SpaceX successfully launches commercial satellite

For many decades, the space race was seen as a national pride.  All the space missions till now were done by Government agencies like NASA, ESA or ISRO.  For  example, the first man in space, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was said to be a Citizen of the World by Kremlin.  Americans grin in triumph when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and forced Soviet leaders to grit their teeth.  Even today national pride is fueling space launches.   For example in China and India all the space missions are treated as national pride.

 Now the space race has entered into private field too.  The private spaceflight company, SpaceX launched a commercial satellite from Florida on tuesday, 3rd December, 2013 after two delays due to technical  problems. The upgraded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has launched the huge SES-8 communications Spacecraft into the orbit from the launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 5:41 PM EST (22:41 GMT).   The mission marks SpaceX's first Florida launch of its Falcon 9 rocket, its first major communications satellite launch and its first flight to a geostationary transfer orbit


The launch of Tuesday was SpaceX's third attempt to launch the SES-8 spacecraft for satellite communications provider SES World Skies.  SpaceX aborted the two earlier launch attempts last week, first on Nov. 25 and again on Nov. 28, due to technical glitches.  The company has entered into commercial market by launching the 3500 Kg. SES-8 satellite into its intended orbit. The SES-8 is a hybird Ku and Ka Band spacecraft built to provide high-definition telecommunications services to the customers in South Asia and Pacific regions.

SpaceX has earlier launched six Falcon 9 rockets but most of them were either test flights or missions for NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.  The 2-stage Falcon 9 rocket called as Falcon 9 V1.1 is 224.4 feet tall.  Its protective payload fairing is 17 feet wide large enough to fit a bus inside.  The first test flight was made on 29th September to launch a space weather monitoring satellite for Canadian Space Agency from SpaceX's launch pad at California's Air Force Base.

Launch Video