NASA and SpaceX celebrated the successful launch Saturday of a new astronaut capsule on a week-long round trip to the International Space Station – a key step towards resuming manned space flights from US soil after an eight-year break.
This time around, the only occupant on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule was a dummy named Ripley – but NASA plans to put two astronauts aboard later this year.
The new capsule blasted off aboard the Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX – run by billionaire Elon Musk – at 2:49 am from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, lighting up the coastline.