Washington: A SpaceX rocket lifted off from Florida on Sunday night carrying a crew of three U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on their way to the International Space Station (ISS) to begin a six-month science mission in Earth orbit.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Endeavor was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, along Florida’s Atlantic coast, at 10:53 p.m. EST (0353 GMT Monday).
A live NASA-SpaceX webcast showed the 25-story-tall rocketship ascending from the launch tower as its nine Merlin engines roared to life in billowing clouds of vapour and a reddish fireball that lit up the night sky.
The four crew members were scheduled to reach the space station early on Tuesday after a 16-hour flight, docking with the orbital laboratory some 250 miles (420 km) above Earth.
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