14 DAY TRIAL // Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corporation is getting ready to launch a new rocket mission to orbit, this time to the International Space Station. Literally billions of dollars are at stake here, but the company is happy to report that its rocket is in good shape.
The Falcon 9 medium-lift delivery system passes a full dress rehearsal with flying colors on Thursday, March 1. The rocket will carry the unmanned Dragon resupply capsule to low-Earth orbit (LEO). The robotic spacecraft will attempt to dock to the ISS.
This mission represents the first time that a privately-owned and -built capsule is allowed to go anywhere near the $100 billion orbital lab. However, SpaceX is building both the Falcon 9 and the Dragon for precisely this purpose – resupplying the station.
NASA has invested more than $1.5 billion in the corporation, which is owned by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. The SpaceX CEO also owns electric car manufacturing company Tesla Motors.
Dragon is being developed under a NASA COTS agreement. The contract calls for SpaceX and other private companies to conduct a series of resupply flights to the ISS over the coming years, allowing the American space agency more freedom for exploring space.
SpaceX is leading the pack at this point, having already launched Falcon 9 twice, in June and December 2010, and the Dragon space capsule once, in December 2010. It recently received permission to combine its two remaining COTS test flights into a single one.
Though the company is making headway in its attempts to win this competition, its program has been plagued by technical delays. The flight it plans to conduct later this year should have taken place in mid-2011.
But SpaceX officials say that they would rather have a successful mission than one that is hastily prepared. They are now very pleased with the results of the recent, 5-hour dress rehearsal. They say that the mission may launch as early as April.
“We ran down the countdown clock to a planned abort at T - 5 seconds at 12:18 p.m. Eastern. The test went well,” SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost Grantham said in an e-mail interview with Space.
The company is under contract to conduct 12 ISS resupply flights over the next five years. Its success during the upcoming flight will largely determine whether or not NASA will continue to rely on the private sector for these services.