perocity
06-04-2010, 05:46 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96C7nnYdDZ8
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Space Exploration Technologies Inc., a company at the center of President Barack Obama’s plan to reshape NASA, launched into Earth orbit a new rocket designed to take cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 took off on its first test flight at about 2:45 p.m. local time from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida carrying an unmanned demonstration version of its Dragon spacecraft. It reached orbit about nine minutes later, according to SpaceX. The company’s first rocket, the Falcon 1, took four attempts before it reached orbit in September 2008.
Falcon 9 is designed to compete with launch vehicles such as the Atlas and Delta from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. SpaceX, led by PayPal Inc. co-founder Elon Musk, plans to use the rocket to carry into orbit the Dragon vessel, which is intended to take cargo and astronauts to the orbiting outpost after the space shuttles are retired.
“Today’s flight of Falcon 9 could be the first small step toward relieving NASA launchers of the burden of low-Earth orbit, thus freeing the U.S. space agency to reach new worlds,” the Pasadena, California-based Planetary Society, a space advocacy group founded by Carl Sagan and other scientists, said in a statement.
Obama Plan
SpaceX’s vessels are part of Obama’s strategy for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which calls for the agency to develop systems capable of taking humans to Mars while helping entrepreneurs build vessels to carry astronauts to the space station.
NASA in 2008 awarded Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. $3.5 billion in contracts to deliver cargo to the station through 2016. The agency expects as much as 70 percent of its cargo delivery to the station to be handled by Orbital and SpaceX, with the rest delivered by Japanese and European ships.
SpaceX is aiming to test its Dragon spacecraft later this year on the second Falcon 9 flight, and carry cargo to the station on the third, most likely during the second quarter of next year, Musk said.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told a Senate panel last month that he expects SpaceX to be able to fly its first manned mission in 2015. Musk said the company may be able to take astronauts to the station as early as 2013 if it receives a contract this year.
‘More Confidence’
Today’s launch “gives us even more confidence that a resupply vehicle will be available after the space shuttle fleet is retired,” Bolden said in a statement.
The shuttles and European vessels have carried cargo and people to the station since construction began in 1998. The shuttle program is scheduled to shut down this year, and NASA signed a $335 million contract extension with the Russian Federal Space Agency in April to buy transport for U.S. astronauts to the outpost through 2014.
An earlier attempt to launch the Falcon 9 today was scrubbed seconds before ignition when the rocket put itself into safe mode after experiencing a “shutdown condition,” SpaceX said on its website.
Obama’s plan, announced earlier this year, scrapped Constellation, the program that would send U.S. astronauts to the moon as a precursor to missions to Mars. The shift drew criticism from former astronauts such as Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, and lawmakers from states with NASA operations, who say the program focuses too much on unproven companies.
‘Modest Success’
“Even this modest success is more than a year behind schedule, and the project deadlines of other private space companies continue to slip as well,” Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said in a statement after today’s launch. “This test does not change the fact that commercial space programs are not ready to close the gap in human spaceflight.”
The South Africa-born Musk, 38, founded closely held SpaceX in 2002 after selling other companies that he helped start -- directory provider Zip2 Corp., sold to Compaq Computer Corp. for $300 million in 1999, and PayPal, bought by EBay Inc. for $1.2 billion in 2002.
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Space Exploration Technologies Inc., a company at the center of President Barack Obama’s plan to reshape NASA, launched into Earth orbit a new rocket designed to take cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 took off on its first test flight at about 2:45 p.m. local time from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida carrying an unmanned demonstration version of its Dragon spacecraft. It reached orbit about nine minutes later, according to SpaceX. The company’s first rocket, the Falcon 1, took four attempts before it reached orbit in September 2008.
Falcon 9 is designed to compete with launch vehicles such as the Atlas and Delta from United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. SpaceX, led by PayPal Inc. co-founder Elon Musk, plans to use the rocket to carry into orbit the Dragon vessel, which is intended to take cargo and astronauts to the orbiting outpost after the space shuttles are retired.
“Today’s flight of Falcon 9 could be the first small step toward relieving NASA launchers of the burden of low-Earth orbit, thus freeing the U.S. space agency to reach new worlds,” the Pasadena, California-based Planetary Society, a space advocacy group founded by Carl Sagan and other scientists, said in a statement.
Obama Plan
SpaceX’s vessels are part of Obama’s strategy for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which calls for the agency to develop systems capable of taking humans to Mars while helping entrepreneurs build vessels to carry astronauts to the space station.
NASA in 2008 awarded Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. $3.5 billion in contracts to deliver cargo to the station through 2016. The agency expects as much as 70 percent of its cargo delivery to the station to be handled by Orbital and SpaceX, with the rest delivered by Japanese and European ships.
SpaceX is aiming to test its Dragon spacecraft later this year on the second Falcon 9 flight, and carry cargo to the station on the third, most likely during the second quarter of next year, Musk said.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told a Senate panel last month that he expects SpaceX to be able to fly its first manned mission in 2015. Musk said the company may be able to take astronauts to the station as early as 2013 if it receives a contract this year.
‘More Confidence’
Today’s launch “gives us even more confidence that a resupply vehicle will be available after the space shuttle fleet is retired,” Bolden said in a statement.
The shuttles and European vessels have carried cargo and people to the station since construction began in 1998. The shuttle program is scheduled to shut down this year, and NASA signed a $335 million contract extension with the Russian Federal Space Agency in April to buy transport for U.S. astronauts to the outpost through 2014.
An earlier attempt to launch the Falcon 9 today was scrubbed seconds before ignition when the rocket put itself into safe mode after experiencing a “shutdown condition,” SpaceX said on its website.
Obama’s plan, announced earlier this year, scrapped Constellation, the program that would send U.S. astronauts to the moon as a precursor to missions to Mars. The shift drew criticism from former astronauts such as Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, and lawmakers from states with NASA operations, who say the program focuses too much on unproven companies.
‘Modest Success’
“Even this modest success is more than a year behind schedule, and the project deadlines of other private space companies continue to slip as well,” Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said in a statement after today’s launch. “This test does not change the fact that commercial space programs are not ready to close the gap in human spaceflight.”
The South Africa-born Musk, 38, founded closely held SpaceX in 2002 after selling other companies that he helped start -- directory provider Zip2 Corp., sold to Compaq Computer Corp. for $300 million in 1999, and PayPal, bought by EBay Inc. for $1.2 billion in 2002.