SpaceX launches a rocket to the space station with 4 astronauts
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off Sunday evening from the Kennedy Space Center on its way to the International Space Station.
Three U.S. astronauts and a Japanese astronaut were on their way Monday to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a SpaceX rocket, NASA’s new space transportation system after nine years of reliance on Russia.
“This is a great day for the United States of America and for Japan,” NASA chief Jim Bridenstine told a press conference.
“It’s quite a launch”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on schedule Sunday evening from the Kennedy Space Center with Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi strapped into the capsule attached to the top.
“It was a hell of a launch,” Commander Michael Hopkins said once in orbit.
The first stage detached quickly before returning to land on a UAV, the trademark of SpaceX. Twelve minutes after liftoff, at an altitude of 200 km and a speed of 27,000 km/h, the capsule itself detached from the second stage.
SpaceX confirmed that it was on the right orbit to reach the ISS a little more than 27 hours later, around 04:00 GMT Tuesday.
“It is operating properly,” SpaceX number two Gwynne Shotwell confirmed at a press conference. But “we’ll breathe a sigh of relief in about 26 hours when we hand over the crew to NASA”.
They will meet two Russians and one American in the station and will stay six months in the orbiting laboratory, circling the Earth 400 km above the oceans.
This first “operational” flight follows the successful demonstration mission from May to August, during which two American astronauts were taken to the ISS and then returned to Earth safely by SpaceX, the first private company to accomplish this technological feat.
Tom Cruise soon on board?
In total, SpaceX is scheduled to launch two more manned flights in 2021 for NASA, including one in the spring with European Thomas Pesquet, and four cargo refueling missions in the next 15 months.
A purely private mission, via the partner Axiom Space, is also planned for the end of 2021 — while NASA has suggested that Tom Cruise could go to the ISS, which has not been confirmed.
And SpaceX could also add “another fun mission, I’ll tell you about it later,” Shotwell said.
“NASA was a complete disaster when we took over. Today it is the world’s most successful and advanced space center by far,” President Donald Trump tweeted, taking credit for the success of a program launched under its two predecessors.
The man who will replace him in January, Joe Biden, also congratulated NASA and SpaceX, but from a different perspective. “This is proof of the power of science and what we can accomplish by combining innovation, inventiveness, and determination,” the Democratic president-elect tweeted.
