Commercial rocket makes it to space

LOS ANGELES – A new commercial rocket reached space after launching from a Pacific atoll Tuesday but then probably re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere after half an orbit because of a problem during the second-stage burn, an entrepreneur said.

Nonetheless, Elon Musk, founder of Space Exploration Technologies, characterized the launch as “a pretty good test” during a post-flight teleconference.

“We successfully reached space and really retired almost all the risk associated with the rocket, so I feel very good about where things are,” he said.

No anomalies were recorded until late in the second-stage burn, when a roll-control problem prematurely shut down the stage after the rocket reached an altitude of 186 miles, he said.

“We feel that’s something pretty straightforward to address,” he said from El Segundo, Calif., where the company known as SpaceX is based.

The launch was broadcast on the Internet from Omelek island in the Kwajawlein atoll. The view from a camera aboard the rocket showed the island quickly recede, then after a few minutes the Earth’s sphere became apparent before the transmission was lost.

The launch shortly after 6 p.m. PDT followed two unsuccessful attempts, one on Monday and one just over an hour before the launch.

Musk was a co-founder of the PayPal Inc. electronic payment system now owned by eBay.