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.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program now is underway with the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon for a mission to the International Space station. The Falcon 9’s eight Merlin engines ignited at 2:49 a.m. EST on March 2, 2019.