After several delays to its launch dates, SpaceX said Wednesday that it will launch the first privately funded spacecraft on a mission to rendezvous with the International Space Station on May 7.
In what will be the second demonstration launch for SpaceX in NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon capsule with cargo for the ISS is scheduled to lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 9:38 a.m. Eastern time. Once in orbit, the automated Dragon capsule will berth with the ISS if it passes a systems check.
"NASA and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station have approved SpaceX's request to set May 7 as the target launch date for the upcoming COTS 2 mission," a SpaceX spokesperson said.
The unmanned test flight was originally scheduled for April 30, then pushed back to May 3 before NASA and SpaceX settled on a date a few days later in May. SpaceX, run by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk (pictured), plans to conduct manned flights to ISS by 2015 as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program.
Crew aboard the ISS will use the space station's robotic arm to dock the capsule, which will be carrying about 1,150 pounds of cargo for delivery to the orbiting lab. Then the SpaceX Dragon is supposed to take on a 1,455-pound payload to bring back to Earth.
Since ending its storied space shuttle program last year, NASA and other international space programs have relied on the Russian space agency to ferry crew to the orbiting space lab. Seeking alternatives, NASA has been working with private companies like Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX to develop commercial spaceflight for manned missions and space exploration ventures conducted by robotic probes.
SpaceX has both COTS and CCDev contracts with NASA to develop an astronaut ferry service to the ISS. The company conducted its first COTS Demo Flight 1 mission a little more than a year ago, launching a Dragon C1 capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket on Dec. 8, 2010, inserting the Dragon C1 into orbit, and recovering the capsule to become the first privately funded company to successfully complete the orbital insertion and recovery of a spacecraft.
Musk, who serves as the company's chief executive, co-founded SpaceX with Tom Mueller in 2002. SpaceX received its first contract with NASA in 2006. SpaceX has conducted several successful launches of its Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 space boosters, including missions to insert satellites into orbit around Earth.
NASA's COTS and CCDev programs are not the only initiatives in a race to develop privately funded means of space travel. Earlier this week, noted commercial spaceflight advocates Peter Diamandis said Eric Anderson introduced Planetary Resources, a Bellvue, Wash.-based company pursuing the ambitious goal of mining asteroids for water, precious metals, and other resources.
Planetary Resources plans to launch its first spacecraft within 24 months, a fleet of telescopes that will search for near-Earth asteroids with the right makeup and location to serve as targets for prospecting operations. A few years later, co-founders Diamandis and Anderson say they'll send another wave of robotic prospecting probes to likely targets, and finally, send a fleet of spacecraft capable of extracting material from asteroids to 20 or more space rocks.
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