SpaceX launches 4 astronauts for NASA after private flight

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Wednesday, less than two days after completing a flight chartered by millionaires.

It’s the first NASA crew comprised equally of men and women, including the first Black woman making a long-term spaceflight, Jessica Watkins.

“This is one of the most diversified, I think, crews that we’ve had in a really, really long time,” said NASA’s space operations mission chief Kathy Lueders.

The astronauts were due to arrive at the space station Wednesday night, 16 hours after a predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center that thrilled spectators.



A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, April 27, 2022. NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines, and Jessica Watkins, and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti on the Crew Dragon spacecraft begin a six-month expedition on the International Space Station. (AP Photo/John Raoux)


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