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11/15/2020 REUTERS / Joe Skipper reuters_tickers
This content was published on November 16, 2020 – 1:49 pm
By Andrea Shalal and Joey Roulette
CAPE CANAVERAL, United States (Reuters) – SpaceX, Elon Musk’s missile company, sent four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday, the first US Aerospace Agency (NASA) mission to put a crew into orbit aboard a spaceship of a private company.
SpaceX’s new Dragon capsule, which the crew dubbed “ Resilience, ” took off on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 7:27 pm from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, located in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
“It was a great trip,” said Dragon Crew astronaut Mike Hopkins, who controls the SpaceX mission about an hour after takeoff. “There were a lot of smiles.”
The Dragon Crew will gradually increase its orbit over the next 27 hours through a series of propellant blasts on board, giving astronauts time to enjoy prepackaged dinners and approximately eight hours of rest before docking at the International Space Station at 11:00. PM Eastern Time on Mondays.
An air leak caused an unexpected drop in pressure in the capsule less than two hours before departure, NASA officials said, but the technicians said they conducted a successful leak check and the planned launch was maintained. .
The “Resilience” crew includes Hopkins and two other NASA astronauts, the mission pilot, Victor Glover, and Doctor Shannon Walker. They were also joined by the Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who had already traveled on the American space shuttle in 2005 and the Russian Soyuz in 2009.
(By Andrea Shalal in Cape Canaveral and Joey Roulette in Washington; additional report by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas)
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