Dragon Takes Flight and Spreads Its Wings!

Photo credit: NASA/Rick Wetherington, Tim Powers and Tim Terry

After a three day delay resulting from a last-second shutdown of Saturday morning's launch attempt, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday morning at 3:44 AM EDT on its historic demonstration flight for commercial cargo delivery to the International Space Station (ISS). If several preliminary demonstration maneuvers are successfully completed, the Dragon spacecraft will rendezvous with and be grappled and docked to the ISS on Friday morning.

The events will be watched intently around the world and in Washington, DC where a many space-minded people are gathering for the Global Space Exploration Conference and this year's International Space Development Conference.

Launch Anticipation

Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft stand at Launch Complex 40 during a wet dress rehearsal ahead of the tomorrow's launch to the ISS. Photo credit: NASA/Cory Huston

There is an excitement in the area reminiscent of some early NASA launches as SpaceX prepares for its historic Dragon/Falcon 9 launch to the International Space Station (ISS) at 4:55 a.m. EDT Saturday morning. In this case, NASA is moving into more of a service customer role as this flight is a demonstration for future supply runs to the ISS. Here is Space.com's coverage page which includes related articles.

SpaceX rolled the vehicle out to the pad overnight and a prelaunch press conference was just concluded this afternoon. Some major news networks may provide TV coverage, but webcast coverage is definitely planned at the NASA TV web site and the SpaceX website.

Circus on the Severn Back for a Brief but Taxing Session.

The Maryland General Assembly came back to Annapolis for a special session this week with the specific purpose of raising taxes to sustain the state's big spending ways.