Since 2011, astronauts travelling to the International Space Station had to take a Russian Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan. May 30th 2020, SpaceX successfully launched two astronauts from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

You can watch the launch on the NASA YouTube channel (below).

Not only was this the first manned launch from the USA since 2011, it’s also the first manned launch by a private company.

The two astronauts are Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. They’re aboard the Dragon Spacecraft that sits atop the Falcon 9 rocket. There’s actually room for seven passengers on board, but I guess they’re taking some luggage as they’ll be aboard the ISS for a while.

Space X previously tested the entire process – this launch should look just like the last one.

You can read more about the mission here: https://www.spacex.com/launches/ and here: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/dm2/

Wishing astronauts Behnken and Hurley a safe and successful mission.