At Long Last, a Private Cargo Spaceship Takes Off (Video)

Tuesday morning at 0344, right on schedule (and it had to be right on schedule), Elon Musk's baby finally left the launch pad on its way to the International Space Station (ISS). Two babies, actually: the Falcon 9 launch vehicle is what we watched as it took off from Cape Canaveral -- the first private spaceship headed for the ISS -- with the Dragon spacecraft perched on its nose. The Dragon carried over 1000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the ISS. The launch went off without a hitch. But don't stop holding your breath quite yet; Dragon isn't scheduled to dock at the ISS until Friday. Slashdot now accepts reader-submitted video, either edited or raw. Email robinATroblimoPERIODcom for details.

Comments

Popping sound

[Anonymous Coward]

After watching both this and Copenhagen Suborbital's launch, I noticed that the rockets seem to "pop" at a few Hz. I don't recall hearing this on NASA launches, does anyone know why this is?

Re:Docking on Friday?

[fgodfrey]

It only takes about 10 minutes to get to orbit. I believe the Shuttle and the Progress & Soyuz spacecraft all took about 2 days to dock with ISS. I believe most of that time is spent matching the orbits perfectly and "catching up" with it in orbit (you don't want to approach too fast and slowing down requires fuel, and fuel is weight so you want to use as little as feasible).

Dragon is taking awhile longer because this is only the second time that the Dragon has flown and the first time docking. So, they're going to run a whole bunch of tests to ensure that they can control the spacecraft from the ground and then a bunch more to make sure the astronauts on the ISS can control it. Then, finally, they'll let it get close enough to dock. I suspect (though I have no actual information on this) that once they get past the "test flight" phase, it will take a similar amount to time to Soyuz/Progress/Shuttle to get there.

Re:An accounting marvel

[Martin Blank]

In the past, the vehicles have been turned over to NASA (or other relevant space agency) whereas here, SpaceX has maintained ownership of the launch vehicle and capsule. It's one of the reasons that NASA has been so paranoid over the launch is because it has less direct control of it.

Re:And now we can cut off space funding.

[jcr]

I know you think you'e being clever, but the fact is that NASA worked very hard to prevent any private development of space flight capabilities for several decades.

-jcr