separation was the moment of failure during the Falcon 1's third flight in August, but this time the critical event occurred as planned.

SpaceX employees gathered inside the company's massive assembly hangar let out cheers as the second stage Kestrel engine fired and propelled the rocket away from the first stage.

The two halves of the 11.5-foot-tall metal fairing were let go about 30 seconds later, prompting another round of applause from company workers.

The Kestrel burned for nearly seven minutes before shutting down once on-board computers detected the rocket had arrived in orbit.

Then the party began.

"I want to have a really great party tonight," Musk told his employees. "I don't know about you guys."

这箭有多大多重？

wiki上的数据。wiki的发射记录已经更新了，动作真快。

Size
Height 21.3 m (70 ft)
Diameter 1.7 m (5.5 ft)
Mass 38,555 kg (85,000 lb)
Stages 2

Capacity
Payload to LEO 670 kg (1480 lb)
Payload to
SSO 430 kg (990 lb)

维基上更新速度的确很快呀