Successful test flight is giant step for SpaceX
Capsule designed for seven astronauts returns to Earth safely hours after launch and orbit
In a pivotal moment for private spaceflight, a capsule designed to carry seven astronauts blasted off into space Wednesday before it returned to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
The test launch and recovery went without a hitch, bolstering prospects for Hawthorne-based SpaceX, which built the rocket and the Apollo-like Dragon spacecraft.
It marked the first time that a private company developed a space capsule, launched it into orbit and had it survive a fiery reentry.
“There was just so much to go wrong, and it all went right,” said Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. “It was just mind-blowingly awesome.”
With the successful return, the reusable Dragon became the nation’s first new astronaut-ready spacecraft to orbit the Earth and return since the space shuttle started flying nearly 30 years ago. It also was the first time a space capsule splashed down in the ocean since the last Apollo mission in 1975.
Like both of those NASA programs, the Dragon capsule is designed to eventually carry astronauts, Musk said. The spacecraft is considered a contender for the multibillion-dollar job of ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station after the space shuttle is retired in 2011.
“If there had been people sitting in Dragon today, they would’ve had a nice ride,” Musk said.
The capsule was lifted into space atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., at 7:43 a.m. Pacific time and 10 minutes later reached orbit about 186 miles above Earth.
SpaceX said the cone-shaped capsule circled the globe almost twice before beginning its descent, re-entering the atmosphere and then splashing down shortly after 11 a.m. about 500 miles west of Southern California. It came down exactly where it should have, the company said, and the 9,260-pound spacecraft was recovered without problems.
In the half a century of spaceflight, only five countries and one intergovernmental agency have been able to launch a spacecraft into orbit and have it successfully reenter the Earth’s atmosphere: the U.S., Russia, China, Japan, India and the European Space Agency.
Musk, a 39-year-old who made a fortune when he sold online payment business PayPal Inc. in 2002, started the company with hopes to develop and launch rockets and carry payloads into space at a fraction of the cost of the current generation of spacecraft.
SpaceX said it has spent about $600 million developing its technology. In the late 1950s, the U.S. government sunk about $3 billion into developing NASA’s Mercury program, which carried the nation’s first man into space.
The promise of affordable spaceflight has attracted NASA’s attention. The space agency has invested more than $200 million in seed money to help SpaceX develop and build the nine-engine Falcon 9 rocket, and it has awarded the company a $1.6-billion contract to have the Dragon capsule transport cargo to the Space Station — which could start next year.
SpaceX hopes to have another demonstration launch next spring, when the capsule would travel to the International Space Station before it begins transporting cargo and possibly astronauts.
NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said Wednesday’s mission was akin to Charles Lindbergh’s first nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927 that helped launch commercial aviation.
“This successful demonstration flight is an important milestone in meeting the objectives outlined by President Obama and Congress, and shows how government and industry can leverage expertise and resources to foster a new and vibrant space economy,” Bolden said.
“These new explorers are to spaceflight what Lindbergh was to commercial aviation.”
Marco Caceres, an analyst at Teal Group Corp., a Fairfax, Va.-based aerospace consulting firm, said the test launch could help the nascent industry attract major Wall Street investors. Many of these ventures have been funded by wealthy, eccentric entrepreneurs.
“SpaceX is pioneering a private industry we never knew possible,” Caceres said. “Everybody who was worried that the U.S. would cede its leadership in hauling cargo and crew to outer space might have to rethink that.”
The mission has garnered particular attention in Washington, where a battle has been brewing over the future of NASA and whether the space agency should turn over more spaceflights to private ventures such as SpaceX.
In January, Obama scrapped plans for sending astronauts back to the moon and set a new direction for the space agency, urging it to award more contracts to smaller, privately funded start-ups.
But many in Congress whose states are set to lose thousands of jobs because of Obama’s directive are opposed to turning over more of the space missions to companies that they say are largely untested.
Those people, Musk said, are “fighting on the wrong side of yesterday’s war.”