Private spaceship set for launch

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is prepared for launch from Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station California's SpaceX company is ready to make history by sending a capsule containing half a tonne of supplies to the space station.

It will be the first time the private sector has provided such a service.

The task is usually performed by the vehicles belonging to government space agencies, such as Nasa and Esa. 

The unmanned Dragon cargo ship is due to launch atop SpaceX's own Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Controllers are targeting a time of 04:55 EDT (08:55 GMT; 09:55 BST), and despite some storms in the area in recent days, the mission team should get favourable weather conditions.

"There's no question - this is a historic flight," said SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell on the eve of the mission.

"There've been only four nations, or groups of nations, that have berthed or docked a spacecraft to the International Space Station: Europe, Russia, the United States of course, and Japan. So, we really stand in awe at having the opportunity to attempt this."

Although billed as a demonstration, the mission has major significance because it marks a major change in the way the US government wants to conduct some of its human spaceflight operations.

Both SpaceX and another private firm, Orbital Sciences Corp, have been given billion-dollar contracts to keep the space station stocked with food and equipment. Orbital hopes to make its first visit to the manned outpost with its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule system later this year.

 The new approach is intended to free the US space agency to concentrate more of its effort and funds on planning exploration missions far beyond Earth, to asteroids and Mars.

"We feel like it's time and required for us to turn over cargo delivery to the International Space Station (ISS) to the private sector, being more cost effective and enabling Nasa to take our savings and plough them into those other things we're going to be continuing to do in the years ahead," explained Phil McAlister, the acting director of the agency's commercial spaceflight development programme. 

The powered ascent of SpaceX's Falcon rocket should last a little under 10 minutes, with the Dragon capsule being ejected just over 300km (185 miles) above the Earth.

The conical spaceship will then deploy its solar panels and check out its guidance and navigation systems before firing its thrusters to chase down the station.

If practice manoeuvres go well over the next couple of days, the plan is try to attach Dragon to the space station on Tuesday.

Unlike the Russian and European robotic freighters that drive all the way into docking ports on ISS, Dragon will move itself to a position just 10m under the platform where it will be grabbed by a robotic arm operated by astronauts inside the orbiting laboratory.

 Dragon will be attached and released from the underside of the station by a robotic arm

The arm will berth Dragon to the "Harmony" connecting module on the ISS. The crew are then expected to start unloading the ship's supplies of food and other consumables on Wednesday.

"This is a test flight," cautioned Ms Shotwell. "What's important from a SpaceX perspective on a test flight is to make sure we learn something. 

"Hopefully, we learn a lot; and, hopefully, we make a lot of progress. But really what we're here to do is to demonstrate this spacecraft, wring it out to the maximum extent possible, and then obviously the ultimate goal is to berth." 

This mission is part of Nasa's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (Cots) programme which was established to help shift some of the agency's traditional roles and activities into the private sector. 

Dragon has already practised coming back from orbit following a short flight in 2010

Nasa is providing seed funding of approximately $800m (£500m) to SpaceX and Orbital to assist them in the development of their rocket and capsule systems. Once they have reached the milestones laid out under Cots, the full ISS re-supply contracts will kick in. 

For SpaceX, this is valued at $1.6bn (£1bn) and calls for a minimum of 12 Dragon missions to the ISS.

But the company also has a desire to ferry crews back and forth to the station.

To that end, its capsule has been designed from the outset to carry people; and under another Nasa programme, the company is working to develop the onboard life-support and safety systems that would make manned Dragon flights feasible. 

Since the shuttles were retired last year, America has no means currently of launching its own astronauts into space - rides must be bought for them on Russian Soyuz rockets at more than $60m (£40m) per seat. SpaceX says Dragon could be ready to carry people in 2015 at a seat price of $20m (£15m).

"In order for Nasa to be able to afford any programme of exploration in the future given the fiscal realities of the government, it has to transition away from high-cost services that are procured by and for the government into shared-use services that are competitively sourced," observed Jeff Greason, the president of XCOR Aerospace and a leading proponent of commercial space activity.

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