Demo Sat - Launch

Launch

The launch occurred from Omelek Island, part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Liftoff occurred at 23:15 UTC on 28 September, 15 minutes into a five-hour launch window. If the launch had been scrubbed, it could have been conducted during the same window until 1 October. Nine minutes and 31 seconds after launch, the second stage engine shut down, after the vehicle reached orbit. The initial orbit was reported to be about 330 x 650 km. Following a coast period, the second stage restarted, and performed a successful second burn, resulting in a final orbit of 621 x 643 km x 9.35°.

It was Falcon 1's first successful launch, and the first successful orbital launch of any privately funded and developed, liquid-propelled carrier rocket.

The rocket followed the same trajectory as the previous flight, which failed to place the Trailblazer, NanoSail-D, PreSat and Explorers spacecraft into orbit. No major changes were made to the rocket, other than increasing the time between first stage burnout and second stage separation. This minor change addressed the failure seen on the previous flight, recontact between the first and second stages, by dissipating residual thrust in the first stage engine before separating them.

Although SpaceX intended to recover the first stage of Falcon 1 launch vehicles, as of this launch, they had not yet succeeded in doing so. Stage recovery was a non-primary goal of the early flights. SpaceX is utilizing an incremental development process to work the design issues with stage recovery and CEO Elon Musk stated that the probability of a successful recovery would have increased with subsequent flights, however the Falcon 1 was subsequently retired from service after its fifth launch, with first stage recovery never having been accomplished successfully.