UPHAM, New Mexico (AP) -
Officials at the company that funded the failed launch of the
20-foot SpaceLoft XL rocket said Tuesday that they had located the rocket in
remote terrain, but that recovering it could be time-consuming.
The 20-foot
(six-meter) rocket, among the first to be launched from any commercial U.S.
spaceport, reached about 40,000 feet (12,000 meters) before falling back to
Earth on Monday afternoon.
Bill Heiden,
Connecticut-based UP Aerospace's chief financial officer, said that UP crews
could not get within six miles (10 kilometers) of the rocket by vehicle, and
will have to walk into the area and figure out how to get the rocket out.
"I would be surprised if we
get word today'' that the rocket was recovered, he said. Heiden said the effort
will continue until the experiment payload it was carrying is removed from the
desert.
Heiden said the company
will start removing the payload once it is found and return it to the
customers.
UP Aerospace
officials said Monday they would make every effort to put the payload on the
next flight if the backers of the experiments are interested.
Officials said that until
they examine the rocket and review its two flight recorders, they could not say
why the SpaceLoft
XL missed its mark.
The rocket took off at 2:14
p.m. (1814 GMT) and was due back about 13 minutes later at White Sands Missile
Range, just north of the launch site. It was carrying various experiments and
other payloads.
Witnesses
initially cheered as they saw the rocket hurdle toward space, before it
appeared to wobble as it vanished into the sky. The craft appeared to go into a
corkscrew motion that was not part of the plan.
"It should not have
wobbled,'' said launch logistical coordinator Tracey Larson said.
While the rocket failed to
reach its final destination, Heiden said the company still considers Monday's
event successful.
"We gave young people ... a
real look at what is involved,'' he said. "We're thrilled with what we
accomplished today.''
Larson said the company
would try again with another launch on Oct. 21 from the same site, and said
that the act of getting the rocket airborne was a sort of victory.
"We will launch again in
three weeks. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. We still feel it was a
success,'' she said.
Among the experiments on
board was one from Farnsworth Aerospace Magnet School in St. Paul, Minnesota,
which sent two students to watch the launch. Their experiment included two
digital and two analog watches to analyze how the pressure of space launch
affects timepieces.
Several other UP Aerospace
flights are set later this year, including the Oct. 21 flight expected to carry
the ashes of James Doohan, who gained fame as chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty''
Scott on the original ''Star Trek'' TV series, and Mercury astronaut Gordon
Cooper.
The Upham site also is the planned
home of a state-built $225
million (euro177.2 million) spaceport. UP Aerospace's rocket was launching
from a temporary pad.
Richard Branson, founder of
the Virgin Group, announced plans
last year to base his space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, in New Mexico
and to launch manned flights from the spaceport by the end of the decade.
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