Summary
At 3:44 Eastern Standard Time, the Dragon spacecraft aboard the Falcon 9 rocket became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully orbit the earth. The flight had been delayed a few times, aborting its previous try only a couple days earlier at the last split second due to a faulty valve which needed to be replaced. The unmanned capsule's mission will be to dock with the International Space Station.
SpaceX, the company that built the Dragon and the Falcon 9, was awarded the contract by NASA to supply the space station. Both the Dragon and the Falcon 9 are significantly cheaper than other competing spacecraft which will make it less costly to go into space.
One commenter observed:
…this mission is basically trying to recreate every achievement of the entire Gemini program in a few days minus the crew: It will attempt to launch a pressurized capsule into Earth orbit, execute precision maneuvers, safely rendezvous with another spacecraft (the ISS), then return to Earth intact.
Source
Game and Story Use
- A campaign set Twenty Minutes Into the Future might well involve commercial space companies like SpaceX and craft based on the design of the Dragon.