Sunday night, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, a privately financed company, managed to launch a rocket they have designed themselves into orbit. The attempt, which was the company’s fourth one, was successful, showing that apparently, fourth time’s the charm is the new third time’s the charm.

Internet entrepreneur born in South Africa Elon Musk, Space Exploration Technologies’ founder, stated he was thrilled that the launch had gone well, referring to the moment the rocket made it into orbit as having been „awesome.” Musk added that many people did not believe they could successfully perform the blast off, thus making finally achieving the previously set goal all the more exciting.

The 37-year-old entrepeneur set up SpaceX in 2002, after having sold PayPal, a widely known online payment company he helped found, to eBay.

With a work force exceeding 500 people, SpaceX received a commercial orbital transportation services contract from the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, a NASA initiative aimed at encouraging commercial participation in space exploration efforts.

Currently, Musk’s company is developing Falcon 9, a larger rocket designed to offer NASA’s International Space Station cargo services beginning the year 2010.

Moreover, they expect to be able to enhance technology so as to render carrying people to the aforementioned station possible by 2015.

NASA administrator Michael Griffin stated that he was truly pleased with the rocket’s launch’s outcome, adding that this marked a first, but very important step towards reaching the COTS program goal to allow commercial space transportation to gain ground in future years.