A silhouette of SpaceX's Crew Dragon coasts over Earth's blue horizon in this breathtaking photo by NASA astronaut Anne McClain.
"The dawn of a new era in human spaceflight," McClain tweeted along with this photo, shortly after the Crew Dragon docked with the International Space Station on Sunday (March 3). SpaceX's Crew Dragon is the first commercial-crew vehicle to ever dock with the space station, and it's the first to launch from U.S. soil since NASA's space shuttle program ended in 2011.
Although the Crew Dragon flew without a crew this time (except for a "dummy" astronaut named Ripley and a Celestial Buddies Earth plushy), SpaceX plans to start launching humans in the Dragon as early as this summer — that is, if the capsule's landing goes according to plan on Friday (March 8). Another commercial crew vehicle, Boeing's CST-100 Starliner, is also scheduled for a test flight to the space station next month.
Related: SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-1 Test Flight in Pictures
In the photo, the cone-shaped space capsule appears as a silhouette as what appears to be a sunrise lights up the atmosphere with shades of blue, orange and red. However, it's possible that this photo was taken during a sunset. Because the International Space Station circles the planet about once every 90 minutes, the astronauts witness 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets a day, and the sun is either rising or setting every 45 minutes.
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Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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