From NASA

NASA’s Return to Flight crew met with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office at the White House this afternoon. The seven astronauts flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery last summer. Their mission, designated STS-114, was the first since the Space Shuttle Columbia accident in 2003.

President Bush greeted NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and Discovery’s commander Eileen Collins, pilot Jim Kelly, and mission specialists Steve Robinson, Andy Thomas, Wendy Lawrence, Charlie Camarda and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
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A day after postponing the maiden launch of their Falcon 1 rocket, SpaceX has released a video of the test engine firing of the spacecraft.

“We were very happy to be able to execute a flight countdown all the way to lighting the engine,” company founder Elon Musk said in a statement that accompanied release of the 16-second video.

“Although there wasn’t a launch this time, we made a lot of progress refining the rocket and launch pad — all work that needed to be done anyway,” he said in the statement. “I will post a longer update on our site next week, after we have enough time to finish forensics of recent events and formulate next steps.”

The video can be viewed on the SpaceX Web site.
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NASA is targeting a May launch for the space shuttle Discover on its re-return-to-flight mission. The flight would be the 32nd for Discovery and the 115th of the 25-year-old shuttle program.

Discovery is scheduled for an 11-day mission, beginning and ending at Kennedy Space Center.

The 7-member crew will be commanded by Steve Lindsey. Remaining members are: Mark Kelly, Pilot; and mission specialists Mike Fossum, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, Piers Sellers, and Thomas Reiter.

Reiter will remain on the space station, working with the station crew under a contract between the European Space Agency and the Russian Federal Space Agency.
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SpaceX — the company that hopes to become the first private firm to obtain orbit — learned a lesson all too familiar to their NASA counterparts: A launch delay.

Following a simulated countdown and engine firing, SpaceX has decided to remove their Falcon 1 rocket from the Marshall Islands launch pad to further examine unspecified problems. Launch had been scheduled for Friday afternoon, California time.

“After analyzing data from the static fire countdown, we decided to postpone the launch,” company founder Elon Musk said in a written statement. “The vehicle is being lowered for further investigation. Once we have thoroughly checked out all systems, I will post an update on what was found and when the next countdown attempt will occur. Based on range availability and logistics constraints, a rough guess would be two to four weeks.”

A company spokeswoman said no further updates would immdiately be made available. She suggested additional information may be forthcoming in the next two days.

SpaceX is developing a family of launch vehicles intended to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of access to space ultimately by a factor of ten. With the Falcon 1, Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, SpaceX is able to offer light, medium and heavy lift capabilities. We are able to deliver spacecraft into any inclination and altitude, from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit to planetary missions.

SpaceX is the third company founded by Elon Musk. Previously he co-founded PayPal, the world’s leading electronic payment system, which was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. In 1995, Mr. Musk co-founded Zip2, which sold to Compaq Computer Corporation for more than $300 million.

SpaceX is poised this week to become this first private company to acheive orbit with a liquid-fuled rocket. The Southern California company will conduct a countdown and main engine test on Thursday. If all goes well, their Falcon 1 rocket will liftoff on Friday from the Kwajalein Atoll of the Marshall Islands.

Launch time is set for noon (PST).

The company said the launch will be historic for a number of reasons:

• It will be the first privately developed, liquid fueled rocket to reach orbit and the world’s first all new orbital rocket in over a decade.
• The main engine of Falcon 1 (Merlin) will be the first all new American hydrocarbon engine for an orbital booster to be flown in forty years and only the second new American booster engine of any kind in twenty-five years.
• The Falcon 1 is the only rocket flying 21st century avionics, which require a small fraction of the power and mass of other systems.
• It will be the world’s only semi-reusable orbital rocket apart from the Shuttle.
• The Falcon 1, priced at $6.7 million, will provide the lowest cost per flight to orbit of any launch vehicle in the world, despite receiving a design reliability rating equivalent to that of the best launch vehicles currently flying in the United States.

SpaceX is developing a family of launch vehicles intended to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of access to space ultimately by a factor of ten. With the Falcon 1, Falcon 5 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, SpaceX is able to offer light, medium and heavy lift capabilities. We are able to deliver spacecraft into any inclination and altitude, from low Earth orbit to geosynchronous orbit to planetary missions.

SpaceX is the third company founded by Elon Musk. Previously he co-founded PayPal, the world’s leading electronic payment system, which was sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. In 1995, Mr. Musk co-founded Zip2, which sold to Compaq Computer Corporation for more than $300 million.

Additional information is at SpaceX’s Web site.