A SpaceX Falcon 9 streaked into the early morning sky from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launching four astronauts to the International Space Station. The Crew-2 mission is the first to fly two astronauts from other nations as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket took place at 5:49 a.m. EDT April 23, 2021.
After 64 days in space, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken returned to Earth on Aug. 2, 2020 completing Demo-2, the agency’s first Commercial Crew mission. Liftoff atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took place May 30, 2020, from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center. Due to Tropical Storm Isaias moving up the east coast of Florida, landing was moved to the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida.
When NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken lifted off from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center on May 30, 2020, it marked the beginning of a new era of human spaceflight. When they arrived at the International Space Station, they marked the milestone by capturing an American flag in a competition that started almost a decade earlier.
A new era of human spaceflight launched at 3:22 p.m. EDT on May 30, 2020 as American astronauts once again lifted off on an American rocket from American soil headed for the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft successfully docked at the International Space Station the next day.
NASA has scheduled the first piloted flight launched by the United States since the final Space Shuttle mission in July 2011. The SpaceX Demonstration Mission-2 returns a human space flight capability to American soil for the first time in nine years ending the nation’s reliance on Russia to transport crews to the International Space Station.