A privately-funded rocket did not shoot into the sky, bringing a third failure in a row to an Internet entrepreneur's effort to develop space delivery and transportation, according to media reports Monday.
The failure occurred Saturday night about two minutes after the launch of the two-stage Falcon 1 rocket, which appeared to be oscillating before the live signal from an on-board video camera went dead.
The Falcon 1 rocket was manufactured by Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX.
Internet mogul Elon Musk started the company six years ago after eBay purchased his Internet payment company, PayPal, for 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.
The company, based in Hawthorne, Calif., has been hailed as one of the most promising examples of an entrepreneurial "new space" movement, and has 525 employees.
Musk said it was "a big disappointment not to reach orbit," adding that an unfortunate "problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together."
Musk said an investigation into the cause of the failure is under way, but he called the launch itself as "picture perfect."
The failure marks the third time in a little more than two years that SpaceX fell short of orbiting Earth post launch.
The first Falcon 1 launch, in March 2006, failed about a minute into its ascent because of a fuel line leak. A second rocket, launched in March 2007, made it to space but was lost about five minutes after launching.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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