WASHINGTON: Four ast­ronauts were successfully launched on the SpaceX Crew Dragon “Resilience” to the International Space Station on Sunday, the first of what the US hopes will be many routine missions following a successful test flight in late spring.

Three Americans — Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker — and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi blasted off at 7:27 pm (0027 GMT Monday) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, thus ending almost a decade of international reliance on Russia for rides on its Soyuz rockets.

“This is a great day for the United States of America, and a great day for Japan,” said Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine during a post-launch press conference.

Twelve minutes after liftoff, at an altitude of 124 miles (200 kilometres) and a speed of 16,800 miles (27,000 kilometres) per hour, the capsule successfully separated from the second stage of the rocket.

“That was one heck of a ride,” said mission commander Hopkins from orbit.

SpaceX confirmed that it was on the right orbit to reach the ISS a little more than 27 hours later, at around 11pm on Monday night (0400 GMT Tuesday), joining two Russians and one American aboard the station, and stay for six months.

There was a problem with the cabin temperature control system, but it was quickly solved.

“She’s operating just fine,” said SpaceX president Glynne Shotwell during the press conference. But “we’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief, 26 or so hours from now, once we hand the crew over to Nasa.” SpaceX briefly transmitted live images from inside the capsule showing the astronauts in their seats, something neither the Russians nor the Americans had done before.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2020