SpaceX has successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. to put six small ORBCOMM Inc. commercial satellites into orbit.

According to Reuters, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket took off from the Florida air base at 11:15 a.m. Monday after the launch had been delayed for two months. Along with the lack of availability of the U.S. Eastern Range, SpaceX dealt with technical problems and poor weather.

The six satellites are the start of a 17-member network of ORBCOMM Generation 2 (OG2) satellites, costing about $200 million. After SpaceX puts the rest of the satellites into orbit later this year, ORBCOMM expects to bolster its worldwide messaging service.

"We're launching directly into that hole in the sky so the network is going to get dramatically quicker," ORBCOMM CEO Marc Eisenberg told Reuters ahead of the launch. "That would be priced today at about $120 million."

SpaceX currently has a contract with NASA to fly a set number of resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has a similar contract with Orbital Sciences, a company that launched its Cygnus capsule, filled with food and other supplies, last weekend.

SpaceX is also trying to pass a series of requirements to gain certification to carry some of the U.S. government's most technologically advanced national security satellites. The U.S. Air Force has granted the private space travel company a milestone step toward certification, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. have exclusively transported the Pentagon's satellites for eight years and SpaceX is attempting to break in. They have launched their Falcon 9 rocket nine times and are developing a larger one called the Falcon Heavy.

A critic of SpaceX, Loren Thompson, an aerospace policy analyst for the Lexington Institute in Virginia, said the company still has a long way to go before getting any government contracts. Even if they completed all necessary certifications, SpaceX is not guaranteed to get the Air Force's work.

"Despite the certification, I'm sure there are some people in the Air Force who are worried about the reliability of the Falcon 9 going forward," Thompson told the Times. "So, SpaceX is not a shoo-in to win the next competition for military launch services."