I know many of you must be breathing a little easier now that SpaceX's Falcon 9 has been launched successfully. I can imagine the "I told you so's" from skeptics of the Obama administration's decision to cancel Orion/Ares 1 had the Falcon 9/Dragon failed. So much of the new vision for US human spaceflight depends on private industry being able to develop systems like the Falcon 9/Dragon and Taurus 2/Cygnus that can eventually be used to haul cargo and crews to the International Space Station.

There is no question that there's a lot of pressure on industry to perform. Otherwise,the US would be destined to remain dependent on leasing space aboard Russian rocketsto keep US astronauts on ISS supplied and to transport them to orbit and back. But Iam extremely confident that industry can lead in space and create new markets, which is something that NASA is just not equipped to do.

Congratulations to SpaceX, and good luck on the second Falcon 9/Dragon mission later this year. I believe the demonstration flight of Orbital Sciences' Taurus 2/Cygnus is set for sometime next year. If both the SpaceX and Orbital systems proceed without any majorglitches, then they will be in a good position to deliver as many as 16 cargo missions to ISS during 2011-2015. Perhaps sometime before 2015, these systems could be rated to carry humans. This would indeed be a major paradigm shift. Wow... industry leadingthe way. What a novel concept.

Congratulations to the French for winning the contract (over Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems) to build the Iridium NEXT satellites for Iridium LLC. A total of 81 small mobile communications satellites will be built by Thales Alenia Space SA. The contract is worth $2.1 billion. A large part of the work will be done in the US.  Final assembly and testing of the satellites will be performed in Boulder, CO at Ball Aerospace's facilities.