SpaceX launches 4 astronauts to International Space Station
SpaceX on Sunday night launched four astronauts to the International Space Station, the first operational flight of the Dragon spacecraft.
Last week, NASA certified the Dragon as the first privately owned and operated spacecraft to be used for human spaceflight.
The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with astronauts Michael Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Victor Glover of NASA and Soichi Noguchi of Japan's JAXA space agency on board. It will take about 27.5 hours for the crew to reach the International Space Station, where they will stay for six months. The astronauts will join two Russians and one American already at the ISS.
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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