SpaceX mission launches

Richard Luscombe in Florida has news on Nasa’s latest mission:

The United States is back in the business of human spaceflight after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew capsule carrying two Nasa astronauts blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The 3.22pm launch marked the rebirth of the nation’s crewed spaceflight program as the first mission by a private contractor carrying humans into orbit. It was also the first launch of astronauts from US soil since the retirement of Nasa’s space shuttle fleet in 2011.

Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, both veterans of shuttle missions, will join their Nasa colleague Chris Cassidy already aboard the International Space Station 250 miles above Earth after docking on Sunday.

“It’s absolutely our honor to be part of this huge effort to get the United States back in the launch business,” Hurley said from the flight deck moments before lift-off.

Today’s launch was attended by Donald Trump, whose administration has made space a policy priority. This mission is the first crewed test flight for SpaceX, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company, ahead of planned regular flights to the ISS commencing later this year.

Click on the link below to watch the video..