"spacex"

The crew is comprised of three Americans -- Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker -- and Japan's Soichi Noguchi.

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

Musk, who is having symptoms of a "typical cold" and "nothing unusual so far," did four tests on Thursday.

The requirement of replacing the engines became apparent after an investigation into the aberrant behaviour of the Falcon 9 rocket observed during a recent non-NASA mission launch attempt, Space.com reported on Wednesday.

The 13th Starlink launch was completed on Sunday from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Originally scheduled for October 31st, the planned six-month mission was delayed as Elon Musk-run SpaceX evaluates off-nominal behaviour of Falcon 9 first stage engine gas generators observed during a recent non-NASA mission launch attempt.

It is expected that there will be gigabit speeds on offer, meaning up to 1Gbps Internet speeds, with a fairly low latency of up to 25ms.