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[i]Privately owned SpaceX planned to conduct a static-test firing of the rocket's new Merlin 1D engines the weekend of Sept. 7-8, the last major hurdle before a launch attempt could be made as early as a week or two later, founder and chief executive Elon Musk told SpaceNews. At press time, a NASA manifest had the launch slated for Sept. 14. "We're being, as usual, extremely paranoid about the launch and trying to do everything we possibly can to improve the probability of success, but this is a new version of Falcon 9," Musk said.[/i]
[i]"Just before we hit the ocean, we're going to relight the engine and see if we can mitigate the landing velocity to the point where the stage could potentially be recovered, but I give this maybe a 10 percent chance of success," Musk said. In a related program called Grasshopper, SpaceX has been developing a booster stage that can fly itself back to a launch pad. "We've never attempted to land Grasshopper on water. We don't know if the radar system will detect the water surface level accurately. We don't know all sorts of things, so I really give it a very tiny chance of success. But we're going to see what data we can learn," Musk said.[/i]
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