SpaceX Rocket Launches Astronauts To International Space Station  

SpaceX launched its third crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) early Friday morning under darkness. 

A SpaceX Crew Dragon aboard a Falcon 9 rocket carrying four astronauts blasted towards low Earth orbit around 0549 ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Dragon capsule should dock at the ISS around 0510 ET Saturday. 

Here’s the liftoff of Falcon 9 and Dragon.

Liftoff of Falcon 9 and Dragon! pic.twitter.com/g6Oi8qwU2Y

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 23, 2021

“Main engine cutoff and stage separation confirmed. Second stage engine burn underway,” SpaceX tweeted. 

Main engine cutoff and stage separation confirmed. Second stage engine burn underway pic.twitter.com/dyvxICjavF

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 23, 2021

Dragon capsule has separated from the Falcon 9 rocket and is on the way to ISS. 

Dragon has separated from Falcon 9’s second stage and is on its way to the @space_station! Autonomous docking tomorrow at ~5:10 a.m. EDT pic.twitter.com/rg1QjZEl9u

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 23, 2021

The astronauts are two Americans, one Japanese and one French. They will continue efforts aboard the 21-year-old ISS, which orbits about 250 miles above the ground. This week, we noted that Russia would withdraw from the aging ISS by 2025 to build a space station of its own. 

Once the astronauts arrive at the ISS early Saturday morning, they will join seven other astronauts and cosmonauts. According to Axios, four crewmembers of the ISS will fly back to Earth next week. 

The latest SpaceX mission comes one week after NASA awarded SpaceX $2.9 billion to develop a lunar landing system to shuttle astronauts to the moon and back.