SpaceX successfully sent its flagship rocket, the Falcon 9, into Earth orbit Friday afternoon from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This bodes well for NASA science mission managers, who desperately need a new, cheap supplier of medium-sized rockets. It also means that the radical shift afoot within NASA’s human spaceflight programme, which is trying to dump expensive government-owned vehicles in favor of these so-called commercial rockets, now has perhaps slightly more credibility with a skeptical Congress.

Image: Video via SpaceX