Our hopes and dreams of colonizing space may be just a little bit closer now with news of the first commercial flight into space.

The unmanned reusable freighter Dragon was loaded with 905 kg (1,995 lbs) of commercial cargo, consisting of food items, a cryogenic freezer, general hardware, and other items including biological laboratories.

After just 11 minutes, the vessel had entered Earth’s orbit and was ready to deploy its solar array sequence and start testing its rendezvous sensors. Over the next three days, the Dragon freighter will begin adjusting its orbit to better match the current orbit of the International Space Station, and will then park itself within ten meters of the station. Crew members at the ISS will then grab hold of the Dragon by using one of the space station’s robotic arms to guide it to a docking station. The crew will then make use of the equipment onboard the freighter and transfer items to the ISS within a period of three weeks before launching it on a return route to Earth.

Dragon freighters have been used before in outer space, but before today, it was for testing purposes, to better understand the Dragon freighter’s capabilities of carrying cargo. The current mission, which has been named CRS-1, will be followed by at least eleven more SpaceX missions funded by NASA’s $1.6 Billion Commercial Resupply Services contract, making a milestone in space advancement.

The Dragon is an unmanned, free flying and reusable spacecraft with dimensions of 4.4m tall by 3.66m in diameter. The spacecraft weighed in at 6,000kg (over 13,000 lbs) at launch and will be likely to return to Earth with a similar weight, containing 905kg (1,995 lbs) of returning samples and experiments.

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Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), a private company who plans to make Space exploration commercial, recently successfully launched the Falcon 9 rocket. Their most recent plan is to build the Falcon Heavy; the world’s largest rocket ever made capable of carrying a payload of 117,000 pounds.

What does SpaceX plan to load on the rocket and blast on up to space that weighs so much? Details are slim and vague at this point, they do mention “satellites” and also that “if allowed to compete, SpaceX can help the Department of Defense save at least one billion dollars annually in space launch services, while providing a truly independent family of vehicles to help assure access to space.”

The Falcon Heavy would chime in at $80 to $125 Million per launch and could roll out in late 2012 with a first launch coming as early as 2013.

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After the first launch attempt was aborted due to a false telemetry reading, the second launch attempt of the Falcon 9 rocket was flawless. The rocket flew above the Atlantic Ocean and reached the orbit in under ten minutes. Having separated from the Falcon 9 rocket, the Dragon space craft orbited the earth gathering vital data for future projects. After re-entering the atmosphere, it opened its parachute and landed in the Pacific Ocean. The SpaceX team have recovered the capsule.

This mission was the first of its kind conducted by a non-state agency. Considering the success of the Falcon 9 rocket, similar technology shall be employed in future projects related to private space ships. The Dragon space ship, at its present capacity, shall be able to carry seven astronauts into outer space. Speculations are soaring high, with talks of using the Falcon 9 rockets to ferry astronauts and cargo in private space ships to and from the International Space Station, especially after NASA Administrator Charles Bolden commented, “We’re witnessing the dawn of a new era whose ultimate result could be routine, safe access to space, with industry, academia, other agencies and other governments regularly sending payloads and people to low Earth orbit.”

“There’s so much that can go wrong and it all went right,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in a statement. “I’m sort of in semi-shock,” said Musk, who founded PayPal before SpaceX.

Some believe SpaceX could be used to launch private contractors to the ISS following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet next year. President Obama is behind this, and may look at the company for more deep space missions—and of course, putting a human on Mars. That is decades away of course, but would provide scientists with millions in grants for “environmental research.” Although many critics in Congress are against this, as it will cost jobs throughout the Florida Spacecoast, NASA isn’t one to look lightly on a second place in the space race behind Russia or China.

Photographs: Chris Thomson

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