Spacex

CAPE CANAVERAL – There were many doom and gloom predictions and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) proved them all wrong with the majestic launch of its Falcon 9 rocket. The launch took place at 2:45 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40. It did not however take off without incident. A technical issue, weather and an errant boat all played their part in making this a very eventful launch.

The first concern was the weather, as the launch time slipped to 11:20 a.m. EDT (the launch window opened at 11 a.m.) a patch of bad weather moved was predicted to hit the area at 11:30. This bad weather never fully materialized and had little impact on the day’s activities.

Then a technical issue cropped up which was quickly resolved. It would not, however, be the last hurdle that the Falcon 9 team dealt with before getting their rocket off the pad. As it appeared that the first launch attempt would see the rocket off, one of the rocket’s nine Merlin engines was detected as being out of its normal range and the launch was aborted with two seconds left on the clock.

The last obstacle in the day’s events – was an errant boat. After the wayward sightseers were told to leave the area, the count was picked up again. This time everything worked perfectly and the Falcon 9 created a beautiful, slow and unique trail across the sky.  SpaceX mission managers monitored the flight every step of the way and it appeared to be a near-perfect flight.

The payload for this inaugural mission is a prototype of SpaceX’s Dragon Spacecraft. The Falcon 9 rocket delivered the craft on its year long orbit around the Earth with no obvious issues.

SpaceX was awarded a $1.6 billion Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) contract with NASA to deliver supplies to the International Space Station. This contract includes three test flights and 12 cargo-delivery missions to the space station. With NASA’s new plans to rely on commercial firms to deliver men and material to orbit and with a manned version of SpaceX’s Dragon Spacecraft in the works today’s launch was very much history in the making.