SpaceX confirms launch delay

The Falcon 9 rocket, left, and the capsules it will carry.

SpaceX's first Cape Canaveral launch of a Falcon 9 rocket under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Service agreement has slipped nine months to June of 2009.

"SpaceX has notified NASA of a nine-month delay," NASA spokesman Beth Dickey said.

NASA has modified the Space Act agreement to include the delay and the addition of four significant hardware development milestones, Dickey said.

The delay does not signal major problems at SpaceX, company spokesman Roger Gilbertson said.

"For a project of this size it's fairly typical," Gilbertson said. "We don't see it as anything dramatic."

With the shuttle program ending in 2010, NASA in 2006 put up $500 million in seed money to help private companies develop systems to fly to the International Space Station. SpaceX, owned by Internet tycoon Elon Musk, will receive $278 million to fund three launches. The last COTS/Falcon 9 launch is now scheduled for March 2010, a delay of six months.

SpaceX has collected $115.9 million under the COTS plan and met eight milestones on schedule, said Dickey.

SpaceX has launched two single-engined rockets, which were not successful. A third Falcon 1 test is scheduled this spring.

SpaceX will deliver the first Falcon 9 hardware to Cape Canaveral by the end of the year. Before the COTS launches, the nine-engined rocket will make one demonstration launch from the Cape between the end of 2008 and June of 2009, when the first COTS launch is scheduled.