SpaceX Revisits First Successful Launch To Orbit With Falcon 1 Rocket

Space.com

The Falcon 1 made history on September 28, 2008 by becoming the "first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit," according to SpaceX.  Hear from the team that made it happen.   Credit: SpaceX

Transcript

00:00 - You all see on the countdown that Falcon 1

00:02 is airborne at this time.

00:04 - In the early days, it was very clear.

00:06 It was like a David and Goliath story.

00:07 You know, no privately developed launch vehicle company

00:09 had ever achieved Earth orbit.

00:10 Everybody tried and failed.

00:12 - I started within the first year of the program

00:15 and we were designing and building Falcon 1.

00:18 - The rocket was out on Omelec.

00:20 It was so cool to go to this secluded place for work.

00:24 All that was there was the launch pad,

00:26 a very small hangar, an office trailer,

00:29 and basically an outhouse for a bathroom.

00:31 - We would sleep under the stars sometimes,

00:33 have horrific sunburns sometimes.

00:35 - It was like a Omelec Survivor, we called it,

00:38 and we were right there next to the rocket

00:40 and the launch pad.

00:42 - Plus four, plus five.

00:43 - Living through the first few failures of Falcon 1

00:46 was really difficult.

00:48 We literally had blood, sweat, and tears on that rocket.

00:52 And then to see it come back down so quickly,

00:54 it was heartbreaking.

00:55 - Flight two was disappointing

00:56 because we made it almost all the way to orbit.

00:58 We basically started spinning out of control

01:00 once the vehicle was in space.

01:02 But then flight three was just so sad.

01:05 To basically go through stage separation

01:06 and then have the stages come back and recontact,

01:09 that one hurt the most.

01:10 - We were essentially out of money at that time.

01:13 We had had the three failures,

01:14 but luckily we had had another kind of spare vehicle

01:17 ready to go.

01:18 - We pushed super hard to get that vehicle ready.

01:21 We rented a C-17 to fly the first stage and second stage

01:26 over to Kwajalein instead of taking the three weeks

01:28 on the barge.

01:29 When we were landing, we heard a loud pop.

01:31 We looked back and saw that the first stage tanks

01:34 had sunken in.

01:36 I think we thought for sure we were done.

01:38 I think we thought that was the end of SpaceX.

01:40 - We still felt like the underdogs.

01:44 We still had everything to prove.

01:46 So it was just like, nope, we're gonna fix it

01:48 and we're gonna make this happen.

01:49 - Three weeks later, I think we had the first successful

01:52 flight of Falcon 1.

01:53 (crowd cheering)

01:58 (upbeat music)

02:00 - It worked.

02:04 - We buckled the stage on the way to Kwajalein

02:07 and we still managed to get that rocket to orbit.

02:09 So that gave us good confidence moving forward

02:11 that we'd be able to get anything to orbit.

02:14 - For me, it was like a dream come true

02:15 'cause it was something that we had been working so hard

02:18 for for years, like since I started at SpaceX

02:20 and that we had seen so many failures for.

02:22 I just felt validated and proud of the team

02:25 for doing something that I think a lot of people

02:27 didn't think was possible.

02:29 (whooshing)

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