• NASA has announced that - all being well - the first mission to the International Space Station by a privately built and operated spacecraft will lift off on February 7. The craft will be a Dragon capsule launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket, both made and handled by techbiz visionary Elon Musk's new company SpaceX.

  • Thus far the Dragon capsule has flown just once, achieving a textbook lift to orbit atop its Falcon 9 launch stack followed by two circuits of the Earth and a successful splashdown in the Pacific. On that occasion it carried only a large cheese, but it is planned to use the Dragon to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.
 
Top