STORY: A SpaceX rocket soared into orbit Friday, with a crew of four – including two U.S. astronauts – kicking off an eight-month science mission in microgravity.
A fireball lit up the predawn sky after the two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule dubbed “Freedom,” was launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral.
Nine minutes into its flight, the Falcon 9’s upper-stage rocket had accelerated to more than 17,000 miles per hour before thrusting the Crew Dragon into orbit. By then, the reusable lower-stage booster had flown itself back to Earth.
The crew includes NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, a veteran astronaut and marine biologist, as well as Jack Hathaway, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and rookie astronaut.
French astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev were also aboard.
They were set to reach the International Space Station Saturday afternoon after a 34-hour flight.
According to NASA, the team will get busy with scientific, medical and technical research in microgravity.
Their work includes studies of pneumonia-causing bacteria to improve treatments on Earth, and experiments with plant and nitrogen-fixing microbe interactions to boost food production in space.
Much of the science agenda is aimed at perfecting technologies that NASA hopes to deploy in future astronaut missions to the moon and Mars.