A private U.S. company on Wednesday morning launched a spacecraft into orbit in a test flight that NASA hopes could lead to supply runs to the International Space Station after its space shuttles are retired next year.
The Falcon 9 rocket, owned by the Space Exploration Technologies Corp., lifted off at 10:43 a.m. EST from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, carrying a capsule named Dragon.
NASA plans to use Dragon to fly cargo, and perhaps astronauts, to the space station.
Dragon was empty and unmanned in the test flight. The move marks the first time a private company has ever tried to recover a spacecraft re-entering from orbit. The company, known as SpaceX, intends for Dragon to circle the globe twice and then splash down 90 minutes later into the Pacific Ocean, 500 miles off the Mexican coast.
SpaceX launched successfully a Falcon 9 rocket in June, but that test was done without a real capsule.
The California-based SpaceX has a 1.6 billion dollars contract with NASA for 12 supply runs, while the Orbital Sciences Corp. from Virginia has a 1.9 billion dollars contract for eight.
NASA is contributing a combined 500 million dollars for SpaceX and Orbital to develop and test-fly their rockets and capsules.
NASA is relying on Russia to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the space station, for which is has to pay a high price of 26 million dollars per person this year. The figure will rise to 51 million dollars next year and 56 million dollars in 2013.
U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed spending six billion dollars over five years to help the private sector develop reliable and affordable launchers to ferry cargo and U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station.
During the transition period, NASA depends on Russian Soyuz rockets for access to the station.
