SpaceX Falcon Nine Makes Successful Launch
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Falcon 9 on Pad
Dragon Manned Variant
Unmanned Variant
In Orbit with Solar Arrays Deployed
Engineering Model
It is actually rather rare for a rocket to have a successful launch on the first flight, but everything appears to be nominal, with, "Nominal shutdown and orbit was almost exactly 250km. Telemetry showed essentially a bullseye: ~0.2% on perigee and ~1% on apogee."Falcon 9 on Pad
Dragon Manned Variant
Unmanned Variant
In Orbit with Solar Arrays Deployed
Engineering Model
So it appears that the NASA/SpaceX public-private partnership is bearing fruit.
This is a verification of the launcher, not a verification of their Dragon reusable spacecraft, which is supposed to function as both a cargo and a crew transport and return module.
Generally, this is all around good news, so I am waiting for NASA to find a way to screw this up.
In any case, here is some picture pr0n.
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