Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) has launched its historic rocket into orbit at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States. This is the first time Astronauts have been launched into space from American soil in 9 years.
The launch was previously scheduled for Wednesday, May 27 but was cancelled 16 minutes before launch due to weather conditions.
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The mission, is transporting two NASA astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station (ISS). The two astronauts will join three others who are already on the orbiting laboratory. The journey to the ISS will take 19 hours.
The Launch was declared successful by NASA with the these updates “Stage 1 entry burn has started. The Launch America crew is heading into orbit.”
“Crew Dragon has successfully separated. Next stop? The International Space Station.”
Crew Dragon has successfully separated. Next stop? The International @Space_Station. #LaunchAmerica pic.twitter.com/rDKFzPouTE
— NASA (@NASA) May 30, 2020
With this successful launch, SpaceX founded in 2002, will increase its dominance in the space race. This is the first time astronauts have been sent into orbit from the U.S since 2011.
For the past nine years, NASA has had to rely on the seats it buys on Russia’s Soyuz rockets for the flight of its astronauts to the International Space Station.
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According to Bloomberg, NASA awarded SpaceX $3.4 billion for the development of the dragon capsule. NASA is looking into the commercial future of space flights, as it no longer wish to revive the practice of having and operating its own space systems in Low Earth Orbit. SpaceX and Boeing Co. were chosen as the commercial crew for the launch.
NASA intends to outsource the service of transporting its crew to space. The space agency simply wishes to buy seats from commercial space transports to ferry its astronauts going forward as a cost saving measures.
According to NASA Administrator, Jim Bridenstine “we envision a future where low-earth orbit is entirely commercialized, where NASA is one customer of many customers, where we have numerous providers that are competing on cost, on innovation and safety.”
Written by;
Ifunanya Ikueze
