Oct 5 1989
From The Space Library
The first attempt to launch a fully private funded rocket ended in failure when the 58-foot-tall "Koopman Express" sounding rocket caught fire while still on the launch pad. The rocket was to have flown on a 15-minute suborbital flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, during which it would have released a cloud of inert gas to test sensors on a military Delta Star satellite. The rocket was also scheduled to deploy an engineering model of a Parashield during reentry into the atmosphere. (NY Times, Oct 6/89; W Post, Oct 6/89; USA Today, Oct 6/89; W Times, Oct 6/89; B Sun, Oct 6/89)
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