Moscow, May 31: US President Donald Trump has called the successful launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket with two NASA astronauts, the first time that a private company is launching astronauts into orbit, “an act of history.”
“A new age of American ambition has now begun. Past leaders put the United States at the mercy of foreign nations to send our astronauts into orbit. Not any more,” Trump said on Saturday, adding that the first launch of NASA astronauts from the United States since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011, is “an act of history.”
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, said at a press conference after the launch that his company was going to do everything to ensure that the NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, get back to Earth safe.
NASA Astronaut Doug Hurley said in a video, released on Twitter, that he and Behnken were naming SpaceX’s first crew-carrying Dragon capsule “Endeavor.”
“We chose Endeavor for a few reasons, one because of this incredible endeavor that NASA, SpaceX and the United States has been on ? the other reason we named it in Endeavor is a little more personal, we both had our first flights on Shuttle Endeavor and it just meant so much to us to carry on that name,” Hurley said over a space-to-ground video link after the Saturday launch.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule carrying two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) successfully lifted off from the Florida space center on Saturday. Docking with the ISS will be completed on Sunday. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will join Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and US astronaut Chris Cassidy.
(AGENCIES)
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