UPDATE: Space.com has an email that Elon Musk sent to employees. It reads in part:
“It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight. On the plus side, the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened.”
Earlier Updates:
SpaceX has suspended its webcast of the Falcon 1 launch and posted the following message on its website:
Posted August 2, 2008 - 20:38 PDT
“We have heard from launch control that there has been an anomaly. More details will be posted to the website as available.”
The last report on the vehicle came 2 minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff at 8:33 p.m. PDT:
“Vehicle switching to inertial guidance mode. 1050 m/s, altitude of 35 km.”
There is also this report from Space.com:
“A video camera mounted on the rocket appeared to show some oscillations during the ascent. Whether that was normal or a sign of trouble is not yet clear.
“About two minutes, 20 seconds into the ascent, the video broadcast provided by SpaceX was abruptly terminated. A company spokesperson then said there had been ‘an anomaly’ with the launch vehicle.”
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