SpaceX - successful launch

Tuesday, 22 May, 2012

After the disappointing postponement of Saturday’s scheduled slot, SpaceX successfully launched their Dragon freight capsule on board the Falcon rocket. Watch the launch at the BBC. The importance of this cannot be underestimated…. it’s the first commercial resupply of an orbiting platform and part of NASAs strategy to offload near-Earth missions to lower-cost suppliers. As North Korea amply demonstrated, getting a satellite in to space is no easy feat and whilst SpaceX has been developing its capability for sometime, this is a significant leap forward. So, its got its cargo in to space and over the next few days it will perform a test manoeuvre to see if its systems are satisfactory for docking and then go for the real thing. A real historic moment.