World’s first privately-owned spaceship set to launch to orbit

The world’s first privately owned spaceship attempts a launch into orbit tomorrow. The Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket have been built by SpaceX, founded by PayPal’s Elon Musk. SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract to undertake twelve re-supply missions to the International Space Station.

Other commercial firms such as Virgin Galactic have achieved suborbital flight for space tourism purposes, but SpaceX’s Dragon will to be the first to break free of gravity and orbit the earth. There are also plans for the capsule to re-enter the atmosphere for recovery.

Above: Musk and the Falcon 9 rocket.

Short URL: http://www.jurn.org/news/?p=321

Posted by jonahjameson on Dec 6 2010. Filed under R&D. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry