A rocket booster recycled from a previous spaceflight first launched the astronauts into orbit. NASA and Elon Musk’s commercial rocket corporation, SpaceX, launched a new four-astronaut team on a trip to the International Space Station (ISS), the first crew ever to orbit a rocket booster recycled from a previous space flight.
After a 23-hour trip in the same Dragon capsule used by SpaceX’s debut crew last May, the three men and one female crew from the U.S., Japan and France should hit the ISS early Saturday morning.
It was the first time SpaceX reused a capsule and rocket to launch NASA astronauts after years of proving capacity on supply runs.
Last November, a rocket was used on the company’s second astronaut flight.
It was also the third crewed flight launched into orbit under NASA’s fledgling public-private partnership with SpaceX, the rocket company established and owned by Musk, the billionaire businessman who is also CEO of Tesla Inc.
In their uniforms, astronauts Thomas Pesquet, Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur and Akihiko Hoshide strove to say goodbye to their families.
They then boarded three white Teslas for the launchpad, a new SpaceX-established tradition, with Musk also appearing.
Flying on reused vehicles was a primary cost-saving target of NASA’s private-sector partnerships.
The Falcon 9 rocket will return to Earth after launch for an upright vertical landing on a drone ship, and the Crew Dragon capsule is expected to dock with the ISS at 5:10am (09:10 GMT) on Saturday, with the hatch opening two hours later.
Last week, SpaceX beat two other firms, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, to land NASA moon astronauts in three years or more.
They will descend to Starship’s lunar surface, the shiny, bullet-shaped rocket ship Musk is testing in the Texas skies with fiery, explosive effects.
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