Tech Talk: Textbook launch as Musk’s SpaceX sends 4 astronauts to space station – Gulf Digital News

Tech Talk: Textbook launch as Musk’s SpaceX sends 4 astronauts to space station – Gulf Digital News

Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX launched four more astronauts into orbit on Wednesday en route to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, including a medical doctor turned spacewalker and a geologist specialising in Martian landslides.

The SpaceX launch vehicle - a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with a Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Freedom - lifted off shortly before 4:00 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral.

The three US astronauts and their European Space Agency (ESA) crewmate were due to reach the space station after a 16-hour-plus flight to begin a six-month science mission some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth, where they will be welcomed by a seven-person team including three Russian cosmonauts.

The mission marked the fourth full-fledged ISS crew NASA has launched aboard a SpaceX vehicle.

The private rocket venture founded by Musk - the owner of electric carmaker Tesla Inc who on Monday clinched a deal to buy social media platform Twitter - began flying US space agency astronauts in 2020.

With a system built around a fleet of reusable rockets and crew capsules, it has launched seven human spaceflights in all over the past two years.

That includes a four-man team organised by Houston-based company Axiom Space that splashed