Four astronauts on Sunday were successfully launched on the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience to the International Space Station (ISS), the first of what the US hopes will be many routine missions following a successful test flight in late spring.
Three Americans — Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker — and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi blasted off at 7:27pm from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, thus ending almost a decade of international reliance on Russia for rides on its Soyuz rockets.
“This is a great day for the United States of America, and a great day for Japan,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said during a post-launch press conference.
Photo: Reuters
Twelve minutes after liftoff, at an altitude of 200km and a speed of 27,000kph, the capsule separated from the second stage of the rocket.
“That was one heck of a ride,” mission commander Hopkins said from orbit.
SpaceX confirmed that it was on the right orbit to reach the ISS a little more than 27 hours later, at about 11pm last night, joining two Russians and one American aboard the ISS, and stay for six months.
Photo: Reuters
There was a problem with the cabin temperature control system, but it was quickly solved.
“She’s operating just fine,” said SpaceX president Glynne Shotwell during the press conference, but “we’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief, 26 or so hours from now, once we hand the crew over to NASA.”
SpaceX briefly transmitted live images from inside the capsule showing the astronauts in their seats, something neither the Russians nor the Americans had done before.
SpaceX is scheduled to launch two more crewed flights for NASA next year, including one in the spring, and four cargo refueling missions over the next 15 months.
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