Science

SpaceX launches new era of spaceflight with company's first crewed mission

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are flying a brand-new spacecraft to the world’s orbiting laboratory.

By Nadia Drake

PUBLISHED May 30, 2020

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.

Photograph by Michael Seeley, National Geographic

Against a backdrop of shifting clouds and patches of welcome blue sky, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roared to life at 3:22 p.m. ET at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), warming the already sweltering, sticky air with blindingly bright rocket fire and sending tremors through the Florida coast. Strapped into a spacecraft atop the 229-foot-tall rocket, veteran astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurleysoared into the sky, marking a triumphant return to orbit from U.S. shores.

“SpaceX, Dragon, we’re go for launch, let’s light this candle,” Hurley said to SpaceX mission control in Hawthorne, California, just before liftoff.

Behnken and Hurley—occasionally referred to by their colleagues as Dr. Bob and Chunky—are now cruising to the International Space Station, a journey that will take approximately 19 hours. This flight of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is only the fifth time in history that U.S. astronauts have piloted a brand-new spacecraft into orbit.

For the first time since NASA retired its space shuttles in 2011, the space agency can launch astronauts from its home shores rather than paying for seats aboard Russian spacecraft. Now, NASA...

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SpaceX launches new era of spaceflight with company's first crewed mission

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are flying a brand-new spacecraft to the world’s orbiting laboratory.

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