Private spacecraft launched
A first-of-its-kind commercial supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station following a successful liftoff early Tuesday, opening a new era of dollar-driven spaceflight.
The SpaceX company made history as its Falcon 9 rocket rose from its seaside launch pad and pierced the pre-dawn sky, aiming for a rendezvous in a few days with the space station. The unmanned rocket carried into orbit a capsule named Dragon that is packed with 1,000 pounds of space station provisions.
It is the first time a private company has launched a vessel to the space station. Before, that was something only major governments had done. “Falcon flew perfectly!!” SpaceX’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said via Twitter. “Dragon in orbit ... Feels like a giant weight just came off my back.”
This time, the Falcon’s nine engines kept firing all the way through liftoff. On Saturday, flight computers aborted the launch with a half-second remaining in the countdown; a bad engine valve was replaced.
The White House quickly offered congratulations. “Every launch into space is a thrilling event, but this one is especially exciting,” said John Holdren, President Barack Obama’s chief science adviser.
Flight controllers applauded when the Dragon reached orbit nine minutes into the flight, then embraced one another once the solar panels on the spacecraft popped open. Many of the SpaceX controllers wore untucked T-shirts and jeans or even shorts, a stark contrast to NASA’s old suit-and-tie shuttle crowd.
The hopes of SpaceX employees were riding on that rocket, Musk noted, and everyone felt “tremendous elation.”
The space agency is banking on the switch from government to commercial cargo providers in the US, now that the shuttles no longer are flying. Astronauts could begin taking commercial rides to the space station in three to five years, if all goes well.
