News - Private rocket falters after N.M. launch

Private rocket falters after N.M. launch

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/15607688.htm

Mon, Sep. 25, 2006

ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press

UPHAM, N.M. - The first rocket launched from New Mexico's spaceport
failed to reach space Monday, wobbling and dropping back to Earth
barely a tenth of the way into its journey.

The unmanned, 20-foot SpaceLoft XL rocket, among the first to be
launched from any commercial U.S. spaceport, was carrying various
experiments and other payloads for its planned suborbital trip 70 miles
above Earth.

The rocket took off at 2:14 p.m. and was supposed to drop back to Earth
about 13 minutes later at White Sands Missile Range, just north of the
launch site. But three miles from the launch site, witnesses saw the
rocket wobble, then go into a corkscrew motion before disappearing in
the clear sky.

Something went wrong shortly after takeoff. Officials with UP
Aerospace, the Connecticut-based company that funded the launch, said
the rocket reached only about 40,000 feet - or 7 1/2 miles.

It was not immediately clear where the craft landed or what condition
it was in. Launch logistical coordinator Tracey Larson said it was
possible that the rocket and its payload could have survived the crash.

Despite the crash, the launch still was considered a success because
the rocket got airborne, Larson said. "If it was easy, everyone would
be doing it," she said.

The rocket launched from a temporary pad at a site in Upham, in
southern New Mexico, which also is the planned home of a state-built
$225 million spaceport. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group,
announced plans last year to base his space tourism company, Virgin
Galactic, in New Mexico and to launch manned flights from the spaceport
by the end of the decade.

Eric Knight, UP Aerospace CEO, said last week that Monday's flight
marked a chance for the public to have "direct access to space."
Payload space on one of his rockets ranges from a few hundred dollars
to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on size, he said.

Several other UP Aerospace flights are set later this year, Larson
said. An Oct. 21 flight is expected to carry the ashes of Mercury
astronaut Gordon Cooper and actor James Doohan, who starred as chief
engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott on the original "Star Trek" TV
series.

.

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