Elon Musk

Electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc. plans to raise about $167 million by selling stock to the public later this year. The Palo Alto maker of a $109,000 Roadster electric sports car said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday that it planned to sell as much as 12.8 million shares for up to $14 to $16 each in an initial public offering. The offering is "highly anticipated" and values the company at about $1.5 billion, according to IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.

A new rocket 18 stories tall and waiting to be launched from a pad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., could determine the fate of a private aerospace venture in Hawthorne -- and even possibly NASA's space program. The Falcon 9 booster, developed by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is going through final preparations for its maiden test flight and could blast off as early as next month. The rocket is a major contender to assume NASA's responsibilities in hauling astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station in the wake of President Obama's budget proposal to outsource space travel to private businesses.

Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors Co., said a plane crash in Silicon Valley killed company officials. Details about the accident and names of the victims were not released. "We're working to confirm the identities and inform the families," Musk said. For Tesla, the accident comes as the San Carlos-based automaker prepares to sell shares to the public and announce the location of its U.S. assembly site to make battery-powered cars. Tesla received about $465 million in federal loans last year to expand production of vehicles and battery packs.

A private rocket company has blamed a design error for its latest failure to reach orbit. SpaceX said its two-stage Falcon 1 rocket separated as planned on its way to space, but residual thrust after engine cutoff caused the first stage to fall back and hit the second stage. The company says it can easily fix the problem. Saturday's failed launch was the third miss for SpaceX, which hopes to break into the low-cost space launch business. The company was founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Teams were searching the central Pacific Ocean for the remnants of a low-cost rocket created by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk that malfunctioned soon after liftoff Saturday, a company spokeswoman said. Two minutes after liftoff, the first of the rocket's two engines failed to detach from the rest of the projectile. The split was necessary to launch the second engine into orbit, Diane Murphy said. The launch took place at United States military facilities on Omelek Island, about 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii.

Falcon 1, a rocket built by El Segundo-based SpaceX, became the first privately funded spacecraft to achieve orbital height, reaching an altitude of 190 miles Tuesday before a control problem sent the vehicle hurtling back to Earth. The liquid oxygen-kerosene fueled rocket performed flawlessly for several minutes after its launch about 6:15 p.m. PDT from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. "Come on baby," a ground controller said as the 70-foot rocket rose from its pad.

The maiden flight of a new rocket designed to slash the cost of sending satellites into orbit has been rescheduled for mid-December after the maiden launch was scrubbed Saturday because of technical glitches. Space Exploration Technologies Corp., also known as SpaceX, a fledgling El Segundo rocket maker founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Elon Musk, hopes to shake up the aerospace industry with its Falcon 1 rocket.

In his native South Africa, science whiz Elon Musk struck his first business deal when he made $500 selling the code for a "Space Invaders"-style video game he invented. He was 12. It took only another decade or so for him to make some real money: By age 23 Musk had his first significant company in Web software maker Zip2. He banked $22 million when he sold it in 1999 to Compaq Computer. And last year, he pocketed about $150 million in EBay Inc.