A jubilant SpaceX this afternoon championed its historic flight to the International Space Station (ISS), which a NASA official said signaled "a new era in commercial space flight."
SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk said during a press conference that he had few words to truly describe this morning's events. The whole company is just "incredibly excited," Musk said. "There's so much that could have gone wrong and it went right."
"This really is, I think, going to be recognized as a historically significant step in space travel and hopefully the first of many to come," Musk continued.
Earlier this morning, the SpaceX Dragon capsule was successfully captured by the International Space Station Expedition 31 crew, making SpaceX the first commercial company to send a spacecraft to the ISS. The station's robotic arm captured the Dragon at 9:56 a.m. ET after a journey that took three days, six hours, 11 minutes, and 23 seconds.
Dragon was later securely bolted to the Harmony module of the ISS at 12:02 p.m. ET.
Michael Suffredini, manager of the ISS program office, said he has talked many times about historic events and "this rates right at the top."
"Having a contractor, relatively independent of NASA, design on its own a spacecraft that [they] tested and flew ... has been remarkable," Suffredini said. "The spacecraft performed nearly flawlessly."
Holly Ridings, NASA's lead flight director for the SpaceX demo flight, added that it was a "really great day in space."
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Dragon spacecraft from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday morning at 3:44 a.m. ET.
According to NASA, Dragon is carrying about 1,200 pounds of supplies for the ISS crew - most of which is food and clothing - as well as student-designed experiments. The spacecraft can actually hold up to 7,300 pounds of supplies, but NASA and SpaceX are taking it slow since this was a demo flight.
The Dragon will remain docked at the ISS for about three weeks while cargo is unloaded. Astronauts will then remove it using the robotic arm, at which point it will return to Earth via parachutes and land in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast.
Suffredini said today that if all goes well with the departure, SpaceX can start its formal Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) "in the September timeframe."
SpaceX is not the only firm that will be participating in these CRS missions. Orbital Technologies Corporation is also testing its Cygnus spacecraft, which is expected to complete a test flight in August and a demo flight to the ISS between October and December, Suffredini said.
The next step on the current mission will be to open the hatch between the ISS and the Dragon spacecraft. That is scheduled for tomorrow, after which the crew will get a rest and then start unloading Dragon's contents.
For more, see Is Elon Musk the Real-Life Tony Stark? Not So Fast.
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