SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 rocket on an apparently successful maiden flight today. The 180-foot tall rocket soared off Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air ForceStation at 2:45 p.m., with only 15 minutes remaining in the four-hour launch window.
The launch was widely seen as a litmus test of President Obama's controversial plan to shift the responsibility for launching U.S. astronauts from NASA to commercial space companies - even as SpaceX officials and analysts called that unfair pressure.
Initial indications were that the launch proceeded as planned.
SpaceX would not release the flight profile for the mission. But the rocket was programmed to fly due east into a circular orbit 155 miles above the planet. A mock-up of the SpaceX capsule, the Dragon, will orbit the Earth until it decays and burns up on re-entry.
SpaceX is run by Elon Musk, the co-founder of PayPal, the world's leading Internet payment system. The company holds a $1.6 billion contract to launch 12 cargo missions to the International Space Station. Two or three demonstration flights are to be launched under a separate contract valued at $278 million.
SpaceX has invested about $350 million to $400 million in the development of its smaller Faclon 1 rocket and the Falcon 9, as well as ground support and mission control systems. The company aims to significantly lower the high cost of space launches, and by doing so, making
