The Falcon 1 made history on September 28, 2008 by becoming the "first privately developed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth orbit," according to SpaceX. Hear from the team that made it happen.
Credit: SpaceX
Credit: SpaceX
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00:00 - You all see on the countdown that Falcon 1
00:02 is airborne at this time.
00:04 - In the early days, it was very clear.
00:06 It was like a David and Goliath story.
00:07 You know, no privately developed launch vehicle company
00:09 had ever achieved Earth orbit.
00:10 Everybody tried and failed.
00:12 - I started within the first year of the program
00:15 and we were designing and building Falcon 1.
00:18 - The rocket was out on Omelec.
00:20 It was so cool to go to this secluded place for work.
00:24 All that was there was the launch pad,
00:26 a very small hangar, an office trailer,
00:29 and basically an outhouse for a bathroom.
00:31 - We would sleep under the stars sometimes,
00:33 have horrific sunburns sometimes.
00:35 - It was like a Omelec Survivor, we called it,
00:38 and we were right there next to the rocket
00:40 and the launch pad.
00:42 - Plus four, plus five.
00:43 - Living through the first few failures of Falcon 1
00:46 was really difficult.
00:48 We literally had blood, sweat, and tears on that rocket.
00:52 And then to see it come back down so quickly,
00:54 it was heartbreaking.
00:55 - Flight two was disappointing
00:56 because we made it almost all the way to orbit.
00:58 We basically started spinning out of control
01:00 once the vehicle was in space.
01:02 But then flight three was just so sad.
01:05 To basically go through stage separation
01:06 and then have the stages come back and recontact,
01:09 that one hurt the most.
01:10 - We were essentially out of money at that time.
01:13 We had had the three failures,
01:14 but luckily we had had another kind of spare vehicle
01:17 ready to go.
01:18 - We pushed super hard to get that vehicle ready.
01:21 We rented a C-17 to fly the first stage and second stage
01:26 over to Kwajalein instead of taking the three weeks
01:28 on the barge.
01:29 When we were landing, we heard a loud pop.
01:31 We looked back and saw that the first stage tanks
01:34 had sunken in.
01:36 I think we thought for sure we were done.
01:38 I think we thought that was the end of SpaceX.
01:40 - We still felt like the underdogs.
01:44 We still had everything to prove.
01:46 So it was just like, nope, we're gonna fix it
01:48 and we're gonna make this happen.
01:49 - Three weeks later, I think we had the first successful
01:52 flight of Falcon 1.
01:53 (crowd cheering)
01:58 (upbeat music)
02:00 - It worked.
02:04 - We buckled the stage on the way to Kwajalein
02:07 and we still managed to get that rocket to orbit.
02:09 So that gave us good confidence moving forward
02:11 that we'd be able to get anything to orbit.
02:14 - For me, it was like a dream come true
02:15 'cause it was something that we had been working so hard
02:18 for for years, like since I started at SpaceX
02:20 and that we had seen so many failures for.
02:22 I just felt validated and proud of the team
02:25 for doing something that I think a lot of people
02:27 didn't think was possible.
02:29 (whooshing)