HARTFORD

The rat cells have been launched into space.

SpaceX's Dragon blasted off early Tuesday from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying aboard roughly 1,200 pounds of cargo and a Hartford science project in the first commercial flight aiming to dock on the International Space Station.

The private cargo includes 15 student experiments from around the country. One is from Annie Fisher STEM Magnet School and the University High School of Science and Engineering in the city's North End.

"Finally," said Aime Levesque, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Hartford who mentored the team of students on their project involving osteoporosis.

"There's been delay after delay," Levesque said Tuesday afternoon, "so I'm happy it finally launched."

So are government and SpaceX officials. Under President Barack Obama's direction, NASA is now relying on private companies to resupply the space station, a new era following last year's retirement of the space shuttle program.

Enter the Dragon, a thimble-shaped capsule from Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, the California-based space transportation firm that has a contract with NASA.

"The significance of this day cannot be overstated," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement released Tuesday after Dragon's launch.

Hartford's participation is through the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, an initiative of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in Washington, D.C., and NanoRacks, a company that operates a research lab on the space station.

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Local Experiment Aboard Commercial Flight To Space Station