At 8:35:07 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), or GMT - 4 hours, the first commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) too, off from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida.
The mission, designated SpaceX CRS-1, for Commercial Resupply Services 1, will send the Expedition 33 crew supplies and materials, along with spare parts and equipment to be used at the Space Station.
According to launch controllers, the 157-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket performed nominally during most of its launch phase, which included separations of its two stages, along with a solar array deployment.
The Falcon 9, with nine engines, generated about 855,000 pounds of thrust on its trip into space. The image, above, shows the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft grappled to the International Space Station on an earlier demonstration flight on May 25, 2012. Photo: NASA.
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However, the flight continued (with the faulty first-stage engines being shut down), and all subsequent activities went normal.
Now in orbit phase, with an initial orbital altitude of apogee of 204 miles and a perigee of 126 miles, the Dragon space capsule will perform a series of maneuvers that will get it into close proximity to the ISS.
Then, the Dragon will dock to the Space Station on October 10, 2012.
The YouTube video "SpaceX CRS-1 Launch to International Space Station", above, shows the launch of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRTYh71D9P0). You'll see the anomaly with one of the first-stage engines at about 1:31 minute into the video.
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