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Science Private SpaceX Flight 4 rocket launch successful
Science Private SpaceX Flight 4 rocket launch successful | Private SpaceX Flight 4 rocket launch successful |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Tuesday, 30 September 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 3   
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Science DiscussionsSouth African-born-American Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk privately financed the company after selling his Internet company Paypal to Ebay for US$1.5 billion. SpaceX was founded in June 2002. Musk owned just under 12% of the company’s stock shares. The company’s press release “SpaceX Successfully Launches Falcon 1 to Orbit,” stated that “Flight 4 of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle has successfully launched and achieved Earth orbit." The news story added, "With this key milestone, Falcon 1 becomes the first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to orbit the Earth.” The launch occurred at 4:15 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), 23:15 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), from the Reagan Test Site on Omelek Island at the U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll in the Central Pacific, about 2,500 miles (4025 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii. Musk exclaimed, "This is a great day for SpaceX and the culmination of an enormous amount of work by a great team. The data shows we achieved a super precise orbit insertion—middle of the bull's-eye — and then went on to coast and restart the second stage, which was icing on the cake." [SpaceX] He added, “We’ve made orbit!”, saying the event was “awesome.” [The New York Times: “Private Company Launches Its Rocket Into Orbit”] And, later saying, “It’s great to have this giant monkey off my back.” [The New York Times] Page two continues the Flight 4 launch story for SpaceX. |
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