SpaceX Crew Dragon Launch Heralds

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in the predawn darkness this morning (March 2), kicking off its maiden flight to the International Space Station.

“Tonight was a big night for the United States of America, a great night for NASA,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said this morning during a post-launch press briefing here. “What today really represents is a new era in spaceflight.”

The private spaceship isn’t carrying any passengers on its 6-day mission, which is known as Demo-1. But a successful flight — fingers crossed — will help pave the way for crewed journeys to and from the orbiting lab aboard Crew Dragon, returning human spaceflight to American soil for the first time since the 2011 retirement of NASA’s space shuttle fleet.