SpaceX teams with NASA on its first crewed spacecraft trip to the ISS

By Georgina Torbet Published March 2, 2019

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is rolled onto the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA/Joel Kowsky

In a joint project between NASA and SpaceX, the Crew Dragon spacecraft was successfully launched before dawn today. The craft will be traveling to the International Space Station (ISS) with supplies for the ISS crew and a dummy passenger to test the safety of eventually ferrying real passengers. This was SpaceX’s first launch of a crewed spaceship, and the launch was such a success that it almost brought CEO Elon Musk to tears.

Recommended Videos

The launch was not only important for SpaceX but also for the American space program. Fewer manned spacecraft missions have taken off from American locations in recent years as launch sites near the equator are more efficient, but this launch took place from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

“This mission is an important step in returning human spaceflight to American soil,” Steve Stich, NASA launch manager and deputy manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “SpaceX and NASA teams are working side-by-side on this mission from start to finish as we have throughout this process. This flight test will inform the system design, operations and drive any changes that need to be made ahead of crew flights. We are ready to learn by flying.”

The launch used a Falcon 9 rocket and took off from Launch Complex 39A, overseen from Kennedy Space Center’s historic Launch Control Center Firing Room 4. This is the same location which oversaw the countdown and liftoff of the most recent 15 space shuttle missions. The aim of the launch is to test whether the craft’s autonomous systems are able to maneuver correctly and to dock with the ISS when the craft arrives there.

All went smoothly in the launch which was a great relief to Musk. “I’m a little emotionally exhausted,” he said in a post-launch press conference. He also told space.com he was happy his company was making progress towards his ultimate aim of a manned spacecraft launch: “The whole goal of SpaceX was crewed spaceflight. Improved space exploration technologies,” he said. “That’s actually the full name of the company, Space Exploration Technologies.”

Georgina Torbet

Former Space Writer

Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

Topics

Cars

A new AI model wants self-driving cars to think before they swerve

Forget guessing games, this self-driving AI actually shows its work.

Self driving car

Self-driving cars have gotten pretty good at driving. The harder problem is teaching them to drive safely in situations nobody planned for. We have heard horror stories of self-driving cars, behaving erratically in emergency situations, often times delaying first responders from reaching the scene.

A team at Seoul National University, led by professor Jun Won Choi from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, thinks they have cracked part of that puzzle with a new AI model called SafeDrive. The research was recently selected as a highlight paper at CVPR 2026, a distinction that goes only to roughly 3% of all submissions.

Emerging Tech

An AirPods-sized mini lab could help catch disease markers in minutes

Meet VPodDuo, an AirPods-sized molecular testing gadget

VPodDuo Mini Medical Device

Home testing could eventually become a lot more convenient. Researchs at the at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has developed the VPodDuo, a pocket-sized fluorescence reader designed to measure sensitive molecular tests outside a conventional laboratory.

Its housing is roughly comparable in size and shape to an AirPods charging case, while Bluetooth connectivity sends results directly to a smartphone. Meaning, you might not have to wait in line anymore.

Emerging Tech

Your future AR glasses might finally stop making the real world look weird

Researchers have developed a new display technique that keeps virtual objects realistic without dimming the real world.

Samsung AR Glasses

One of the biggest promises of augmented reality is blending digital objects seamlessly into the real world. Ironically, today's AR glasses often make the real world harder to see. Researchers at the Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) in Japan, led by Assistant Professor Xiaodan Hu in collaboration with Dr. Yan Zhang and Professor Xubo Yang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, and Professor Kiyoshi Kiyokawa from Japan's Nara Institute of Science and Technology, have developed a new AR display technique that aims to make virtual objects look realistic without reducing visibility of the real world. The study was published in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

The biggest AR problem isn't virtual objects; it's everything around them