Today will surely be a memorable day in the history of human space travel. One that will give Elon Musk a lot of joy!This was the first manned space flight conducted on the US soil in nine years. The launch took place at Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida from launchpad 39A.
In case you didn’t know, it was the same launchpad from which Apollo astronauts blasted off to go to the moon.
In case you didn't know, this was the second attempt for the Crew Dragon launch, after the first one (which was slated for Wednesday, May 27) got scrubbed due to poor weather conditions.
What took the astronauts on their way to the International Space Station was SpaceX’s very own Falcon 9 rocket, which has proven its calibre in the past, delivering payloads to the ISS.
This time, however, the cargo was more precious than before, carrying two astronauts to the floating space station. The mission basically uses one of its rockets as a taxi for NASA astronauts to get to the space station.
Millions of viewers tuned into NASA and SpaceX's official YouTube channels to watch the historic Crew Dragon 2 launch into space on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
New era for human space exploration
In case you didn’t know, Falcon 9 rocket is partly reusable with the first stage capable of re-entering the atmosphere and landing vertically after separating from the second stage. This makes this launch a milestone in the vision to produce reusable spacecraft that will eventually make space travel a whole lot affordable.
This launch also changed the way astronauts were taken to the space shuttle. Instead of the Astrovan that the previous astronauts have travelled in, the astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 were taken in Tesla cars. The electric cars had a NASA insignia on the rear windshield. Even the number plates on the car said ‘ISSBND’ or ISS Bound.
Exciting times for human spaceflight becoming more affordable, as SpaceX (and Elon Musk) along with NASA aim to drastically reduce the cost of launching payloads into space, towards future missions towards moon and Mars, and beyond.
Upon the successful launch, Elon Musk hadn't tweeted anything exciting yet, but we should expect that very soon.
The President for the United States of America, Donald Trump was also supposed to be present at the space centre to witness the revolutionary launch. He didn't have anything to say at the time of first publishing this article.
What happens after launch?
Crew Dragon 2 will go around the earth a few times as it slowly aligns its orbit with the International Space Station. Crew Dragon capsule is fully autonomous, meaning it can automatically guide itself and dock with the space station.
Crew Dragon 2 will go around the earth a few times as it slowly aligns its orbit with the International Space Station. Crew Dragon capsule is fully autonomous, meaning it can automatically guide itself and dock with the space station.
The spacecraft will take 19 hours to finally dock with the ISS and complete the mission. Look forward to that announcement before the end of the day.