Nasa, SpaceX send 4-man crew into orbit on flight to space station

CAPE CANAVERAL (Florida) • Nasa and private rocket company SpaceX launched four astronauts into orbit late on Wednesday, sending a veteran spacewalker, two younger crew mates chosen for future lunar missions and a German materials scientist on their way to the International Space Station.

The SpaceX-built launch vehicle, consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule and a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, blasted off from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (Nasa) Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at about 9pm local time (10am on Thursday, Singapore time), with a reddish fireball lighting up the night sky as its nine Merlin engines roared to life.

The lift-off of the Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance by the crew, was aired live from Cape Canaveral on Nasa TV, punctuated by the sound of cheers and applause from mission controllers.

As the Dragon separated from the upper rocket stage moments later, a launch engineer on the ground radioed to the crew: "Welcome to orbit. Hope you enjoyed the ride. Dragon will take you from here. Safe travels."

The three American astronauts and their European Space Agency (ESA) crew mate were due to arrive at the space station, orbiting some 400km above Earth, following a flight of about 22 hours.

The flight marks the sending of the third "operational" space station crew to orbit aboard a Dragon capsule since Nasa and SpaceX teamed up to resume space launches from American soil last year, following a nine-year hiatus at the end of the US space shuttle programme in 2011.

"Crew 3" includes two members of Nasa's latest graduating class of astronauts - Mr Raja Chari, 44, a US Air Force combat jet and test pilot serving as mission commander, and mission specialist Kayla Barron, 34, a US Navy submarine officer and nuclear engineer.

The team's designated pilot and second-in-command is veteran astronaut Tom Marshburn, 61, a medical doctor and former Nasa flight surgeon who has logged two previous space flights to the space station and four spacewalks.

Rounding out the crew is ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, 51, of Germany, a materials science engineer.

Mr Chari, Dr Maurer and Ms Barron were all making their debut spaceflights, becoming the 599th, 600th and 601st humans in space.

Both Mr Chari and Ms Barron are among the first group of 18 astronauts selected for Nasa's upcoming Artemis missions, aimed at returning humans to the Moon later this decade, over a half century after the Apollo lunar programme ended.

Nasa has extolled space station missions in low-Earth orbit as critical training grounds and incubators for technologies that will help achieve the goals of a sustainable lunar presence and eventual human flights to Mars.

The launch is SpaceX's fifth crewed flight in 17 months and the fourth under Nasa's public-private partnership with the rocket company, founded in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk.

REUTERS