International Space Station

NASA will provide periodic televised coverage of the SpaceX mission to the International Space Station on the Internet. Coverage can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv, now scheduled for: Thursday at 11:30 p.m. PT: Live coverage from NASA's Johnson Space Center mission control in Houston as the Dragon spacecraft performs its flyby of the space station. Friday at 11 p.m. PT: Live coverage of the rendezvous and berthing of the Dragon spacecraft to the space stationcontinuing through the capture and berthing of the Dragon to the station's Harmony node.

Billionaire Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX, sent his Falcon 9 rocket into space early Tuesday morning with an unmanned Dragon capsule after an original mission was aborted over the weekend. How's he feeling? Extremely relieved. After the rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. at 3.44 a.m., Musk tweeted : “Falcon flew perfectly!! Dragon in orbit, comm locked and solar arrays active!! Feels like a giant weight just came off my back :)” He then followed with tweets thanking NASA, the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket roared to life before dawn at Cape Canaveral, Fla., today and blasted into space on a column of fire that lit the night sky for miles around. The nine-engine rocket lifted off at 3:44 a.m. EDT carrying a cone-shaped space capsule that's set to berth with the International Space Station later this week. SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is the first private company to embark on such a mission. Up until now, sending a spacecraft to the space station has been a feat that has only been accomplished by four of the world's wealthiest and most technologically advanced governments: the United States, Russia, Japan and the European Union . The launch marked a major milestone in efforts to shift spacecraft development -- long dominated by governments and large, entrenched aerospace firms -- to privately funded firms such as SpaceX that so far have been funding their ventures largely on their own. About 10 minutes into the spaceflight, SpaceX confirmed that its gleaming, white Falcon 9 rocket had lifted the unmanned Dragon space capsule into orbit.

Just days after aborting a rocket launch at the last second because of an engine problem, SpaceX is once again set to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in hopes of becoming the first private company to visit the International Space Station. The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., first set out to launch on Saturday at 4:55 a.m. EDT. The countdown was flawless until the last second, when the rocket engines briefly lit up and then went dark. SpaceX said a flight computer detected an anomaly in one of its rocket's nine engines and automatically shut down the launch sequence.

The first mission by a private company to the International Space Station was aborted before dawn Saturday at Cape Canaveral, Fla., when computers detected an anomaly in one of the rocket's engines and automatically shut down the launch sequence. The countdown forSpace Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, was flawless until about 4:55 a.m. EDT when, at the last second, the rocket engines briefly lit up and then went dark. "Three, two, one, zero and liftoff," announced NASA commentator George Diller before he realized what had happened.

SpaceX's historic launch to the International Space Station was aborted in the pre-dawn hours at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday when computers detected a problem with one of the rocket's nine engines and automatically shut down. Countdown to the launch, which was webcast on NASA TV , hit T-0 at 4:55 a.m. Eastern time when the rocket engines seemed to briefly light before the technical problem hit. Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and chief executive, tweeted shortly afterward : "Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.

The countdown has begun for SpaceX's historic mission to send a spacecraft into orbit to dock with the International Space Station. SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is due to launch its Falcon 9 rocket early Saturday from Cape Canaveral , Fla., in a demonstration for NASA . Officials of the space agency and SpaceX held a news conference Friday at the cape to discuss the mission. Three days after launch, SpaceX will make history if its Dragon capsule docks with the space station, marking the first time that a privately built craft has done so. "If successful, there's no doubt this is a historic flight," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said at the news conference.  The launch will be webcast on NASA TV starting about an hour before the scheduled liftoff, which is now set for 4:55 a.m. EDT. SpaceX and NASA said that the rocket, capsule, and onboard software have been tested and are ready to go. The launch date has been pushed back several times and the weather forecast for the launch time is favorable.

For the last half-century, space flight has been the domain of the world's superpowers. All that is set to change as soon as Saturday when SpaceX, the private rocket company in Hawthorne, will attempt to launch a spaceship with cargo into orbit and three days later dock it with the International Space Station. If successful, the mission could mean a major shift in the way the U.S. government handles space exploration. Instead of keeping space travel a closely guarded government function, NASA has already begun hiring privately funded start-up companies for spacecraft development and is moving toward eventually outsourcing NASA space missions.

WASHINGTON - After more than 12 years and at least $100 billion in construction costs, NASA leaders say the International Space Station finally is ready to bloom into the robust orbiting laboratory that the agency envisioned more than two decades ago. "The ISS has now entered its intensive research phase," said Bill Gerstenmaier, head of NASA operations and human exploration, in recent testimony to Congress in defense of the roughly $1.5 billion...