Flight International Online news 10:00GMT: The US Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) has bumped the maiden flight of SpaceX Falcon 1, the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit, from its official launch date today at 21:00 GMT to tomorrow at the same time.
Falcon 1 is also making history as the world's first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
Designed from the ground up by SpaceX, Falcon 1 is a two stage rocket powered by liquid oxygen and purified, rocket grade kerosene.
At launch it is expected to accelerate to 17,000 mph (twenty-five times the speed of sound) in less than ten minutes, reachiing 500 km (just above the International Space Station).
The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon booster engine to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years, says SpaceX.
SpaceX claim it is the world's only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle (all other launch vehicles are completely expendable).
Priced at $6.7 million, the rocket is relatively cheaper than traditional launch vehicles.
The maiden flight will take place from the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands.
The customer for this mission is DARPA and the Air Force and the payload will be FalconSat-2, part of the Air Force Academy's satellite program that will measure space plasma phenomena, which can adversely affect space-based communications, including GPS and other civil and military communications.
Source: Flight International
