[amsat-bb] Re: Falcon 1 successful

[Lee McLamb]

Yes it was great to see them get into orbit with a very nominal mission.  
Watching the live video coming up from Ascension Is. of the second burn was 
very cool.

I have already been talking with SpaceX regarding AMSAT opportunities.  
Interestingly they don't have test flights planned for the F9.  They've got 
paying customers manifested right on from flight 1.  Also, since they are 
focused on their COTS contract for delivering supplies to ISS, many of their 
initial F9 flights will be to LEO.  They are working on GTO mission though.

When I last spoke with SpaceX they were not very interested in dealing with 
secondaries.  Their business model and costs are based around launching a 
single payload.  However, they don't care if that "single payload" is 
actually a stack of satellites as long as someone else does the integration 
and delivers them an integrated payload stack.  With that I've also been 
talking with the company who brokered the multi-manifest mission for F1 
flight 3, since they are smallsat friendly and already have a relationship 
with SpaceX.

73, 
Lee-KU4OS

PS My day job at the Eastern Range includes working both Atlas V and SpaceX 
launches.



On Sunday 28 September 2008 23:42:07 Bob McGwier wrote:
> Falcon 1 successfully made it to orbit today.
>
>
>
> http://www.spacex.com/
>
>
>
> Falcon 9 Heavy will be a 12000 Kg to GTO launcher and will almost certainly
> have test flights.
>
>
>
> http://www.spacex.com/falcon9_heavy.php
>
>
>
> and it pays to have friends:
>
>
>
> http://www.space-travel.com/reports/Jeff_Ward_To_Head_Up_Avionics_Guidance_
>A nd_Control_At_SpaceX_999.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Bob
>
> N4HY
>
>
>
>
>
> ARRL SDR Working Group Chair
>
> Member: ARRL, AMSAT, AMSAT-DL, TAPR, Packrats,
>
> NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC.
>
> "Trample the slow ....  Hurdle the dead"