Delayed: Space station's 1st private cargo run

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - The first commercial cargo run to the International Space Station has been put off until spring.

SpaceX planned to launch its unmanned supply ship from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Feb. 7. But the company said more testing was needed with the spacecraft, named Dragon. On Friday, officials confirmed the launch would not occur until late March.

NASA closed out its 30-year shuttle program last July.

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Space station commander Daniel Burbank said as much as he'd like to take part in the historic event, it's important that SpaceX fly when it's ready. Burbank will return to Earth in mid-March.

"If that's not to be during our mission, then that's OK," Burbank said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. "We've got plenty of other things to occupy us."

Just over a year ago, the California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launched a test version of the capsule, becoming the first private business to send a spacecraft into orbit and return it safely. NASA is counting on companies like SpaceX to keep the station stocked, now that the shuttles are retired.

Until then, the Russian, European and Japanese space agencies - all government entities - have been sending up regular shipments to the orbiting outpost.

SpaceX - run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk - is one of several companies vying for space station visiting privileges. Its long-term goal is to modify its Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule to ferry astronauts to the station.

In the meantime, Americans are buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Grantham pointed out that this is a developmental program for her company, and everyone wants it to be a complete success.

"It may take a little more time, but when it happens, it's going to be amazing," she said.

This first Dragon capsule to visit the space station will carry several hundred pounds of astronaut provisions - nothing crucial, in case of a failure.

Astronauts aboard the space station will use a huge robot arm to grab and berth the Dragon.

"This will be one step in the long road to human expansion off of the planet into low-Earth orbit and beyond," space station astronaut Donald Pettit said Friday.

The beauty of the Dragon is that it will be able to return scientific samples to Earth, Burbank noted. None of the other countries' supply ships can do that; they burn up on re-entry.

Americans Burbank and Pettit, three Russians and a Dutchman make up the six-man crew.

"I think we're getting by OK," Burbank said, "but we need to have as much up-mass and down-mass capability as we can to support space station operations at the level we need it."

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Mr Musk has has been a great salesman with four failures out of seven attempts. He was handed all the money from Nasa , first 270 million in 2003 then from cots program another 1.6B, Not bad that he only invested a 100M. Also was given the engine from Nasa that was designed by NASA FASTRAC program and handed to him for free. Fastrac or alternatively MC-1 engine was a pump-fed liquid rocket engine developed by NASA for use on small inexpensive, expendable rockets. Also Nasa funded programs from majority After the cancellation of the FASTRAC program{{when)) NASA tried to salvage this design for use in other rockets such as Rotary Rocket and X-34 project. The designation of the rocket engine was changed from the Fastrac 60K to MC-1
Musk Said from the first launch that the vehicle would be reusable and tha has failed everytime.
Remember Tesla car was to be revolutionary car its going out business.
Musk is getting taxpayer funded pads to luanch his rocket with special exception. That ULA does not get.Is that fair.?
Also Nasa is writing off exspenses that spcex is incurring that we the taxpayers do not see.
If you look at it Spacex has gotten over 6 billion since he started from Nasa.
The McGregor test facility in Texas testing facilities of defunct Beal Aerospace, where it refitted the largest test stand at the facilities it was given to him. For pennies.
Taxpayer money funnelled with loophole nice "private company"