The Dragon spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida atop the massive Falcon 9 rocket at 1543 GMT, and the bullet-shaped capsule entered orbit about 10 minutes later.

Next, the spacecraft was to circle the Earth twice before attempting a re-entry from low orbit and a splash landing into the Pacific Ocean, a risky operation that even the company said carried about a 70 percent likelihood of success.

But early indications were that the demonstration launch was going exactly to plan.

"Dragon is in orbit," NASA said in a tweet about 10 minutes after takeoff. "Congrats to SpaceX and their team for a successful launch."

No one is aboard the Dragon space capsule, but it has room for seven crew crew and an ample cargo hold that could one supply the International Space Station, after NASA retires its space shuttle fleet next year.

In the absence of cargo and crew, the "Dragon capsule is carrying a few thousand patches, employee badges for the SpaceX company and some other mementos," NASA said.

The operation hopes to showcase the capsule's ability to launch and separate from the Falcon 9 rocket, orbit Earth, transmit signals and receive commands, then make it back intact. The ocean landing is expected around 2000 GMT.

If the Dragon launch is successful, the next step is for a fly-by of the ISS as part of a five-day mission in which the Dragon will approach the orbiting station within six miles (10 kilometers).

Later, an actual cargo and crew mission to the ISS is planned. Both are scheduled to take place in 2011.

But the company was not overly optimistic that all would go according to plan in its demonstration launches.

"History would say that we are going to have a substantial issue in one of the first of the three flights, that is just empirical that has nothing to do with our process or our hopes," said SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell on Monday.

"If I want to have a cloud over my head I would put success at the same percentage (as prior company estimates), 70 percent," she told reporters on Monday.

"I'm not a statistician so I don't necessarily want to put a number but it isn't any lower than 70."

A couple of glitches have already delayed the launch -- first a crack in the engine nozzle was discovered on Monday, postponing the launch by a day. Then the first attempt Wednesday morning was aborted for unknown reasons just moments before liftoff.

The US space agency NASA signed a 1.6-billion-dollar contract with SpaceX in December 2008 under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to provide 12 spacecraft with cargo capacity of at least 20 tonnes to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) through 2016.

NASA has also signed a contract of 1.9 billion dollars with Orbital Space Corporation for eight launches of its Taurus II rocket starting in 2011.

President Barack Obama hopes the private sector will help fill the gap that will open when the space shuttle fleet is retired next year, and before a new generation of spacecraft is developed.

The three US shuttles -- Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour -- will become museum pieces after a final shuttle mission to the space station in 2011.

Obama has proposed spending six billion dollars over five years to help the private sector develop reliable and affordable launchers to transport cargo and US astronauts to the International Space Station.

During the transition period, the United States will depend on Russian Soyuz rockets for access to the ISS.

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