The flight will be scrubbed for at least three days if the company's 18-story Falcon 9 rocket and teardrop-shaped Dragon capsule aren't ready.
He tells the broadcaster that the Ariane 5 rocket stands "no chance" in the face of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy systems from his own SpaceX outfit, as it's more expensive to use -- and the contrast will only get worse when a cheaper, next-generation Falcon 9 arrives, he says.
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Blasting off from Florida's Cape Canaveral into overcast skies following a flawless morning countdown, the 157-foot Falcon 9 rocket's engines performed as expected.
The largest, the 53m-long Falcon 9, is scheduled to launch in late 2007, and should be able to carry about 25, 000kg into low-Earth orbits.
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The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket uses nine engines to generate 855, 000 pounds of thrust, and is capable of carrying more than than 7, 000 pounds of cargo.
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The CRS-2 supply mission, operated by Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, lifted off successfully on a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:10 AM Eastern time.
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This morning Cape Canaveral launch ops sent into orbit the Falcon 9, a two-stage vehicle designed by the Elon Musk-backed firm SpaceX.
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At 180 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter, the Falcon 9 rocket is tiny in comparison to the football-field-long Saturn V rockets that carried Apollo spacecraft into orbit.
The Sunday flight -- dubbed CRS-1 -- will have the Dragon capsule piggybacking on a Falcon 9 rocket to punch through the atmosphere while carrying more than a thousand pounds of cargo.
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Even if NASA elects to merge the two remaining test launches, it will still need to spend more money than it was originally planning to verify that Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule are suitable for space-station operations.
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