After a last-second delay Saturday, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 lifted off the launchpad early Tuesday morning, bound for the International Space Station.
The unmanned Dragon capsule took off at 3:44 a.m. EST this morning.
Some 11 minutes after launch, the solar arrays deployed on the Dragon, prompting cheers and high-fives among SpaceX employees in the Hawthorne, Calif., mission control center. The solar array deployment had been considered the first big post-launch test.
“Falcon flew perfectly!!” SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted from California. “Dragon in orbit. … Feels like a giant weight just came off my back.”
At a post-launch news conference, Musk described the moment as a major adrenaline rush, and “obviously an extremely intense moment.”
“For us, it’s like winning the Super Bowl,” he said.
Tuesday’s liftoff was the second attempt to launch SpaceX’s demonstration mission for NASA. If all goes well in a series of maneuvers and tests SpaceX will put the Dragon through, the cargo vehicle could arrive at the space station Friday. It is carrying 1,200 pounds of supplies, such as food and clothing, for the six-person station crew.
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