SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship successfully launched

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship has successfully taken off, days after a launch attempt was aborted at the last minute.

The voyage to the International Space Station (ISS) is a landmark one, as the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are privately funded and built. Their launch took place on Tuesday morning from NASA's Cape Canaveral facility.

"Falcon 9 has cleared the tower," NASA's commentator said at 8:45am BST.

SpaceX, as Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies is better known, had originally intended to launch the vehicle on 30 April, but the date slipped back a week. An attempt on Saturday was aborted due to unexpectedly high pressure in one of the compact power plants.

Before today, no private enterprise has sent a vehicle to the ISS.