Biography | Elon Musk — The Fourth Falcon From This Coral Island That Reached Orbit

People treat Cape Canaveral as the place SpaceX first reached orbit. The first privately funded liquid-fuel rocket to do it left from this islet. Omelek Island is a few hectares of reef rock in Kwajalein Atoll, leased with neighbouring islands to the United States as part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site. SpaceX flew five Falcon 1 vehicles from here between 2006 and 2009. The first three failed. Flight 4 lifted off at 23:15 UTC on 28 September 2008, 16:15 in California. A Merlin 1C burned on the first stage and a Kestrel on the second. Nine minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff the upper stage reached orbit. The payload was RatSat, a 165-kilogram hexagonal aluminium mass simulator that stayed bolted to the stage. The initial orbit was reported near 330 by 650 kilometres; a second burn circularised it near 621 by 643 kilometres at 9.35 degrees inclination. Only six nations had previously put a liquid-propellant orbital rocket of their own into space. SpaceX was the first private company to do the same with a vehicle it had funded and built. A fifth Falcon 1 flew from Omelek on 13 July 2009 with Malaysia's RazakSAT. That was the last. The island has not hosted an orbital launch since. The pin is the retired pad, not a visitor centre. Photo: Falcon 1 Flight 4 liftoff from Omelek, SpaceX, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Portrait: Elon Musk, Duncan Hull, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.