The rocket blasted off without incident at 2:49 am from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, lighting up Florida's coastline. The Crew Dragon includes a new emergency escape system, first tested in 2015, that's created to carry astronauts to safety if there's an emergency.
The next tricky step for the capsule will be docking at the ISS on Sunday at around 1100 GMT, with a return to Earth scheduled for next Friday.
March 2, 2019 A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the company's Dragon spacecraft, lifts off an uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The former astronaut said he was heartened to see that the new propulsion, communication, and other systems on Crew Dragon all were performing as expected so far, with the biggest tests yet to come with docking to the station, and reentry through Earth's atmosphere.
SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said the launch was "super stressful" to watch, but he's hopeful the capsule will be ready to carry people later this year. Dragon will splash down in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast at approximately 8:45 a.m. Moments later, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko passed through the open pressurized mating adapter on the forward end of the International Space Station and into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
If the current unpiloted demonstration flight goes well and no major problems develop with other upcoming tests, SpaceX hopes to launch Behnken and Hurley in July for what will be the first piloted USA space mission in almost eight years.
Kyrgios topples Nadal to reach Acapulco quarter-finals
Also in the last eight, Australian fifth seed Alex de Minaur faces Alexander Zverev and compatriot John Millman meets John Isner . Kyrgios survived three match points to beat top-seeded Nadal 3-6, 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (8/6) on Wednesday and reach the quarter-finals.
Boeing is also developing a capsule to give NASA two ways to fly astronauts.
Two NASA astronauts, Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken, were watching 3.2 miles from the launch pad in the SpaceX launch control room.
"Today's successful launch marks a new chapter in American excellence, getting us closer to once again flying American Astronauts on American rockets from American soil", NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote Saturday morning. That will be the first launch of American astronauts aboard a US rocket since the shuttle program ended in 2011. After the shuttle programme was shuttered in July 2011 following a 30-year run, Nasa began outsourcing the logistics of its space missions.
The capsule is now in orbit, while the Falcon 9 safely landed on one of the drone ships in the Atlantic. A test dummy "Ripley" sits behind her in a SpaceX spacesuit.
The Boeing and SpaceX launch systems are aimed at ending USA reliance on Russian rockets for rides to the $100 billion orbital research laboratory, which flies about 250 miles (402 km) above Earth, at about $80 million per ticket.
Ripley's not just along for the ride: The anthropomorphic test device, as NASA calls it, is there to make sure the Crew Dragon is safe and comfortable for humans.
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