Dragon Capsule Will Take Off on November 18

Officials at a private space company announce that the proposed launch data for their first cargo capsule flight has been pushed back to November 18. The spacecraft will fly to space about a medium-lift delivery system.

The company, called Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), made the announcement three days ago. Scientists there are getting ready to launch the Dragon space capsule to low-Earth orbit (LEO).

This spacecraft may play a pivotal role in the future of American space exploration, given that the space shuttles will be retired next year, and that the next NASA craft capable of reaching LEO will only be developed in a few years from now.

Dragon was developed under a COTS partnership between the agency and SpaceX. The $1.6 billion calls for a test flight of the capsule to be carried out before this year ends.

The craft will have to successfully separate from its payload enclosure, do at least 4 orbits around the planet, and execute a series of test maneuvers, meant to gage the functionality of its onboard systems.

All of these requirements need to be satisfied before NASA decides to fund the private company even further. The firm was funded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk.

“SpaceX is targeting November 18th for our next launch with the 19th and 20th as backup dates,” said in an e-mail Kirstin Brost, a spokeswoman for the company,

The capsule will be ferried to orbit aboard a Falcon 9 medium-lift delivery system, which itself underwent the first successful test flight ever earlier this year, in June.

Under the initial NASA contract, the company was supposed to start flying routine resupply flights to the International Space Station (ISS) starting this December. The first Dragon test flight should have taken place in September 2008.

But the development and testing phases of the construction took a bit longer than SpaceX had anticipated, largely due to the complex nature of the problems at hand.

Space analysts are eagerly awaiting the November 18 launch date, to see whether the hopes NASA placed in Dragon are founded or not, Space reports.

The two spacecraft will take off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), in Florida, which is located right next to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), the home of the shuttle fleet.