{"id":423443,"date":"2026-02-13T10:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423443\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T10:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:50:08","slug":"watch-live-as-four-astronauts-blast-off-to-international-space-station-watch-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/423443\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch live as four astronauts blast off to International Space Station &#8211; watch live"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What to know about the Dragon and Falcon 9published at 09:44 GMT<\/p>\n<p>09:44 GMT<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Elon Musk unveils Dragon at an event in 2014 - its a large capsulte, mostly white, with a US flag on the side and a picture of a dragon. It's eight metres tall, and about four metres wide\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/877b129c-b382-4648-bdb6-3956cfc3157b.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">SpaceX&#8217;s Elon Musk first revealed the Crew Dragon spacecraft in 2014, six years before it first took astronauts into space<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The four crew members will be making their way to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX&#8217;s Crew Dragon spacecraft, which is being propelled by the company&#8217;s Falcon 9 rocket. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Falcon 9 will launch the the crew into orbit, before detaching from the Dragon capsule and returning to Earth &#8211; where it will land to be re-used another day. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Dragon will then use its own engines to meet up with and dock to the space station. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Since 2020, SpaceX has been Nasa&#8217;s main provider of transportation to the ISS. The company is operating as part of the space agency&#8217;s Commercial Crew programme, which replaced the retired Space Shuttle through flights by private companies. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Crew Dragon makes routine visits to the International Space Station and has been used for both Nasa and private missions.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A graphic details the parts of a Crew Dragon capsule including the nose cone, pressurised cabin section, trunk and solar panels\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/38c0350b-d2ba-45ae-b720-1751476d781c.jpg.webp.webp\"  width=\"976\" height=\"2011\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What to know about the Dragon and Falcon 9published at 09:44 GMT 09:44 GMT Image source, Getty ImagesImage&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-423443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}