The private space race is go for launch. SpaceX's Falcon 1 became the first privately designed liquid fuel rocket to reach Earth's orbit when it finally hit the stratosphere on Sunday. The California-based company launched the rocket from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and it successfully reached orbit more than 300 miles above the surface of the Earth.

The sweet taste of success came as a huge relief for Elon Musk, the PayPal co-founder who started SpaceX in 2002. SpaceX had suffered three consecutive high-profile launch failures. On the company's most recent attempt, in early August, Falcon 1 did not properly separate and lost a cargo that included several satellites and the ashes of more than 200 people. As a precaution, the fourth flight this weekend carried only a 364-pound dummy cargo on its journey into space.

SpaceX's success this time around was a major boon not only to the company, but also a ray of hope for NASA. Facing a possible five-year gap between its space shuttles' retirement in 2010 and its new Orion craft being ready in 2015, the agency opened its arms to private space companies as its options dwindled to relying on Russian spaceflights to reach the International Space Station. NASA awarded SpaceX with $278 million in 2006 after the company won the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services competition that NASA organized to stimulate the private space industry. NASA had hoped that private companies would create spacecraft capable of reaching the station and supplying it with cargo, and with yesterday's launch it has cause to be optimistic.

Eventually, NASA hopes private space flights could not only bring cargo to the International Space Station, but also crew members. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for its maiden test launch from Cape Canaveral early next year. The Falcon 9 is twice as long and at least seven times as heavy as the Falcon 1. It is designed to propel the Dragon, SpaceX's capsule designed to reach the ISS.

Reaching the ISS is still in SpaceX's distant future—the company plans several more Falcon 1 tests before it will try to get Falcon 9 into orbit next year. But Musk says he hopes the launch success will bolster the company and bring in more funding. In the meantime, he's savoring his first successful test flight. As he said at a press conference yesterday, "It's great to have this giant monkey off my back." —Andrew Moseman