SpaceX made history with first human space launch from U.S in 9 years
Courtest: Reuters (Thom Baur)
SpaceX launches two astronauts to orbit, igniting new spaceflight era.
First U.S spaceflight in nine years since NASA shut down its space shuttle program in 2011
A rocket ship from Elon Musk’s SpaceX has lifted off with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on a history-making flight to the International Space Station. The mission was supposed to be launched on May 27 but was called off with less than 17 minutes to launch due to adverse weather conditions. This is the first U.S space launch in nine years since NASA shut down its space shuttle program back in 2011. This is also the first time that a private spacecraft company used its own rocket to put humans into space.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT), launching Hurley and Behnken on a 19-hour ride aboard the company's newly designed Crew Dragon capsule. Minutes after launch, the first-stage booster rocket of the Falcon 9 separated from the upper second-stage rocket and flew itself back to Earth to descend safely onto a landing platform floating in the Atlantic. High above the Earth, the Crew Dragon jettisoned moments later from the second-stage rocket, sending the capsule on its way to the space station.
Courtesy: NASA
Both Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are former military pilots who rose to the rank of colonel — Mr. Behnken in the United States Air Force and Mr. Hurley in the Marines — before deciding they wanted to go even higher. Both joined NASA in 2000 and became two of the 17 astronauts selected by the space agency that year. They have each flown to space twice on space shuttle missions, although never on the same mission. Mr. Hurley flew on the final space shuttle mission in 2011.
NASA has created the Commercial Crew space program to encourage the development of private launch vehicles that would also be able to serve commercial customers in addition to the agency, in order to pay the cost of launch overall. SpaceX is the first to actually fly people on their vehicle after Boeing encountered some unexpected issues in their last uncrewed demonstration flight.
5/31/2020 Update: Crew Dragon docked successfully at around 10:29AM ET this morning. A welcoming will be hosted by the crew around 12:45PM ET