Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Space Exploration Technologies, isn't wavering from his goal of slashing the cost of spaceflight by 90 percent, even though his firm's first attempt at orbital flight went down in flames on March 28. "We plan to launch again as soon as possible," he says, indicating that SpaceX, as the El Segundo, California, company is known, could try again as early as September.
The Falcon 1 rocket's engine caught fire 25 seconds after liftoff from the Pacific island of Omelek. An automatic engine shutdown triggered the crash of the rocket and its payload, an experimental communications satellite called FalconSat-2. Musk's preliminary investigation indicates that "somebody failed to secure a fitting in the fuel system, resulting in a leak." In other words, bad luck, not bad design. "Everything worked perfectly except for the fact that there was a bloody engine fire," he says.
Postcrash analysis reveals ...
