This will only be important news for those who care about space exploration and commercialization, but I thought it deserved to be noted down somewhere.

NASA has announced via Twitter that the first U.S. fully-commercial1 spaceflight to the International Space Station, the SpaceX full test flight, has been scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral on Monday, April 30, 2012 at 12:22 p.m. Eastern Time.

Clear skies to SpaceX, Falcon 9 and Dragon.

1: I use 'fully commercial' to reflect the fact that the entirety of the Falcon/Dragon system was designed and built by private enterprise. Although much of its development has been assisted by funds from NASA awarded for commercial space access development, the systems are not government-designed or government-procured; rather, NASA is purchasing flights instead of hardware.

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