I loved Burt Rutan's little manned suborbital spaceship a few years ago. (He's currently busy building a bigger biz-jet sized version.) Now the little guys (it's internet tycoon Elon Musk and his self-funded Space-X company this time) have achieved another and perhaps even more difficult technical milestone - putting an unmanned payload into earth orbit. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080929142945.xzd0cda6&show_article=1 The company's goal is to develop lower-cost alternatives for satellite launches, and eventually (with bigger rockets) to provide cargo and manned crew transport to the space station and other orbital enterprises.
Here is a video of the launch (including on-board video) http://spacex.com/multimedia/videos.php?id=30
Space-X launched their Falcon-1 rocket into orbit from a US Army test site on the Pacific atoll of Kwajelein. The second stage with a dummy satellite attached is in an elliptical orbit 500 to 700 km aloft. Apparently they were also able to shut down and then restart the second stage engine which pleases them. http://www.spacex.com/press.php?page=20080928 It looks like NASA has contracted with Space-X for a privately developed vehicle to access the International Space Station after the shuttle's finally retired. Presumably this is intended to supplement and back up the new vehicle that NASA is currently developing. To accomplish this Space-X is scaling up their Falcon-1 rocket into a redesigned man-rated Falcon-9 model. This is intended to carry Space-X's new Dragon space capsule. Dragon is a pressurized maneuverable space vehicle designed to dock with the International Space Station and then return safely to earth. They say that Dragon can be configured with standard cargo racks or with up to seven crew acceleration couches. http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php Space-X says: "To ensure a rapid transition from cargo to crew capability, the cargo and crew configurations of Dragon are*almost*identical, with the exception of the crew escape system, the life support system and onboard controls that allow the crew to take over control from the flight computer when needed.* This focus on commonality minimizes the design effort and simplifies the human rating process, allowing systems critical to Dragon crew safety and ISS safety to be fully tested on uncrewed demonstration flights." The first Falcon-9 is scheduled to be delivered to Cape Canaveral at the end of this year. NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Phase-1 contract calls for three unmanned Dragon vehicle test flights as follows: A five hour flight in 2009 in which Dragon will separate from the second stage of its launch vehicle, transmit telemetry, receive commands, fire maneuvering thrusters, then reenter the atmosphere and descend to an ocean recovery. A second five day 2009 flight, in which Dragon will separate from its lauch vehicle, move away from it, then perform approach, rendezvous, and breakaway maneuvers, before reentry and recovery. If all of this succeeds, there will be a three-day 2010 flight in which an empty Dragon will approach and dock with the Space Station. http://www.spacex.com/
