Private Rocket Launch Succeeds on 4th Try

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28 -- An Internet entrepreneur's fourth attempt to launch a dummy payload into orbit succeeded Sunday, as a two-stage commercial rocket reached space after blasting off from the South Pacific.

"Fourth time's a charm," said Elon Musk, the multimillionaire who started up Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, to make space launches more affordable.

The Falcon 1 rocket carried a 364-pound dummy payload designed and built by SpaceX for the launch. Musk pledged to continue getting rockets into orbit, saying the company has resolved design issues that plagued previous attempts.

"This really means a lot," Musk told a crowd of whooping employees. "There's only a handful of countries on Earth that have done this. It's usually a country thing, not a company thing. We did it."

Musk started SpaceX after making his fortune as the co-founder of PayPal, the electronic payment system.

Last month, SpaceX lost three government satellites and human ashes, including the remains of astronaut Gordon Cooper and "Star Trek" actor James Doohan, after its third rocket was lost en route to space. The company blamed a timing error after the rocket's first stage bumped into the second stage after separation.

SpaceX's maiden launch in 2006 failed because of a leak in a fuel line. Last year, another rocket reached about 180 miles above Earth, but its second stage prematurely shut off.

Falcon 1, a 70-foot-long rocket powered by liquid oxygen and kerosene, is the first in a family of low-cost launch vehicles priced at $7.9 million each.

Besides the Falcon 1, SpaceX is developing for NASA a larger launch vehicle, Falcon 9, capable of flying to the international space station when the current space shuttle fleet retires in 2010.