A SpaceX rocket on Wednesday night carried four astronauts into orbit, including the 600th person to reach space in 60 years.
The repeatedly delayed flight occurred just two days after SpaceX brought four other astronauts home from the International Space Station.
They should have been up there to welcome the newcomers, but NASA and SpaceX decided to switch the order based on Monday’s ideal recovery weather in the Gulf of Mexico, and pulled it off.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It was a great ride, better than we imagined,” mission commander Raja Chari said shortly after the spacecraft reached orbit.
The launch was just as riveting for spectators at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, as well as along the US east coast, as the Falcon rocket thundered through clouds on its way to space, turning night into day.
Germany’s Matthias Maurer claimed the No. 600 position based on his mission assignment, NASA said, adding that he and his three crewmates should arrive at the space station in less than 24 hours, more than a week late.
From the European Space Agency, Mauer is one of three newbies on the crew. The 51-year-old was a finalist when he first applied to be an astronaut. Encouraged, he left his research job at a medical company and joined the space agency as an engineer, and made the astronaut cut in 2015.
Chari, 44, is a US Air Force colonel and the first space rookie in decades to lead a mission to orbit for NASA. A test pilot from Cedar Falls, Iowa, Chari accumulated more than 2,500 hours in fighter jets, including combat missions in Iraq.
Thomas Marshburn, 61, would be the oldest person to live aboard the space station and perform a spacewalk. Born in Statesville, North Carolina, he pursued a career in emergency medicine, then joined NASA in 1994 as a flight surgeon. This is his third trip to the space station.
Kayla Barron, 34, a Navy lieutenant commander from Richland, Washington. She was among the first women to serve as submarine warfare officers. Added to the flight in May, she is No. 601 in space.
One of the astronauts — NASA has not said which — was sidelined last week by an undisclosed medical issue. The crew member is fully recovered, the agency said.
Officials would not say whether it was an illness or injury, but said it was not COVID-19.
Bad weather also contributed to their flight delays.
Chari said that trying to launch on Halloween left them with “a trick instead of a treat.”
It was also drizzling Wednesday night when the four astronauts said goodbye to their families for six months — with everyone huddling under umbrellas — but it cleared up by launch time.
“Enjoy your holidays among the stars. We’ll be waving as you fly by,” SpaceX launch director Mark Soltys radioed to the crew.
The list of 600 travelers ranges from those who have barely scratched space — such as actor William Shatner last month — to US and Russian astronauts who have spent a year or more in orbit. This year’s surge in space tourists helped push the tally over the 600 mark.
That averages out to 10 people per year since Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering flight in 1961, Maurer said.
“But I think in a very few years, we will see an exponential rise of that one, because now we’re entering the era of commercial spaceflight,” he said after arriving at Kennedy Space Center two weeks ago.
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