Shuttle successor succeeds in first test flight

After one aborted countdown, a privately developed rocket that could take on many of the jobs now done by NASA's space shuttles reached orbit successfully on its first test flight Friday.

The launch marked a significant advance for California-based SpaceX's eight-year-old space program.

Liftoff came after hours of delay, sparked initially by launch-pad telemetry problems, then by a sailboat that strayed into a restricted area of the launch range. The day's first countdown was aborted at virtually the last second, due to an alert about one of the engine igniters, but the launch software was adjusted and a second countdown went all the way to the end.

Cheers could be heard in the background as SpaceX broadcast a live webcast of the ascent, including stunning rocket-cam views from orbit. Toward the end, the camera view appeared to show the spacecraft rolling, but SpaceX said it reached orbit — which was a key measure of success.

"All in all, this has been a good day for SpaceX," launch commentator Robyn Ringuette said from the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.

Later in the day, the company's millionaire founder, Elon Musk, told reporters that it was "the best day of his life," and that the Falcon 9 hit a "near bull’s-eye."

This time around, rocket carried a mere mockup of its Dragon capsule into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. But if the company succeeds in its development effort, future Falcons and Dragons could be carrying cargo to the International Space Station next year, and flying astronauts into orbit by 2013.

With the shuttle fleet due for retirement within the next year or so, NASA is counting on private-sector launch providers to provide transport services to the space station, so that the space agency can concentrate on more ambitious trips beyond Earth orbit.

SpaceX and the Falcon 9 have become closely linked with President Barack Obama's revised space policy, which calls for the cancellation of NASA's own Ares 1 rocket development effort. Obama visited the SpaceX launch pad and chatted with Musk just before announcing the policy shift at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in April.

In the wake of that announcement, members of Congress and space luminaries such as Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, criticized Obama's policy and said companies such as SpaceX couldn't be relied upon to deliver on their promises. Retired Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, complained that such companies "don't know what they don't know."

"A reasonably successful flight would dramatically validate Obama's new space strategy, while a setback would embolden his political enemies in the ongoing congressional debate over spaceflight jobs and pork," NBC News space analyst James Oberg said before the launch.

First of several tests

This is only the first in a series of scheduled Falcon 9 test flights for SpaceX, which is getting $278 million from NASA to develop the two-stage rocket. The ascent to orbit lasted about 10 minutes. The rocket placed the Dragon mockup in a 155-mile-high (250-kilometer-high) orbit, where it will remain for a year before re-entering the atmosphere and burning up.

Telemetry showed that the spacecraft was no more than 1 percent off its intended 155-mile (250-kilometer) orbit. Musk said the Falcon 9's first stage "broke up on re-entry" and fell in pieces into the Atlantic. He also said the spacecraft rolled more than expected during the latter stages of its ascent, but that was not a major issue.

The next test launch, tentatively set for this summer, is due to carry a fully functional Dragon capsule. A third test flight planned for next spring would try going all the way to the space station, Musk said.

The 38-year-old Musk started up SpaceX in 2002, using a large chunk of his dot-com fortune. Before Friday's launch, he said it would be wrong to read too much into the results of a single launch.

Several companies are likely to vie for NASA contracts to resupply the space station — including the Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin and Orbital Sciences, which already launch missions for NASA and the U.S. military.

"I hope people don't put too much emphasis on our success," Musk said on the day before launch.

An earlier, less powerful version of the rocket tested on Friday, the Falcon 1, went through three unsuccessful launches before finally reaching orbit on the fourth test launch in 2008. A follow-up launch in 2009 put a Malaysian satellite into orbit.

How the Falcon 9 stacks up

The 157-foot-high (47-meter-high) Falcon 9 and its Dragon capsule can't match the space shuttle in terms of lifting capability, but they could bring up more than 13,000 pounds (6,000 kilograms) of cargo or as many as seven crew members at a time. The Dragon will be equipped with an automated system that allows the space station to grapple it for a docking.

The kerosene-fueled Falcon was designed as a low-cost orbital launch vehicle: The price list for a launch ranges from $10.9 million for a Falcon 1e to $51.5 million for the most powerful Falcon 9. That would be significantly less than the estimated $130 million-plus cost of launching an Atlas 5 rocket or the billion-dollar cost of a shuttle mission.

Musk estimated that $350 million to $400 million has been spent so far developing the Falcon rockets. That includes about $100 million of his own money, most of which came from the sale of PayPal, a company he co-founded.

SpaceX already has a long list of launches lined up for the Falcon rockets, for NASA as well as for customers in Canada, Europe, Israel and Argentina.

Although Armstrong and Cernan have been critical of SpaceX and the move toward commercial launches, other current and former astronauts have been more positive about SpaceX's prospects.

Ken Bowersox, a former space station commander who is now a SpaceX executive, told reporters he thought NASA's workers "would be energized and really happy" if they could approach spaceflight the way his employer does.

The Associated Press quoted the pilot of the shuttle Atlantis' last scheduled flight, Dominic Antonelli, as saying he was impressed by the Falcon 9 and would gladly climb aboard if and when the time comes. 

"Yes, absolutely. But I'm not that picky. I think I'd probably climb on just about anything," he said last month.

MSNBC