This Saturday, May 30, the SpaceX company has left its mark on space history.
Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley flew from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday on a SpaceX rocket, the first private company to be entrusted by NASA with the responsibility of transporting its precious astronauts. Taking advantage of a clearing, a rocket of the company founded by Elon Musk took off at 3:22 p.m. (9:22 p.m. HB) and placed in orbit without any problem the Crew Dragon capsule ten minutes later, for its first manned flight, and the first launched by the United States since 2011.
“Congratulations (…) on this first manned trip for Falcon 9, it was incredible,” said astronaut Doug Hurley, commander of the spacecraft while Dragon was already traveling at 27,000 km / h, at around 200 km from altitude.
The two men will reach the ISS on Sunday at 2:29 p.m. GMT (4:29 p.m. in Brussels).
Relive this historic takeoff in pictures:
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