After an failed first attempt, a second Falcon 1 rocket was launched this week and reached an altitude of 200 miles, just 50 miles below the International Space Station’s orbit. Falcon 1 is manufactured and launched privately by Space Exploration Technologies Corporation — or SpaceX — a company owned by businessman Elon Musk who had previously co-founded Paypal, the famous Internet banking system. The aim of the company is to lower the costs to put satellites in orbit, thus competing directly with established corporations like NASA and ESA.

The second test launch of Falcon 1 took place today at 6:10 pm California time. The launch was not perfect, but certainly pretty good. Given that the primary objectives were demonstrating responsive launch and gathering test data in advance of our first operational satellite launch later this year, the outcome was great.

Source: SpaceX