Liftoff of the Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance by the crew, was aired live from Cape Canaveral on Nasa TV. Intermittent rain and clouds over the Cape earlier in the day had cast doubt on launch prospects, but the weather cleared sufficiently by flight time, Nasa said.
Nasa and SpaceX, the private rocket company of Elon Musk, launched four more astronauts on a flight to the International Space Station late on Wednesday, including a veteran spacewalker and two younger crewmates chosen to join Nasa’s forthcoming lunar missions.
The SpaceX-built launch vehicle, consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, climbed into the night sky from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as its nine Merlin engines roared to life at about 9pm (0200 GMT Thursday).
Liftoff of the Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance by the crew, was aired live from Cape Canaveral on Nasa TV. Intermittent rain and clouds over the Cape earlier in the day had cast doubt on launch prospects, but the weather cleared sufficiently by flight time, Nasa said.
