Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley successfully scrambled into the International Space Station (ISS) overnight, becoming the first cosmos-botherers to reach the floating lab in a commercial spacecraft.
The American astronauts clambered from the SpaceX Crew Dragon into the ISS around 12.30am Monday morning after a nineteen-hour voyage.
Their successful arrival on the ISS marks a pivotal moment for Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, which built and guided the Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the Falcon 9 rocket which powered the guys into the sky.
The launch also marked the first time since 2011 American astronauts had launched from home soil. A big day all around.
If you’d like to cop the moment both Behnken and Hurley rocked up, be our guests:
The folks are expected to stay on the ISS for at least a month, with their stay potentially stretching out to 110 days.
The New York Times reports they’ll be tasked with helping US astronaut Christopher Cassidy, who is already on the ISS after hitching a ride on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
They’ve joined Russian cosmonauts Anatoli Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, who are also orbiting Earth on the ISS.
Space: still very cool, even if there are serious questions to be asked about human space exploration down the line.
