NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center launch pad to board their Falcon 9 rocket.
The pair drove up in Tesla sports cars _ a nod to SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk – after waving goodbye and giving air hugs to their families.
SpaceX is on the cusp of launching NASA astronauts into orbit, a first for a private company and a giant leap forward for the booming business of space travel.
The afternoon liftoff to the International Space Station is the first of Americans from the U.S. in nearly a decade.
Veteran astronauts Hurley and Behnken are riding aboard the brand new SpaceX Dragon capsule for the historic test flight.
Thunderstorms were a concern earlier Wednesday, both at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and along the Dragon’s path to orbit.
But SpaceX was able to launch the Falcon rocket at 4:33 p.m. EDT, using the same pad where men flew to the moon and the last space shuttle soared in 2011.
The launch puts Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the same league as only three countries — Russia, the U.S. and China, which sent astronauts into orbit in that order.
NASA pushed ahead with the launch despite the coronavirus pandemic, but asked spectators to stay at home to lower the risk of spreading the virus.
Beaches and parks along Florida’s Space Coast are open again, and local officials and businesses put out a socially distanced welcome mat. Signs along the main beach drag wished “Godspeed SpaceX.”
Hours before the launch, cars and RVs lined the causeway in Cape Canaveral, with prime views of the pad.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence planned to fly into Kennedy, where the guest list was exceedingly limited because of the pandemic.
NASA had input throughout the entire commercial crew process, including Wednesday’s countdown. But in the end, it was SpaceX giving the final go — with NASA’s concurrence.
Besides good weather at the launch site, SpaceX is counting on relatively calm waves and wind up the U.S. and Canadian seaboard and across the North Atlantic to Ireland, in case astronauts Hurley and Behnken need to make an emergency splashdown along the route to orbit.
The last time astronauts launched from Florida was on NASA’s final space shuttle flight in July 2011. Hurley was the pilot of that mission.
Hurley, 53, and Behnken, 49, are both two-time shuttle fliers.
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