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Falcon rocket reaches low-Earth orbit

Nature volume 455, pages 580–581 (2008)Cite this article

It was fourth time lucky for Space Exploration Technologies and its Falcon 1 rocket. After a trio of failed flights since 2006, the privately funded rocket soared into low-Earth orbit from Kwajalein atoll on Omelek Island on 28 September.

SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, hope that the launch marks the dawn of a new, substantially cheaper era of space flight. The company estimates that each Falcon-1 launch will cost less than US$10 million; existing systems can cost up to four times as much.

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For a longer version of this story, see http://tinyurl.com/43gnya.

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Falcon rocket reaches low-Earth orbit. Nature 455, 580–581 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/455580c

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