At about 5:50 this past Friday morning, with four astronauts from three different countries launched into space in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon rocket. Taking off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the crew members had a smooth ride through the atmosphere.
The crew members are NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet. This is the first time in history that two international astronauts have ridden in the capsule.
Their destination is the International Space Station (ISS), where they will meet four other astronauts who have been stationed there since November. They should reach the station at about 5:10 in the morning on Saturday. Astronauts on the ISS perform experiments that are specific to the antigravity environment, and help with the upkeep of the space station before heading back to Earth. Their return date is set for Wednesday of next week- the 28th of April.
If you were awake the morning of the launch, you were able to see something pretty spectacular. The rocket itself created a beautiful image, with orange tinted fumes seen during the launch. When the rocket booster detached from the capsule, it created a colorful display in the pre-dawn sky, with even more orange and blue tinted fumes, visible from all over the nation.
The reusable rocket piece landed exactly where expected in the Atlantic Ocean, and with two previous launches, it seems to promise even more SpaceX voyages in the future.