SpaceX launches Americans into orbit from US soil
NASA partnership with private company is a first
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – A pillar of fire tore through the skies above Kennedy Space Center on Saturday as NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley returned to space on a historic mission nearly a decade in the making.
The flight, known as Crew Dragon Demo-2, bridges the gap left behind by the space shuttle program’s final flight in July 2011. It’s the first time a private company has sent humans into orbit – and the first time in nearly a decade that the United States has launched astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil. Ever since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.
“Let’s light this candle,” Hurley said just before ignition, borrowing the words used by Alan Shepard on America’s first human spaceflight, in 1961.
The two men are scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Sunday for a stay of up to four months, after which they will return to Earth in a Right Stuff-style splashdown at sea.
The mission unfolded amid the gloom of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed over 100,000 Americans, and racial unrest across the U.S. over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police. NASA officials and others held out hope the flight would would be a morale-booster.
“Maybe there’s an opportunity here for America to maybe pause and look up and see a bright, shining moment of hope at what the future looks like, that the United States of America can do extraordinary things even in difficult times,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said before launch.
With the on-time liftoff, SpaceX, founded by Musk, the Tesla electric-car visionary, pulled off a feat achieved previously by only three governments: the U.S., Russia and China.
The flight also ended a nine-year launch drought for NASA, the longest such hiatus in its history. Ever since it retired the space shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take U.S. astronauts to and from the space station.
In the intervening years, NASA outsourced the job of designing and building its next generation of spaceships to SpaceX and Boeing, awarding them $7 billion in contracts in a public-private partnership aimed at driving down costs and spurring innovation. Boeing’s spaceship, the Starliner capsule, is not expected to fly astronauts until early 2021.
Saturday’s launch followed days of concern about weather conditions and a scrubbed launch Wednesday.
Bridenstine said a previous launch attempt on Wednesday was delayed because liftoff could have triggered a lightning storm in an electrically charged atmosphere. “In fact, the rocket itself could become a lightning bolt,” he said.
The space agency urged people to watch the launch from home, but some spectators began lining beaches and roads around Cape Canaveral ahead of Saturday’s launch.
Earlier in the week, Michael Mathews and 10 vacationing relatives from Dandridge, Tennessee, drove from Kissimmee to the Cocoa Beach Pier to see the SpaceX crew launch on Wednesday – but it was scrubbed.
Undaunted by another iffy weather forecast, the Tennesseans returned to the pier Saturday.
“This is history, man. You’ve got two Americans being launched from America for the first time since 2011,” said Mathews, who is a U.S. Navy veteran.
“This is the Space Force. This is the beginning. You’ve got Elon Musk – a brilliant guy. It’s history in the making,” he said, holding a beach chair.