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Two NASA astronauts on Saturday blasted off into space aboard a rocket ship designed and built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
Veteran space travelers Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida aboard a sleek, white-and-black, bullet-shaped Crew Dragon capsule on top of a Falcon 9 rocket.
It is the first time that astronauts have been sent into orbit by a private company and is NASA’s first human spaceflight from US soil since the space shuttle program ended in 2011.
The Crew Dragon capsule is bound for the International Space Station, 402 kilometers (250 miles) above Earth.
The California-based SpaceX Aerospace Co. is owned by billionaire Elon Musk.
“Let’s light this candle,” Hurley said before liftoff.
The first launch attempt scheduled for last Wednesday was postponed because of stormy weather in the vicinity of the Kennedy Space Center in the southeastern state of Florida.
NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley, left, and Robert Behnken, wearing SpaceX spacesuits, depart the Neil A. Armstrong Operations…
Astronauts were last launched into space from the U.S. in 2011, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, retired its space shuttle fleet, forcing the U.S. to rely on partnerships with Russia’s space agency to carry U.S. astronauts to the orbiting International Space Station.
Hurley and Behnken are to orbit the Earth inside the newly designed Crew Dragon capsule for about 19 hours before trying to dock at the space station.
The SpaceX Falcon 9, with the Dragon capsule on top of the rocket, is raised onto Launch Pad 39-A, May 26, 2020.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence flew to Florida for the launch, the second time this week. They were joined by more than 3 million viewers online, according to NASA’s count, and more spectators in person who lined beaches and roads nearby.