SpaceX Crew-2 was launched late

The four astronauts were launched Friday morning (local time) with the help of the Falcon 9 launcher from Cape Canaveral space port in Florida, USA, SpaceX and NASA announced. Due to the unfavorable weather forecast, the originally scheduled start for Thursday has been postponed to Friday. The four astronauts are expected to arrive at the International Space Station on Saturday.

“Crew 2” consists of the American astronauts Shane Kimbro and Megan MacArthur, in addition to their Japanese colleagues Akihiko Hoshide and the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet. Pesquet is the first astronaut from the European Space Agency, Esa, to fly to the International Space Station aboard the “Crew Dragon”.

This is the second crew to be promoted to the International Space Station by SpaceX. The first ship – American astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, as well as their Japanese colleague Soishi Noguchi – docked at the International Space Station in November. They are scheduled to return to Earth at the end of April.

“Crew-1” was the first to regularly fly with a “Crew Dragon” to the International Space Station after a successful manned test last spring. After a hiatus of nearly nine years, the test marked the first time astronauts had returned to orbit from American soil – and the first time that they had ever been promoted by a private space company. SpaceX had previously only transported cargo to the International Space Station.