SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule completes docking at International Space Station
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has heralded a new era of spaceflight, becoming the first private enterprise to launch humans into orbit on the powerful Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday. A day later, the Crew Dragon capsule, piloted by two Nasa astronauts, docked successfully at the International Space Station.
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After a 19-hour trip, the newly designed Crew Dragon capsule docked on the ISS a few minutes ahead of schedule at 14:16 GMT on Sunday – just minutes before orbital sunset – with Nasa Television providing rolling live coverage of the entire trip.
Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley had to wait a few more hours for tests to be carried out to ensure that the seals between the spacecraft and the space station were airtight.
Docking confirmed – Crew Dragon has arrived at the @space_station! pic.twitter.com/KiKBpZ8R2H
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 31, 2020
Thousands of spectators gathered at Florida’s Brewer Bridge to watch the rocket blast off from Cape Canaveral’s Kennedy Space Centre on Saturday afternoon.
The launch ends a nine-year gap in human spaceflight from American soil. US astronauts have been using Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to travel to the ISS since Nasa’s final space shuttle flight – piloted by Hurley – in 2011.
Welcome to a new era of human spaceflight 🚀👨🏼🚀
— NASA (@NASA) May 31, 2020
In case you missed it: @AstroBehnken & @Astro_Doug left Earth at 3:22pm ET on our #LaunchAmerica mission with @SpaceX. Tune in to NASA TV for continuous coverage as the crew travels to the @Space_Station: https://t.co/mzKW5uV4hS pic.twitter.com/TC5b6qre6F
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On Wednesday the Falcon 9's first launch attempt was scrubbed with fewer than 17 minutes remaining on the countdown clock amid electrical storms and a tornado warning.
SpaceX and Nasa, who have been in a public-private partnership since 2010, will learn much from this trip – with the astronauts expected to take the spacecraft for a test drive before it arrives at the ISS to see how it responds to manual commands.
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