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NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission was successfully launched into orbit early Friday morning.
With clear weather conditions, the Falcon 9 rocket and Elon Musk’s Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavor were launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5:49 a.m. ET.
SPACEX LAUNCHES NASA TEAM FOR ISS MISSION ON REUSED ROCKET AFTER DELAY
NASA Astronauts Megan McArthur and Crew 2 Commander Shane Kimbrough, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency (ESA) Astronaut Thomas Pesquet are en route to the International Space Station (ISS).
This March 3, 2021 photo made available by SpaceX shows mission specialist Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency, pilot Megan McArthur and Commander Shane Kimbrough of NASA, and mission specialist Akihiko Hoshide of the Japanese Agency aerospace exploration crew, their third astronaut launch. at the International Space Station, at the SpaceX Training Center in Hawthorne, Calif. (SpaceX via AP)
(SpaceX via AP)
“Glad to be back in space for all of us,” Kimbrough told flight controllers after reaching orbit.
“Predawn launches are always amazing,” Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk said during live coverage of the event. “It was thrilling to watch.”
Their stay on the ISS is expected to last six months.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft – which now travels at thousands of miles an hour – is expected to dock with the ISS at around 5:10 a.m. ET on Saturday.
The flight marks SpaceX’s third crew flight in less than a year, the second crew rotation on a commercial spacecraft mission and the first with two international partner astronauts, as well as the first time SpaceX has reused a capsule and rocket to launch astronauts for NASA.
The rocket was last used in November during SpaceX’s second astronaut flight.
Space.com reported on Friday that SpaceX had replaced some valves and heat shields and installed new parachutes on the capsule.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon space capsule takes off from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. On Friday, April 23, 2021 (AP Photo / John Raoux)
(AP Photo / John Raoux)
Initially scheduled for take off Thursday morning, the flight was delayed by bad weather.
Crew 2 will join NASA astronauts Mark Vande Hei, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrovnik.
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The Crew-1 team that arrived last November is expected to return to Earth on April 28.
Coverage of the crew’s 23-hour journey and docking will be streamed live on NASA Television and the agency’s app and website.
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