The all private mission to International Space Station (ISS) has been launched.
Space-X shared an update on the mission where, the Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying the four individuals who are not astronauts, separates from stage 2 Falcon -9, the rocket carrying the aircraft into space.
The launch of the mission has been hailed by industry executives and NASA as a milestone in the commercialization of space flight.
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The four-man team selected by Houston-based startup Axiom Space Inc lifted off at 11:17 a.m. EDT (1517 GMT) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The official Twitter handle of Elon Musk’s Space-X has been sharing updates on the spaceflight.
Cameras inside the crew compartment beamed footage of the four men strapped into the pressurized cabin, seated calmly in their helmeted white-and-black flight suits moments after the rocket soared toward space.
About nine minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage delivered the crew capsule into its preliminary orbit, according to launch commentators. Meanwhile, the rocket’s reusable lower stage, having detached from the rest of the spacecraft, flew itself back to Earth and successfully touched down on a landing platform floating on a drone vessel in the Atlantic.
If the mission goes as planned, the crew led by retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria will arrive at the space station on Saturday, after a 20-hour-plus flight, and the autonomously operated Crew Dragon will dock with the orbiting outpost some 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth.
The mission, representing a partnership among Axiom, SpaceX and NASA, has been touted by all three as a major step in the expansion of commercial space ventures collectively referred to by insiders as the low-Earth orbit economy, or “LEO economy” for short.
(With inputs from agencies)
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