SpaceX: successful takeoff for its first manned flight

The SpaceX rocket takes off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral on May 30, 2020. REUTERS / Steve Nesius

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American astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley flew this Saturday May 30 from the Kennedy space center in Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket, the first private company to be entrusted by NASA with the responsibility of transporting its precious astronauts. 

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Taking advantage of a clearing, a SpaceX rocket, the company founded by Elon Musk, took off at 3:22 p.m. ( 7:22 p.m. GMT) and placed in orbit the Crew Dragon capsule about ten minutes later, for its first manned flight, and the first launched by the United States since 2011.

We have liftoff. History is made as @NASA_Astronauts launch from @NASAKennedy for the first time in nine years on the @SpaceX Crew Dragon: pic.twitter.com/alX1t1JBAt

  NASA (@NASA) May 30, 2020

After completing its task of pulling the two men from Earth's gravity, the first stage of the 70-meter rocket separated as expected and returned to land, vertically, on a barge off Florida. SpaceX is the only company in the world to recover its launchers in this way.

First manned trip for SpaceX

The second stage of Falcon 9 then placed Dragon on the right orbit, in the direction of the International Space Station, which flies at more than 400 km above the oceans, at more than 27,000 km / h. In doing so, a camera broadcast the interior of the capsule live, showing the two men tied in their seats during their supersonic ascent.

"  Congratulations (...) on this first manned trip for Falcon 9, it was incredible,  " said astronaut Doug Hurley, commander of the spacecraft while Dragon was already traveling at 27,000 km / h, at around 200 km d 'altitude. The two men will reach the ISS on Sunday at 2:29 p.m. GMT.

President Donald Trump attended the launch in person a few miles away. "  Real geniuses, nobody does that like us,  " he said, stating that America's prowess in space would be "  one of the most important things we have ever done  ."

(With AFP)

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