Spacex Crew Dragon capsule with NASA astronauts docks with ISS
KENNEDYSPACECENTER: Just under 19 hours after launching from Florida, Spacex’s Crew Dragon capsule carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley docked with the International Space Station on Sunday, marking the first US space capsule to do so with a crew since 2011.
The launch on Saturday by Spacex, the private rocket company of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, represented another milestone for the reusable rockets it pioneered to make spaceflight less costly and more frequent.
It also marked the first time that commercially developed space vehicles - owned and operated by a private entity rather than NASA - have carried Americans into orbit.
A Spacex Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:22 pm local times (1922 GMT) for the journey to the International
Space Station.
Just before lift-off, Hurley said, “Spacex, we’re go for launch. Let’s light this candle,” paraphrasing the famous comment uttered on the launch pad in 1961 by Alan Shepard, the first American flown into space.
“I’m really quite overcome with emotion,” Musk said. “It’s been 18 years working towards this goal. This is hopefully the first step on a journey towards civilization on Mars.”
NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said it was a “great day” for NASA and Spacex and an “important milestone for the nation.” But he cautioned, “We will celebrate when they’re home safely.”
In a brief interview from space, Hurley said that in keeping with the tradition of having astronauts name their spacecraft, he and Behnken had named the capsule “Endeavour” after the retired space shuttle on which they both flew. The mission, dubbed “Demo-2,” ends a government monopoly on space flight.