ON MAY 25th 2012, a California firm called SpaceX made history by carrying out the first privately run space mission to the International Space Station (ISS). It was a vindication for NASA's decision to outsource its ISS missions to the private sector. Still, purists could argue that something was missing: a proper market has competition, but SpaceX was the only firm capable of flying such a mission. That may be about to change. On April 21st, at NASA's Wallops flight centre in Virginia, another rocket built by another firm—Virginia-based Orbital Sciences—lifted off from the pad, after several delays. A launch attempt on April 17th was scrubbed after a data cable came loose. Another try on April 20th had to be abandoned because of high winds. This time, though, nothing went wrong. A few minutes after the launch, the Antares rocket was safely in orbit, prompting cheers and sighs of relief on the ground.

Admittedly, the flight was only an initial test. The Antares will go nowhere near the ISS itself. Nor is it carrying one of Orbital's Cygnus space capsules, which, if all goes according to plan, will one day perform the actual docking with the ISS. But it is an important step: if everything continues to go well, then a Cygnus test flight will take place later this summer, and Orbital's first ISS resupply mission could happen before 2014.

The firm has a $1.9-billion contract with NASA to fly eight cargo missions to the station. That makes it pricier than SpaceX, which will fly 12 missions (two of which it has already completed) for $1.6 billion. But the competition ought to be a good thing for both companies. Indeed, it is hard to think of two more different firms. SpaceX is the flag-bearer for the glamorous "New Space" industry. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, a Silicon Valley entrepeneur who made his name with PayPal, and who claims that his eventual goal is to enable crewed missions to Mars.

Orbital Sciences, by contrast, has been around since 1982. It has significantly more than 500 missions under its belt, and no starry-eyed dreams of manned interplanetary travel. That has led to some unkind comments about "dinosaurs" from New Space fans (the Antares' engines are derived from those originally developed half a century ago for the Soviet Union's abortive moon programme). Appropriately enough, the Antares itself is a ponderous beast, taking more than a minute after launch to break the sound barrier, which is slow for a rocket. But once it had cleared the launchpad, it performed perfectly. And that, ultimately, is all that matters.