This story was updated at 5:48 p.m. EDT.
The brand-new commercial Falcon 9 rocket soared into orbit from Florida on its maiden flight Friday, the first test for a new era of private vehicles that could one day send cargo — and possibly astronauts — into space.
"We got our Falcon 9 rocket to orbit," said SpaceX's jubilant millionaire CEO Elon Musk, who co-founded the PayPal online payment service before launching his rocket company. "It achieved a near bull's eye."
Related: SpaceX's Falcon 9: Rocket for the Dragon
The Falcon 9 rocket traveled eastward off the pad to orbit about 155 miles (250 kilometers) above Earth. A big SpaceX party is expected tonight in Florida to celebrate the rocket's success, Musk said.
"I think with a lot of margaritas," said Musk, who founded the Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX in 2002.
Falcon 9's first flight
Before that, the launch was delayed past an initial 11 a.m.EDT (1500 GMT) target time by a blocked signal from the rocket's telemetry system, which enables the launch team to track the vehicle from afar.
"It's a huge milestone achievement for SpaceX as ac ompany, because they've invested a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of engineering, and to get to an actual flight test is definitely an impressive achievement," said Brett Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a private industry group.
Musk said SpaceX's second Falcon 9 rocket is nearly complete and could fly by the end of summer. That mission is expected to carry an actual Dragon spacecraft, not just a mockup, to demonstrate spacecraft separation, orbital maneuvers and re-entry.
The Falcon 9 rocket already has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to haul cargo to the International Space Station, and may one day carry astronauts as well. Today's successful launch adds fuel to the hopes that the rocket will be the first non-government spaceship to carry people to orbit.
The 178-foot (54 meters) tall liquid-fueled booster flew a mockup of the company's Dragon capsule, which is planned to carry cargo, and eventually crew, to space.
This Space.com graphic shows how the Falcon 9 rocket compares with NASA's shuttles and other spacecraft.
"We are recovering parts of the first stage," Musk said. SpaceX had hoped to be able to reuse the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage, but the company's business plan does not hinge on reusability, he added.
This successful trial flight will likely provide a boon to President Barack Obama's plan to shift responsibility for ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station to the commercial space sector after the space shuttles retire this year. The President proposed cancelling NASA's existing Constellation plan to build a shuttle replacement.
"If [the test launch] is successful I think it's symbolically the new age, because it's the first time to orbit by a vehicle being built entirely by a private corporation," space policy expert Roger Handberg, a political scientist at the University of Central Florida, said before the flight. "It is a game changer in that sense. It makes the commercial space stuff finally credible."
"What people have been saying in Congress is thec ommercial sector can't do it," Handberg told SPACE.com. "I think int he larger congressional community there will be less willingness to say, 'Oh yeah, we need to keep the shuttle flying, keep Constellation going.' I think they'll be more willing to back the President."
"If it's a success, I don't expect critics of the administration's plan to say anything positive," Alexander said on Thursday. "They'll just say, 'It's only a test.'"
"Tomorrow's launch should not be a verdict on the viability of commercial space," Musk said Thursday. "Commercial space is the only way forward," he said, because of the limited budget of governmental space programs.
"Unless we can make dramatic improvements to the cost and reliability of space transport and make it closer to air transport, it will only ever be a small number of launches that take place every year at extreme expense," Musk said.
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