SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida on Wednesday night local time (Thursday after 3:00 CET) after several delays. The Crew Dragon will take the Crew Dragon with four astronauts on board to the International Space Station (ISS).
The crew consists of three Americans – astronauts of the American Space Agency NASA Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron – and one German, European ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer.
The launch, greeted by applause in the SpaceX control room, took place at 21:03 local time (today at 3:03 CET). Until the last moment, he was uncertain due to bad weather. Astronauts should arrive on the ISS at 1:10 CET on Friday, after about 22 hours of flight.
The launch of the rocket, originally scheduled for the end of October, was postponed several times due to bad weather and also the unspecified health problems of one of the astronauts. Due to the delay on the ISS, they did not manage to take turns with another four-member crew, which left the station on Monday. The station is currently inhabited by two Russians and one American.
This is the third operational mission on the ISS that SpaceX provides for NASA. This is the fifth time that Elon Muska’s company has brought people into space.
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