SpaceX Launches Crew-7 Astronauts To The Space Station: LIFTOFF

SpaceX Dragon Endurance, carrying four astronauts, lifted off atop a brand-new Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A at 0727 UTC NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The booster's reusable first stage shut down and separated from the upper stage approximately 2 minutes and 40 seconds into the launch; it then performed a boost-back engine burn and returned to Earth about 7.5 minutes after liftoff, at Landing Zone-1, next door to KSC at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

While it was the first launch and landing for this particular Falcon first stage, the Crew Dragon Endurance, have also flown on SpaceX's Crew-3 and Crew-5 missions to the International Space Station, ISS.

 Jasmin Moghbeli is Crew-7's commander. European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, from Denmark, is the pilot; he's the first ESA astronaut to hold that title as part of a Dragon crew. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Konstantin Borisov, of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, are flying as Crew-7 mission specialists. This will also be Borisov's first mission to space(Mogensen and Furukawa are veterans).

"SpaceX, thanks for the ride. It was awesome," Moghbeli told SpaceX launch control. "We may have four crewmembers on board from four different nations, Denmark, Japan, Russia and the United States, but we're a united team with a common mission." The crew used a small plush three-toed sloth as its mascot and zero-gravity indicator to show they reached space. The doll was picked by Mogensen's children and family.

Crew-7 will ride on Dragon Endurance in a nearly 30 hours journey to the ISS, arriving at the orbital lab on Sunday morning (Aug. 27). The astronauts will then begin a six-month stint of science investigations and station maintenance as part of Expeditions 69 and 70.

SpaceX reportedly detected what may have been an extremely small leak of nitrogen tetroxide, a propellant used on Dragon, during the countdown, but found it was well within margins, Benji Reed, senior director of human spaceflight for SpaceX, told reporters after the launch. SpaceX engineers cleared the issue just about 2 minutes before liftoff. "It was low in the count," Reed said.

Endurance will join another Crew Dragon at the orbiting lab -- Endeavour, which arrived in early March but is now getting ready to leave.

"The Crew-6 undock will be five days after this vehicle is there. That's enough time for a good handover between the two crews and such that the Crew-7 guys are ready to rock and roll," Joel Montalbano, manager of NASA's ISS Program, said on Monday (Aug. 21) during a press conference announcing the results of the Crew-7 flight readiness review.

Crew-7 is SpaceX's eighth astronaut mission for NASA (seven operational flights and one crewed test flight) and the rocket company's 11th crewed mission overall. SpaceX has flown three private crewed flights, two of which visited the ISS. The Elon Musk's owned company has also been busy, recently sending 5000th Starlink satellite to orbit; and carried out a second static fire test of its Super Heavy Booster 9 rocket, as it prepares to launch Starship, the company's most powerful spacecraft.

WATCH SpaceX launch Crew-7 astronauts from KSC