NASA and SpaceX successfully launch astronauts from three different agencies to the ISS

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SpaceX and NASA launched four astronauts from three different space agencies to the International Space Station this morning using a recycled capsule and rocket.

The astronauts from the US, Japan and France, blasted off from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 10:49 BST. 

About ten minutes later, travelling at about 10,000 miles per hour, SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage delivered the Crew Dragon and its astronauts into a nominal orbit. 

SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on a pad, so it can be reused again in a future mission.  

Dragon is carrying NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)’s Akihiko Hoshide, and the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Thomas Pesquet, who is French.  

At about 11:02 BST the Dragon capsule, containing the four astronauts, separated from the Falcon 9 second stage and began its journey to the space station.

‘It is glad to be back in space from all of us and we will send our regards to Crew-1 when we get there,’ said Kimbrough. 

They are currently orbiting the Earth at about 17,000 miles per hour and will orbit the Earth over the next 23 hours catching up with the ISS before docking.

The Falcon 9 rocket that flew Crew-1 was used, along with the Crew Dragon Capsule Endeavour that housed Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley in May 2020.

Crew-2 was scheduled to blast off Thursday, but unfavourable weather along the Atlantic coast forced officials to delay it until the early this morning.  

It can be a long wait between being seated in the crew capsule and lifting off for the ISS, so while they waited for launch the crew played rock, paper, scissors.  

SpaceX founder Elon Musk was spotted at the Florida launch complex to watch the second flight of his Crew Dragon capsule to the ISS. 

Megan McArthur, wife of Bob Behnken who flew on the first SpaceX Crew Dragon mission will be seated in the same seat he occupied.

Being assigned to the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour was ‘a neat surprise, and kind of a fun twist on the whole thing,’ said McArthur.

The last time three agencies launched for the ISS from US soil was in 2022 on the Space Shuttle Endeavour.   

The US Space Force 45th Weather Squadron predicts a 90% chance of favourable weather conditions at the launch pad for liftoff of the Crew-2 mission based on Falcon 9 Crew Dragon launch weather criteria. 

For the first time, Elon Musk’s company is launching astronauts with a previously flown capsule and rocket, just as it’s done for station supply runs

This crew capsule launched with SpaceX’s first crew last May, in what was dubbed ‘Launch America.’

This was the first time in nine years that NASA astronauts launched in an American rocket to the ISS, as well as taking off from US soil. 

Behnken and Hurley also blasted off during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic – so the mission brought some hope back to the US and maybe even the world. 

 Jim Bridenstine, who was the NASA Administrator at the time, said in a May press conference people should pause and look up. 

‘Maybe there´s an opportunity here for America to maybe pause and look up and see a bright, shining moment of hope at what the future looks like, that the United States of America can do extraordinary things even in difficult times.’ 

The Crew-2 mission is carrying four astronauts in the second routine taxi ride by SpaceX to ISS since the US resumed crewed space flight, and the first with a European – a mission dubbed Alpha by the European Space Agency.

‘This is the third launch in less than a year: Demo-2, Crew-1, and now Crew-2,’ Jurczyk said during a pre-launch media briefing on Wednesday. 

‘I could not be more proud of the NASA and SpaceX teams.’

NASA’s spacecraft commander Kimbrough and his crew will spend six months at the space station, replacing four astronauts who will return next Wednesday in their own SpaceX capsule, parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico near Tallahassee, Florida.

However, during those six months Pesquet plans to dine like a king with a smorgasbord of treats that are unlike any space food before. 

The French astronaut is brining along lobster, beef bourguignon, cod with black rice, potato cakes with wild mushrooms and almond tarts with caramelized pears, The New York Times reports.

‘There’s a lot of expectations when you send a Frenchman into space,’ Pesquet said during a European Space Agency news conference last month. ‘I’m a terrible cook myself, but it’s OK if people are doing it for me.’

 He and his crewmates will feast on dishes prepared by three separate French culinary institutions, but the meals are only for special occasions.