Astronaut Douglas Hurley channeled his inner-Alan Shepard on Saturday afternoon. Moments later, SpaceX and NASA made history with a successful launch into space.
On May 5, 1961, U.S. astronaut Shepard, frustrated by sitting in his space capsule for four hours during delays in the launch of his Mercury mission, told mission controllers, “‘fix your little problem and light this candle.”
Shepard became the first American in space that day, though his suborbital flight lasted less than 15 minutes.
Hurley and fellow astronaut Robert Behnken launched from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Pad 39A at 3:22 p.m. EDT aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, a flight that was scrubbed due to weather on Wednesday and was threatened by weather again on Saturday.
Once it became clear the flight was a go, Hurley echoed Shepard’s comments moments before liftoff.
“Light this candle!” he told mission controllers.
Minutes later, just before the Crew Dragon reached orbit, Hurley said the ascent was incredible.
“Thanks for the great ride to space,” he said.
Today’s launch also marks the start of the commercial crew era of U.S. human spaceflight and marks the first time astronauts have launched from American soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station is a critical final flight test of the SpaceX crew transportation system.
The launch was witnessed first-hand by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
The rocket and systems were built by SpaceX, a private California-based company founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk. It’s being funded by the U.S. government under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
In 2010, NASA changed from space flight being a government-funded venture to contracting with private companies for low-Earth orbit efforts, allowing the agency to focus on longer-range missions, perhaps back to the moon in a few years.
“What a great day for NASA, what a great day for SpaceX, and what a great day for the United States of America,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “It’s been nine years since we’ve launched American astronauts on American rockets from American soil, and now we have done it again.”
Musk also expressed gratitude.
“I’d like to just acknowledge the incredible work of the people at SpaceX and NASA and everyone who created this technology – what has culminated in this incredible launch today, getting astronauts back to orbit after almost a decade,” Musk said. “We need to bring them back safely, and we need to repeat these missions and have this be a regular occurrence. There’s a lot of work to do.”
Crew Dragon will perform a series of phasing maneuvers to gradually approach and dock with the International Space Station on Sunday at approximately 10:29 a.m. EDT.
