“It’s official: private spacecraft are now delivering supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). At 8.35 pm local time on Sunday night, a Dragon space capsule made by the firm SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with paid-for cargo in its hold. It was the start of the first private mission to deliver critical supplies to the ISS.” (New Scientist)
This is an impressive achievement by a private company. What’s even more impressive is that, despite one of the nine Merlin engines powering the rocket having a failure within 90 seconds, the Falcon 9 still had a practically perfect launch. In the video above, you can see the damage to the engine at the 1.30 minute mark. Another video of the launch by NASA can be seen here.
A new dawn of space flight is rising. Onwards!
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