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The 23-story-tall
Falcon 9 rocket, built and flown by Elon Musk’s Space
Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, lifted off from Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT).
Perched on top of the rocket was a Dragon capsule filled with
nearly 5,000 pounds (2,268 kg) of food, supplies and equipment,
including a miniature DNA sequencer, the first to fly in space.
Also aboard the capsule was a metal docking ring of diameter 7.8
feet (2.4 m), that will be attached to the station, letting
commercial spaceships under development by SpaceX and Boeing Co.
ferry astronauts to the station, a $100-billion laboratory that
flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
The manned craft are scheduled to begin test flights next year.
Since NASA retired its fleet of space shuttles five years ago,
the United States has depended on Russia to ferry astronauts to
and from the station, at a cost of more than $70 million per
person.
As the Dragon cargo ship began its two-day journey to the
station, the main section of the Falcon 9 booster rocket
separated and flew itself back to the ground, touching down a
few miles south of its seaside launch pad, accompanied by a pair
of sonic booms.
"Good launch, good landing, Dragon is on its way," said NASA
mission commentator George Diller.
Owned and operated by Musk, the technology entrepreneur who
founded Tesla Motors Inc, SpaceX is developing rockets that can
be refurbished and re-used, potentially slashing launch costs.
With Monday’s touchdown, SpaceX has successfully landed Falcon
rockets on the ground twice and on an ocean platform during
three of its last four attempts.
SpaceX intends to launch one of its recovered rockets as early
as this autumn, said Hans Koenigsmann, the firm's vice president
for mission assurance.
(Reporting by Irene Klotz, Editing by Chris Michaud and Clarence
Fernandez)
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