The private rocket developed by the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, had its first successful flight on Friday afternoon. The rocket may eventually used to carry NASA’s astronauts to space.
The 154-foot, 735,000-pound Falcon 9 rocket took off the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, heading east over the Atlantic. The nine first-stage engines ignited at 2:45 p.m. and burned for three minutes before dropping into the ocean while the second-stage engines burned about six minutes to place a dummy payload capsule almost perfectly into the target orbit 155 miles above the Earth.
“We achieved 100 percent of our objectives on the mission,” said Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive.
SpaceX won a $278 million contract from NASA in 2006 for the demonstration flights, and, if successful, it would move on to a $1.6 billion contract for 12 flights to take supplies to the space station.
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