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See The Moment SpaceX + NASA Astronauts Launch Into The Space Station Using SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket
History was made on 30th May when SpaceX becomes the first commercial flight to make it to space.
It was the first time a privately built and owned spacecraft carried astronauts to the orbiting lab in its nearly 20 years. The docking occurred a little early, barely 19 hours after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Saturday afternoon from Kennedy Space Center, the nation’s first astronaut launch to orbit from home soil in nearly a decade.
On May 30, 2020, SpaceX successfully launched astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley into space, returning human spaceflight to the United States after nine years. Now, after almost 96 hours in orbit, the two NASA astronauts have docked the crew dragon at the International Space Station (ISS). Behnken and Hurley arrived at the station at 10:16 am EDT while the spacecraft were flying about 262 miles (422 km) above the northern border of China and Mongolia. Following ‘soft capture’, 12 hooks were closed to complete a ‘hard capture’ at 10:27 am. Teams then conducted standard leak checks and pressurization between the spacecraft in preparation for hatch opening.
The crew members have opened the hatch between the space station and dragon endeavour at 1:02 pm., allowing hurley and Behnken to enter their new home in space as members of ‘expedition 63’.
Aboard the ISS, the crew members of ‘expedition 63’ — NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner — have welcomed Behnken and Hurley aboard. The successful docking completed many of the test objectives of the SpaceX demo-2 mission, and the rest will be completed as the spacecraft operates as part of the space station, then at the conclusion of its mission undocks and descends for a parachute landing in the Atlantic ocean. NASA’s SpaceX demo-2 mission continues to be streamed on NASA television
Below are some of the live feeds courtesy of NASA TV
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