NASA and SpaceX launch a new four-astronaut team to International Space Station
After being delayed a day by adverse weather along the flight path, The Crew-2 mission blasts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
Hiatus ends
The mission marks the second "operational" space station team to be launched by NASA, aboard a Dragon Crew capsule since the United States resumed flying astronauts into space from US soil last year, following a nine-year hiatus at the end of the US space shuttle programme in 2011.
(Photograph:Reuters)
Mission number 3
It is also the third crewed flight launched into orbit under NASA's fledgling public-private partnership with SpaceX — the rocket company founded and owned by Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who is also CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc.
The first was an out-and-back test mission carrying just two astronauts into orbit last May, followed by SpaceX's first full-fledged four-member crew in November.
(Photograph:Reuters)
The team
Friday's Crew-2 team consists of two NASA astronauts — mission commander Shane Kimbrough, 53, and pilot Megan McArthur, 49, — along with Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, 52, and fellow mission specialist Thomas Pesquet, 43, a French engineer of the European Space Agency.
(Photograph:AFP)
