CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company.
The Falcon rocket thundered into the night from Kennedy Space Center with one Japanese and three American astronauts, the second crew to be launched by SpaceX. The Dragon capsule on top — named Resilience by its crew in light of this year’s many challenges, most notably COVID-19 — was due to reach the space station late Monday and remain there until spring.
“By working together through these difficult times, you’ve inspired the nation, the world and, in no small part, the name of this incredible vehicle, Resilience,” Commander Mike Hopkins said right before liftoff.
Once reaching orbit, he radioed: “That was one heck of a ride.”
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk, sidelined by the virus, was forced to monitor the action from afar. He tweeted that he “most likely” had a moderate case of COVID-19. NASA policy at Kennedy Space Center requires anyone testing positive for coronavirus to quarantine and remain isolated.
Sunday’s launch follows by just a few months SpaceX’s two-pilot test flight. It kicks off what NASA hopes, after years of delay, will be a long series of crew rotations between the U.S. and the space station. More people means more science research at the orbiting lab, according to officials.
Cheers and applause erupted at SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, Calif., after the capsule reached orbit and the first-stage booster landed on a floating platform in the Atlantic. Mr. Musk tweeted a single red heart.
The flight to the space station — 27½ hours door to door — should be entirely automated, although the crew can take control if needed.
With COVID-19 still surging, NASA continued the safety precautions put in place for SpaceX’s crew launch in May. The astronauts went into quarantine with their families in October. All launch personnel wore masks, and the number of guests at Kennedy was limited. Even the two astronauts on the first SpaceX crew flight stayed behind at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the National Space Council, traveled from Washington and joined NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine to watch the launch.
“I didn’t start breathing until about a minute after it took off,” Mr. Pence said during a stop at SpaceX Launch Control to congratulate the workers.
Outside the space center gates, spectators crowded into nearby beaches and towns.
NASA worried a weekend liftoff — coupled with a dramatic nighttime launch — could lead to a superspreader event. They urged the crowds to wear masks and maintain safe distances. (Similar pleas for SpaceX’s first crew launch on May 30 went unheeded.)
The three-man, one-woman crew led by Air Force Col. Hopkins, named their capsule Resilience in a nod not only to the pandemic, but also the racial injustice protests and contentious politics that gripped the nation this year. It’s about as diverse as space crews come, including physicist Shannon Walker; Navy Cmdr. Victor Glover, the first Black astronaut on a long-term space station mission; and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, who became the first person in almost 40 years to launch on three types of spacecraft.
They rode out to the launch pad in Teslas — another Musk company — after exchanging high-fives and hand embraces with their children and spouses, who huddled at the open car windows. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, standing in for Mr. Musk, bade the astronauts farewell.
Besides its sleek design and high-tech features, the Dragon capsule is quite spacious: It can carry up to seven people. Previous space capsules have launched with no more than three. The extra room in the capsule was used for science experiments and supplies.
The four astronauts will be joining two Russians and one American who flew to the space station last month from Kazakhstan. The space station soared over the launch site a mere half-minute before liftoff.
The first-stage booster — aiming for an ocean platform several minutes after liftoff — is expected to be recycled by SpaceX for the next crew launch. That’s currently planned for the end of March, which would set up the newly launched astronauts for a return to Earth in April. SpaceX would then launch yet another crew in late summer or early fall.
SpaceX and NASA want that booster recovered so badly that they delayed the launch attempt by a day, to give the floating platform time to reach its position in the Atlantic over the weekend following rough seas.
Boeing, NASA’s other contracted crew transporter, is trailing SpaceX by a year. A repeat of last December’s software-plagued test flight without a crew is off until sometime early next year, with the first astronaut flight of the Starliner capsule not expected before summer.
NASA turned to private companies to haul cargo and crew to the space station, after the shuttle fleet retired in 2011. SpaceX qualified for both. With Kennedy back in astronaut-launching action, NASA can stop buying seats on Russian Soyuz rockets. The last one cost $90 million.
The commander of SpaceX’s first crew, Doug Hurley, noted it’s not just about saving money or easing the training burdens for crews.
“Bottom line: I think it’s just better for us to be flying from the United States if we can do that,” he told The Associated Press last week.
Updated Nov. 15, 2020, 9:13 p.m.
First Published: November 16, 2020, 12:49 a.m.