It may not be as exciting as the Apollo 11, but I do find exciting that SpaceX has put a commercial satellite in orbit for the first time, launching a Falcon I rocket from the Marshall Islands.

SpaceX launched a Malaysian satellite into orbit using the two-stage Falcon, a rocket developed and built from scratch by the company. The satellite, called RazakSAT, is designed to take high resolution pictures of Malaysia.

If all goes as planned, SpaceX will soon deliver material to the International Space Station in the future. [SpaceX]

The contracts, for $US1.6bn and $US1.9bn respectively, demand each company to deliver about 20 tons of vital cargo to the International Space Station. The private flights will serve as a temporary holdover during the period between NASA’s Shuttle and Constellation programs, sending supplies from 2010 until 2016, at least. Details of this particular contract aside, this does set a precedent for the outsourcing of critical tasks—not just hardware manufacturing—to reputable private companies, so if SpaceX and Orbital pull this off without accidentally rear-ending the ISS or overshooting all of NASA’s Tang into the moon, then they could drastically change the nature of the agency. [NASA via Bad Astronomy]

The Falcon 9, which has nine rocket engines to the Falcon 1’s one, is scheduled to go on its maiden voyage in 1Q 2009. If SpaceX meets the reliability milestones metered out by NASA, it’ll get a $US278 million award–about a tenth of the cost the government agency paid Lockheed Martin to develop its own people-transporting, space-faring rocket. [Wired]

At the SpaceX web site, the feat was documented in a kind of flipbook format, with a series of photos showing the rocket launch from an on board camera from launch to orbit.

“Fourth time’s a charm,” Musk said in a statement. No kidding, but congratulations on this 100% private effort nonetheless.

Noted Slashdot contributor dbullard, “This was a completely new vehicle — it’s not using any previously developed hardware. All developed from scratch. No government supplied hardware, Russian engines, or old ICBM motors. My hat’s off to the employees of Space X — all 550 of them. (Note — no ‘cast of thousands,’ just 550).”

The next Falcon 1 launch will carry RazakSat into orbit for Malaysia. If that launch is successful, the larger Falcon 9 rocket will take flight for the first time sometime in Q2 2009. [SpaceX via Slashdot]

The Falcon 1 rockets have all been launched from Kwajalein, in the US Marshall islands in the Pacific. Moving to the Cape will allow SpaceX to work more closely with NASA, which is still planning to rely on private systems like Falcon 9 to carry the Space Shuttle’s burden of ISS service and orbital insertions after it retires by 2010, and until Orion can take up the mantle in 2015 (which many see as an optimistic time frame).

Honestly though, we admire SpaceX. They’re pushing private-sector space operations further than most would ever dare–let’s just hope they get a break soon. For Scotty. [Space Ref via /.]

FOR WANT OF A TRANSPORTER

My father loved engineering. Anything he could do to visit NASA, an aircraft carrier, a submarine, he’d do it. There was no end to the enjoyment he received when people would come up to him and say, “I’m an engineer because of you.” So when a company in Texas offered to launch his remains into orbit, we could only accept.

It’s been just over 3 years since my dad, James Doohan, passed on. In that time, there have been many memorials, the most recent of which to commemorate Linlithgow, Scotland, as the future birthplace of Scotty. But his launch into space was the most publicised, and it was to be the most significant.

There have been many attempts to send my father on his way. On Saturday, the latest launch attempt by SpaceX, with a portion of my father’s remains aboard, failed to achieve orbit. While there are many complicated reasons why this is a disappointment, mine is simple: I’d like to finish saying goodbye.

Every launch attempt is like reliving his funeral. There’s a lot of pomp and ceremony, and a retelling of his deeds in life. But at the end of these funerals, something goes awry, the body doesn’t get buried, and you know you’re going to have to come back to do it over again.

I’m not laying blame on anyone for the delays. It’s difficult, living on the cusp of technology. Where most of us lament the premature obsolescence of our cell phones, there are those few of us who’ve pinned the memories of our family members on a rocket, hoping it will touch the sky.

My dad believed in human ingenuity, and he believed in mankind’s destiny beyond the exosphere. That it would take several attempts in these early stages to successfully achieve orbit would not have phased him. I can accept this, because of who he was, and because he knew it was all a part of progress.

For those reasons, I know that his spirit will persevere, and others will keep those launch attempts coming. The act of sending a loved one’s remains into space will someday be commonplace, even if we have to book a space flight ourselves to make it happen. That’s the kind of progress my father believed in.

But I’m not sure I can hang on until then. Grieving can’t wait for the pace of progress, and I have to say goodbye now. So when news of the next launch rolls around, please don’t ask me about it; I won’t be paying attention.

If my father has anything to do with it, though, I’m sure that ship will get where it’s going.

— Ehrich Blackhound

I know several scientists and engineers who use Scotty’s infamous “I tell the Captain it’ll take me a day to fix it, when I know it’ll take 6 hours” theory in real life. SpaceX will undoubtedly achieve a 100% successful launch some time soon. And with space journeys for non-astronauts almost upon us, I’m pretty sure James Doohan will make it into space properly. It’ll be a good final farewell for his family. [BoingBoing]

According to an article in the New York Times this morning, the Celestis web page reported that “the Explorers Flight mission appears not to have reached orbit tonight.” Gee, ya think?

And, lest you be overly concerned about such things, we can confirm that the Wikipedia pages of Cooper and Doohan had already been edited by Sunday morning to reflect the explosion and subsequent scattering of human remains.

As a further update to this story, Elon Musk, eBay billionaire and head honcho of Space X, fired off a statement to his employees to lift their spirits after this, their third failed attempt to reach low Earth orbit:

“SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward,” he said, and added that the fourth flight, currently scheduled to take place in the fourth quarter of the year, and fifth flights are being prepared, and that he has given the go-ahead “to begin fabrication of flight 6.”

Something tells me the Doohan family would be better off attempting to actually beam the ashes into orbit. Breaking the laws of physics appears more likely to happen now than Space X getting a rocket into orbit for any considerable amount of time. [New York Times]

Unfortunately for lovers of cool space gadgets and other tech, the doomed Falcon 1 was carrying several satellites, which were lost in the explosion.

According to Space.com, the Falcon 1 was carrying a Pentagon satellite called Trailblazer for the Operationally Responsive Space Office. Two small NASA satellites were also destroyed, including a solar sail called NanoSail-D, and a micro laboratory called PRESat.

Even with the gaff, which joins two previous failed Falcon 1 launches from March 2006 and 2007, Musk told SpaceX employees the funding would continue indefinitely. Work on Falcon 9, SpaceX’s “heavy lifter” rocket, and the Dragon, their human-carrying version, will continue, he said. Something tells me people won’t be as eager to clamour aboard that Dragon one as they have Sir Richard Brandon’s White Knight and SpaceShipTwo. Just a hunch. [MSNBC.com]