Private Rocket Arrives at Cape Canaveral for Test Run

NASA has gone to the private sector to keep up the flow of supplies to the International Space Station.

The future of U.S. space commuting has arrived in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as a private spacecraft has rolled to the NASA launch site to prep for its first trial run in delivering cargo to the International Space Station. NASA's space shuttle program wrapped up this summer after 135 missions. The end of that program meant that NASA needed a new way to keep supplies flowing to the space station, and thus settled on trying out Space Exploration Technologies' Falcon 9 rocket to see if it could fill that void. While the rocket and its "Dragon" cargo capsule are now in place at the Kennedy Space Center, the rocket won't take off until Dec. 19 at the earliest, when NASA officials will send the rocket into orbit to determine how well it moves about space. Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, is a California-based company owned by Elon Musk, which is a fittingly awkward name for a space baron to have.