SpaceX performs readiness test on rocket slated for space station
At a launchpad in Cape Canaveral sits a spaceship atop an 18-story rocket that NASA officials hope will be the first privately built craft to dock with the International Space Station.
On Thursday, the company that manufactures the spacecraft, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., performed a successful launch readiness test for its upcoming flight — an important step on the road to the space station.
The company, better known as SpaceX, posted the news on its Twitter page about fueling its Falcon 9 rocket with rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen as it stood vertical at its launch complex. SpaceX also carried out a test countdown to T minus 5 — performing all the normal procedures as if it were a real launch without actually firing the engine.
SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk said that the launch itself wasn’t likely until late April. Neither NASA nor SpaceX has given a firm launch date.
The mission has been more than a year in the making since SpaceX became the first private company to blast a spacecraft into Earth’s orbit and have it return intact in December 2010.
The company’s goal was to get to the space station with its cone-shaped space capsule, named Dragon, less than a year later, but that mission has been repeatedly pushed back for more engineering work.
SpaceX makes the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket at a sprawling facility in Hawthorne where fuselages forBoeing Co.’s 747 jumbo jet were once assembled. The hardware is then sent by big rig to Florida for launch.
The company already has a $1.6-billion NASA contract for 12 flights to deliver cargo to the space station. If the upcoming rendezvous mission is successful, the company would start in earnest to fulfill the contract.
SpaceX wants to rendezvous with the space station to demonstrate that it is the clear front-runner to take over the lucrative responsibility of ferrying supplies — and possibly carrying astronauts — to the space station for NASA now that the space shuttle has been retired.
