SpaceX 90% successful
Well, the launch was pretty amazing - watching the webcast, and seeing the second stage separation and the main fuel tank falling back towards Earth…wow! (The fuel tank had a parachute, and (supposedly!) has splashed down in the ocean.) We had a small crowd in my office watching it.
Unfortunately, somewhere during the second stage burn, there were some strange oscillations, which apparently shut down the engine, and it now looks most likely that the rocket re-entered the atmosphere before reaching a stable orbit. (This is a polite way of saying that it crashed down to Earth and most likely burned up in the atmosphere. D’oh!
Still, they sound very happy - they’re one of the few organsisations that have gotten a rocket into space, and are celebrating. They say they’re happy enough with the launch that they probably won’t do another test flight before actually taking a payload up (the US Military’s TacSat 2 spacecraft!)
A very cool day for space exploration!