SpaceX successfully launches Crew Dragon with crew to ISS
After a day’s delay due to weather conditions, SpaceX successfully launched the Falcon 9 launch vehicle with the Dragon spacecraft as part of the Crew-1 manned mission. American astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Japanese taikonaut Soichi Noguchi went to the International Space Station.
Except for the first and largely test manned flight of Crew Dragon to the ISS at the end of May this year, the launch of the manned Crew-1 mission on the night of November 15-16, 2020 was the first independent manned space flight in the United States in nine years.
The launch was given at the estimated 03:27 Moscow time on Monday (19:27 Sunday US East Coast time) from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida.
A few minutes after launch, the reusable second stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle made a successful soft landing on SpaceX’s floating barge off the coast of Florida.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon with the crew of the Crew-1 mission will arrive at the International Space Station approximately 16 hours after launch.
