Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft has been launched from Launch Complex 39A on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard, Saturday, May 30, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Demo-2 mission is the first launch with astronauts of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. The test flight serves as an end-to-end demonstration of SpaceX’s crew transportation system. Behnken and Hurley launched at 3:22 p.m. EDT on Saturday, May 30, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. A new era of human spaceflight is set to begin as American astronauts once again launch on an American rocket from American soil to low-Earth orbit for the first time since the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.
This historic event heralds a new dawning for Engineers, and those interested in Space. Assuming the program runs smoothly to ISS, the next steps will be to the Moon and Mars – all in your live times. Secondly, those like myself who followed the Apollo Space Program, and witnessed the Space Shuttle launches will have the passions of their youth reignited.
Warmest congratulations from Bishop GmbH to Elon Musk, all at Space X, NASA and the suppliers for a superb achievement – well done. More importantly, at a time of international tension and crisis, Covid-19 pandemic, rioting, despair in many areas in the world – this is a great example of what humanity can achieve when “we all work together”.
I hope this event will stimulate young people, and those seeking meaningful careers, to enter the Aerospace Industry