The company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7.49am Eastern time today on a mission for NASA. While Ripley is traveling alone in the spacecraft, Crew Dragon will ultimately have space for up to seven astronauts to travel inside. Crew Dragon, however, is a more near-term goal of taking astronauts into Earth orbit, developed in partnership with NASA. The last American crewed launch took place in July 2011 with the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. SpaceX has one further test of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, an in-flight abort test in the coming months, before it can finally start launching humans.

Source: Forbes March 02, 2019 08:05 UTC