This image shows the Dragon Endeavour approaching the International Space Station on May 31, 2020, over part of southwestern Turkey—including the coastal city of Demre (gray area below the spacecraft)—in the background. Dragon Endeavour docked successfully with the ISS about nineteen hours after reaching orbit. It arrived at the station’s Harmony port while both were about 262 miles (422 kilometers) above the border of China and Mongolia.
For the first time in nine years, NASA astronauts were launched from American soil on an American rocket, and for the first time in history, those astronauts flew on a commercially built and operated spacecraft.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off at 3:22 p.m. EDT on May 30, 2020, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The spacecraft was launched atop a reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Behnken and Hurley named their spacecraft Endeavour as a tribute to the first space shuttle that both astronauts had flown aboard. Endeavour also flew the penultimate mission of the Space Shuttle Program, launching in May 2011 from the same pad.
Read the original post, "Astronauts Launch from American Soil," from NASA's Earth Observatory.
Last Updated: June 3, 2020
Editor: Brian Dunbar
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario