SpaceX, Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk's aerospace company, successfully launched a crew of four astronauts on Friday, April 8, in the first all-private mission to the International Space Station.
'Liftoff of Falcon 9 and Dragon!'
The company's Dragon spacecraft launched atop a Falcon 9 booster from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The roughly 10-day mission is being conducted by the Houston-based commercial aerospace company Axiom Space.
This is SpaceX’s first private charter flight to the orbiting lab after two years of carrying astronauts there for NASA.
SpaceX tweeted footage of the liftoff at 11:18AM Friday morning, noting that this was the fifth flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster.
The company tweeted footage of Falcon 9 booster landing on a drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean after separating from the spacecraft.
"The Ax-1 crew will participate in educational outreach and conduct innovative research experiments while on the orbiting laboratory," SpaceX said in a statement.
A Series of Burns
SpaceX posted footage of the Dragon separating from Falcon 9's second stage.
The company also posted an illustration depicting a series of "burns", or orbital maneuvers, on its way to the space station for a targeted docking at 7:45AM ET on Saturday, April 9.
The crew consists of an American, Canadian and Israeli who run investment, real estate and other companies who are paying $55 million each for the rocket ride and accommodations, all meals included, according to the Associated Press.
Former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría is commanding the mission.
Larry Connor, founder of The Connor Group, is the pilot; Eytan Stibbe, a philanthropist and former Israeli fighter pilot, is a mission specialist, as is Mark Pathy, an entrepreneur and philanthropist from Montreal.
Russia has been hosting tourists at the space station — and before that the Mir station — for decades.
The visitors will have access to all but the Russian portion of the space station. They will need permission from the three cosmonauts on board.
'Absolutely Radical'
Lopez-Alegria told AP that he plans to avoid talking about politics and the war in Ukraine while he’s at the space station.
"Yo, I just saw the rocket on the way to school. Absolutely radical," one person said on Twitter.
"God speed AX1," tweeted another commenter who posted images of Grogu, or Baby Yoda, from the Disney (DIS) series "The Mandalorian."
"Me watching a rocket launch for the first time," one caption reads along side an astonished Grogu.
"Me watching a rocket launch for the 367th time," reads the second caption, next to the same image.
The launch caps off a big week for Musk, who disclosed that he now owned 9% of Twitter (TWTR), and switched his ownership from passive to active, in a likely bid to spark change at the company.
Musk also presided over the official opening of his Gigafactory in Austin, Texas with a massive party dubbed the Cyber Rodeo.
