SpaceX’s the first private flight departed from Florida Wednesday evening with two contest winners, a health worker and their wealthy sponsor.
It was the first time a rocket launched into orbit with an exclusively amateur crew no professional astronaut on board.
Spectators at Titusville’s Space View Park, directly in front of the launch pad, applauded the rocket that thundered through the night NASA Kennedy Space Center.
The recycled SpaceX rocket was fired from the same launch pad as the company’s previous three astronaut flights. NASA.
But this time, the Dragon capsule aimed at an unusually high orbit, 100 miles higher than the International Space Station.
The two men and women in the Dragon capsule want to spend three days circling the world before splashing off the Florida coast.