This is the second of a two-part series on the history of commercial flight. For years, aerospace corporations took the world to the skies. Now these companies and more are supporting efforts well beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. The Space Age began on Oct. 4, 1957, with the launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union. An American satellite, Explorer 1, soon followed, with plans for sending humans into space in the near future.
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.
A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft lifts off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 11:50 p.m. EST on March 6, 2020. The Dragon spacecraft will deliver more than 4,300 pounds of NASA cargo and science investigations to the International Space Station.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the company’s 19th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station.