SpaceX launch: 4 astronauts take off in Falcon 9, head for ISS

- Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX has launched four astronauts into orbit to keep the International Space Station (ISS) fully staffed

- The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has a capsule with the astronauts called the SpaceX Crew Dragon

- Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi are the astronauts aboard the capsule

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Elon Musk's SpaceX has launched four astronauts into orbit in a NASA mission to keep the International Space Station (ISS) fully staffed. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has the SpaceX Crew Dragon on boarrd.

Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi are the NASA astronauts aboard the capsule that is expected to dock with the ISS on Monday at 11pm ET (Tuesday, 6am CAT).

The crew will be in orbit for 27 hours as the spacecraft manoeuvres toward its destination. NASA first planned to launch on Saturday but due to bad weather, they delayed the take-off to Sunday evening.

According to CNN, SpaceX's Crew Dragon was officially certified as a spacecraft worthy of carrying people last week while National Geographic reported that rocket launched through the nighttime sky over Cape Canaveral in Florida,

Take a look at the launch below:

Take a look at some of the responses to the launch below:

@TomDuell tweeted:

"Congratulations to @NASA and the entire @SpaceX team! Beautiful launch!"

@Jayb1970NUFC said:

"Fantastic launch, safe journey guys. #spacexlaunch."

@Sxndeeep added:

"Congratulations to both @SpaceX & @NASA for the launch yesterday. This was the Dragon’s first operational crew mission to the Intl’ Space Station. A leap forward!"

Briefly.co.za recently reported on SpaceX after they launched their Starlink broadband internet service. The Starlink broadband internet service has recently released its pricing for a beta test aimed at the public.

The service will be beamed to users through small satellites. A school district in the Texas area, as well as local US government entities, are currently already using the service. Now the service is being offered out to a small select group of consumers before going global.

The 'Better than Nothing Beta programme' is set to start its initial service for both the US and Canada this year. "Near-global coverage of the populated world" is set to occur next year with no specific dates laid out yet.

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Source: Briefly News