The Space X rocket took off successfully and headed for the space station with four astronauts – Technology

The launch took place at 20:27 (00:27 in Lisbon), at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida (south-east).

Less than three minutes later, at an altitude of 90 kilometers and when the rocket reached seven thousand kilometers per hour, the first floor of the rocket separated, returning to Earth and being reused.

The second floor with the capsule continued its journey, on a correct trajectory, Space X announced.

The capsule, called Resilience, is expected to arrive Tuesday at 04:00 tmg (same time in Lisbon) at EEI, in the first manned mission managed by the private company Spacex, the entrepreneur Elon Musk and the North American aerospace agency (NASA) since US soil.

Three American astronauts, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and a Japanese, Soichi Noguchi, will take just over 27 hours to reach the ISS, where there are two Russians and an American. The four astronauts are expected to spend six months on the ISS.

This first “operational flight” follows the demonstration mission that took place between May and August during which two American astronauts were flown to the ISS and back to Earth without problems from Space X.

The Space’s Dragon capsule is the second device currently capable of traveling to the ISS, with the Russian Soyuz, which has been carrying all station residents since 2011 since the end of the North American space shuttle program.