The launch comes after the company and NASA successfully completed the first civilian trip to the space station.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket has launched four astronauts into orbit as part of NASA’s mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
The astronauts were scheduled to arrive at the space station on Wednesday night, 16 hours after they took off before dawn from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, southeastern United States.
Katie Luders, head of NASA’s space operations mission, said the crew was probably “one of the most diverse” in the history of the US space agency, traveling together in space.
Made up of men and women alike, the crew included the first black woman to make a long-distance space flight: Jessica Watkins, a 33-year-old geologist who received her doctorate to study the processes behind major landslides on Mars and Earth and continue to join the scientific team. the Curiosity rover at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The crew also included 49-year-old Dr. Kel Lindgren, an emergency physician on his second trip to the ISS; Bob Hines, a 47-year-old fighter pilot in the United States Air Force; and Samantha Cristoforetti, a 45-year-old astronaut from the European Space Agency and a pilot of the Italian Air Force jet, makes her second flight to the space station.
“We truly thank each and every one of you for making this possible. Now let Falcon roar and Freedom ring, “said Lindgren, commander, as their capsule safely entered orbit. “It was a great ride.”
The early morning launch came just two days after SpaceX and NASA completed the first charter flight to the ISS, after years of opposition.
SpaceX capsules are fully automated, which opens their use to a wider clientele. They are transported into space by the reusable Falcon 9 rocket. The capsules are also designed to take on a wider range of body sizes.
In September 2021, SpaceX completed the first all-civilian flight into orbit, which followed the launches to the edge of space by billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.
The U.S. space agency said the three ISS civilian visitors, who paid $ 55 million each to visit the space station, were mingling while doing experiments and educational activities. They were accompanied by a former NASA astronaut hired by the Houston-based Axiom Space, which organizes the flight.
The ISS, the largest man-made artificial space in space, has been continuously occupied since November 2000, run by an international consortium led by the United States and Russia from five space agencies in 15 countries.
An international crew of at least seven people usually lives and works aboard the platform while traveling at 8 km (5 miles) per second, orbiting the Earth once every 90 minutes.
The station’s microgravity environment provides scientists with a unique laboratory for conducting specially designed experiments on everything from fluid mechanics and combustion to cell growth and aging.
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