'I would be lying to you if I told you I wasn't nervous,' Bridenstine said before the launch attempt. The two men are scheduled to stay up to four months, after which they will come home with a Right Stuff-style splashdown at sea. SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboardĪfter successfully docking, Behnken and Hurley will join the other members on the space station and become part of the Expedition 63 crew. The International Space Station was only accessible to NASA astronauts through the purchase of seats on Russian capsules launched from Kazakhstan - but that has all changed as of Saturday. The Crew Dragon is now taking the 19-hour journey to the International Space Station, where Behnken and Hurley will join the Expedition 63 crew. The Launch America mission is also the first time a private company has put astronauts into space and is the second attempt to launch after Wednesday's flight was aborted due to poor weather conditions.Īfter reaching orbit, Falcon 9 successfully returned to Earth and was retrieved by SpaceX's autonomous spaceport drone ship 'Of Course I Still Love You.' There was a 50 percent chance Falcon 9 would not take off today due to ominous clouds and lightning risks, but the weather cleared with just 45 minutes left on the clock countdown. 'Let's light this candle,' commander Hurley said just before liftoff. NASA and Elon Musk's spacex have officially brought spaceflight back to US with the successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.Īstronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley took off from Launch Complex 39A at 3:22pm Saturday – the first time in nine years an American crew has launched from US soil.
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