The SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off the coast on its debut launch complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 4, 2010 rocket.
Credit: Reuters/Scott AudetteBy Irene KlotzCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wednesday, December 8, 2010 7: 22 pm EST
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - a private company put a spacecraft in orbit and back, he introduced safely on the Wednesday in a revolutionary test flight NASA hopes will lead to freight runs to the international space station after the space shuttles are retired next year.
-Backed NASA mission was designed to try a new system to deliver the goods and perhaps one day, the crew at the orbiting outpost. This was the first private company launched and returned a capsule of the orbit.
Falcon 9 rocket space Exploration Technologies departed at 10 h 43 pm EST. (1543 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Station, carrying first operational dragon capsule society.
After two orbits of the Earth, it is parachuted to a landing in the Pacific Ocean shortly after 2 p.m. (EST) (1900 GMT).
Two test flights are planned, though SpaceX wants to combine the pair and try to dock with the station was subsequently before his first mission of cargo delivery is scheduled for November.
Belongs and is managed by the contractor Internet Elon Musk, SpaceX is one of the two companies with a combined $ 3.5 billion in NASA contracts deliver goods to the space station when the space shuttle is retired after two or three missions
NASA invest 500 million in SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation to develop and test their spacecraft fly. Taurus 4 rocket orbital is scheduled for early next year.
In the flight test on Wednesday, the dragon capsule ran through a series pre-programmed exercises that simulate an approach and docking to the ISS.
After approximately three hours, Dragon fired four of its 18 rocket propellant to leave orbit and re-enter the atmosphere giving its heat shield training which could not be simulated on the ground.
The capsule has survived re-entry and landed about 500 miles off the coast of the Mexico. The company rents a ship from NASA to retrieve the capsule.
"There is so much are evil, and everything went right." We even did go to any system in any backup point... I'm sort of semi-shock "musk said journalists."
SpaceX has spent more than 600 million dollars developing hawks and dragons.
SPACE TAXI
The company intends to upgrade the dragon with a launch exhaust system and hope that it will serve as a taxi for astronauts and others wishing to stroll at the station and other outposts in orbit around Earth.
"Vehicle you saw today can easily carry people," said musk.
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