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New U.S. commercial rocket successfully lifts off for ISS

Other News Materials 5 June 2010 07:29 (UTC +04:00)
A test launch of the Falcon-9 carrier rocket that is to deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the future was carried out on Friday, RIA Novosti reported according to NASA .
New U.S. commercial rocket successfully lifts off for ISS

A test launch of the Falcon-9 carrier rocket that is to deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the future was carried out on Friday, RIA Novosti reported according to NASA .

The Falcon-9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 3:00 p.m. local time [GMT 19:00] and will deliver the Dragon capsule into orbit. The Dragon vehicle will deliver astronauts and cargo if the test runs are successful.

SpaceX, a commercial company, signed a $1.9-billion contract with NASA to develop both the Falcon-9 carrier rocket and Dragon vehicle. The company announced in March it needed approximately three years to test the spacecraft before actually delivering astronauts to the ISS.

Three test flights and 12 standard flights with cargo for the ISS are planned so far.

The rocket was built by Elon Musk's private spaceflight company Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to provide unmanned cargo shipments to the International Space Station after the NASA shuttle fleet retires this year.

Designer Elon Musk earlier on Friday put the chances for a successful launch between 70 and 80%.

"This is very much a test flight of Falcon 9," the Space.com portal quoted Musk as saying. "It's analogous to some beta testing of new technology."

The Falcon 9 rocket is a 54-meter- (178-foot-) tall two-stage liquid fuel booster. It is estimated to take between eight and ten minutes for the rocket to reach a target orbit about 155 miles (250 km) above Earth.

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