The Falcon 9 lifts off from Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center yesterday.
The SpaceX launch is the first of American astronauts from US soil since the space shuttle programme ended in 2011 and the first crewed flight ever by a private company.“This is hopefully the first step on a journey towards civilization on Mars,” the SpaceX founder said. Behnken, 49, and Hurley, 53, former military test pilots who joined Nasa in 2000, are scheduled to dock with the space station at 10.29am on Sunday.
The mission comes amid the coronavirus crisis and protests in multiple US cities over the death of a black man in Minneapolis while he was being arrested by a white police officer. They went through the same preparations Saturday that they went through on Wednesday, donning their futuristic SpaceX-designed spacesuits four hours before launch.