SpaceX launches four Astronauts into space

This is the first of what NASA calls “operational” flights of the Crew Dragon.

Four astronauts were launched into orbit on Sunday in the historic first operational flight for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft as part of NASA’s commercial crew mission. This marks the second-ever crewed mission for Elon Musk’s private space-faring firm SpaceX, after the successful launch and return of NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley with the Demo-2 mission .

SpaceX carried four astronauts to orbit. After a trip of some 27.5 hours in orbit, the astronauts will dock with the International Space Station and begin a six month stay. The four astronauts on this flight are Michael S. Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Victor J. Glover of NASA, and Soichi Noguchi, a Japanese astronaut.

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SpaceX briefly transmitted live images from inside the capsule showing the astronauts in their seats, something neither the Russians nor the Americans had done before.

Why is the launch important to NASA

NASA has been relying on Russian Soyuz rockets to get its astronauts to the space station. That has become increasingly expensive, rising to a cost of more than $90 million a seat.

In the future, instead of relying on government-operated spacecraft, NASA astronauts and anyone else with enough money can buy a ticket on a commercial rocket.

This is the first of what NASA calls “operational” flights of the Crew Dragon. In May, there was a demonstration mission, with two NASA astronauts aboard.

What will the astronauts do aboard ISS

The four astronauts will join three other astronauts already there: Kate Rubins of NASA and two Russians, Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov.

They will be overseeing scientific experiments, performing maintenance tasks, talking to students on the ground.

The astronauts will be collecting their own biological samples to help scientists on the ground study how dietary changes affect the body. The astronauts will also be growing radishes, the latest experiment to explore whether food can grown in space.

They will also test whether fungi can break apart asteroid rock and help extract useful metals — a scientific prelude to extraterrestrial mining operations, and a follow-up to a similar, successful experiment that used bacteria.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California.

SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs.

It has developed several launch vehicles, the Starlink satellite constellation, the Dragon cargo spacecraft, and flown humans to the International Space Station on the Crew Dragon Demo-2.

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