This past Thursday (Oct. 1), four brave souls launched off our planet, headed to an orbiting laboratory where they will spend the next six months living and working.
What is it?
SpaceX's Crew-13 mission for NASA launched last week, sending four astronauts on a journey from Earth to the International Space Station (ISS). They lifted off on a Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
The crew consists of NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Watkins is commanding the mission, and it is her second time to space. Crew-13 is the first mission for the other three.
Crew-13 was originally supposed to launch on Sept. 12, but an issue with its Crew Dragon delayed things a bit. The mission launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, reaching orbit just 10 minutes later and the ISS in less than eight hours. No American spacecraft had ever chased down the orbiting lab in less time.
This photograph shows the moment of launch in striking black and white infrared, which really highlights the intense heat and power coming from the rocket.
Why is it incredible?
This image captures the drama and power of spaceflight. With smoke billowing out from under the rocket's fiery engines, it is incredible to think that in the tiny capsule on the very top of the rocket sit four human beings, strapped in, leaving our planet behind.
Rocket launches are exciting, but there is something especially amazing about sending people to outer space that separates these events from the others.
And, like other crewed missions, these astronauts have a big job ahead of them. They'll work alongside the other astronauts on the ISS on a variety of science experiments and perform maintenance on the station itself.
