regarding the orbital information Phil could not find, I found this in the launch notification send out by AGI:

“The rocket initially reached an orbit stretching from a low point of 205 miles [330 km] to a high point of 404 miles [650 km]. The orbital inclination was 9.3 degrees.

SpaceX released information before the launch indicating that the rocket would target an orbit with an apogee, or high point, of 426 miles [686 km]. But Musk said the rocket hit an orbit very close to prelaunch predictions.”

As source of their information they state “Spacflight Now” giving the following link: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon/004/index.html

Wait, so they sent up a Companion Cube?????

Like I said, I am all for government competition, but when dealing with issue like this it is best to allow a government monopoly, or at least government over site.

So excited about this news!

The question is now how elliptical the orbit is?

According to their press material:

Preliminary data indicates that Falcon 1 achieved an elliptical orbit of 500 km by 700 km, 9.2 degrees inclination—exactly as targeted.

History was made this week, what with this and China’s jaunt.

Actually, with the end of the first ATV mission today, IIRC chased by 2 science missions in planes to study atmospheric breakup, all 3 of the latest generation vehicles have made their mark the last week.

Daniel, LukeL: This isn’t really competition for NASA at this point, but even so the mood around here (KSC) is just excited about the launch. It’s true that they have done this on a shoestring budget compared to us, and we hope to learn lessons from them wherever possible. As for government oversight or risk of them launching things that could be un-american, they are taking over one of the launch complexes here at Kennedy for some future launches. I don’t know if that means anyone will be really up in their business, but you can bet everyone around here will know what their payloads are.

And as for worrying about crashing into other satellites, it’s pretty unlikely. There’s not much coordination outside of geo-sinc because, well, space is pretty big.

http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=30

That said, this is fantastic news, big congratulations to SpaceX team. I hope this doesn’t end up as a lucky fluke and may the consequent launches all be successful and show this wasn’t a stroke of luck.

In retrospect, it’s a real shame about Flight 3, this flight practically demonstrates flight 3 was perfectly capable of reaching orbit as well (no hardware faults or changes between 3 and 4).

Also I noticed in Space X’s FAQ this little gem,
“Falcon 9 Heavy will be capable of carrying up to 29,610 kg to LEO and up to 15,010 kg to GTO. Falcon 9 Heavy could have important implications for Mars exploration and even settlement.”
Sweet.

I hope this company has one hefty insurance policy.