Private Rocketship Falcon 1 Flies, Reaches Space, But Fails to Reach Orbit

March 23rd, 2007

Though not directly applicable to the Space Elevator, this Planetary Society article does have relevance because of the future plans for SpaceX.  One of their future models, the Falcon 9 Heavy, is to be designed to hoist 62,500 pounds to LEO and 27,400 pounds to GTO (Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit).

Dr. Edwards projects that the initial Space Elevator configuration will weigh about 80 tons, so that puts this well into range of just a few Falcon 9 Heavy lifts.

If SpaceX can pull this off, this would make it the second private company (in addition to Zenit) to be able to boost these heavy payloads into orbit.

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