NASA / Rick Wetherington, Tim Powers and Tim Terry
Dragon C2+ Lifts Off...Finally! At 12:44 AM, Pacific Daylight Time today, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Dragon C2+ capsule successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Florida. After months of launch delays, Dragon C2+ is finally headed to the International Space Station (ISS)...where Dragon will arrive this Friday, May 25th. This morning's historic moment for human spaceflight was definitely (and obviously) heralded at the SpaceX headquarters based in Hawthorne, California—with more than a thousand SpaceX employees (who stood inside a viewing area right behind the Mission Control Center) cheering and clapping enthusiastically as a projection screen showed Falcon 9 slowly but steadily rising from its pad at CCAFS' Space Launch Complex-40. The applause was even stronger once footage was shown of Dragon C2+'s twin solar arrays flawlessly deploying after the spacecraft separated from its second stage motor in Earth orbit. More applause is expected this Friday, when Dragon will be berthed to the ISS via robotic arm.
SpaceX
Should Dragon successfully berth with the ISS on May 25, it will stay at the outpost till May 31...before departing the space station and re-entering Earth's atmosphere that same day. Like the previous Dragon flight in December, 2010, this capsule will also land and be recovered in the Pacific Ocean—hundreds of miles off the coast of Southern California.
NASA / Alan Ault
SpaceX
NASA TV
SpaceX
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