A rocket that may one day launch astronauts to the space station is set for its maiden flight from Florida. The Falcon 9 has been developed privately by SpaceX of California with a large subsidy from Nasa. The 47m-tall vehicle, which carries an unmanned dummy cargo capsule, was due to lift off from Cape Canaveral at 1500 GMT today. US President Barack Obama inspected the rocket on its pad in April during a visit to the Space Coast. The Falcon 9 in its simplest form is a "single stick" vehicle with a two-stage configuration. A cluster of nine SpaceX-developed Merlin-1C engines will power the rocket off the pad. A single Merlin on the second stage will complete the task of pushing the payload into orbit. For its maiden flight, the Falcon 9 will launch a cut-down version of its Dragon freighter – a blunt-nosed, 3.6m-wide capsule that will collect engineering performance data during the ascent. On future flights, Dragon will be filled with supplies for the International Space Station.