SpaceX Crew-2 Launch

Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, left, and Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, right, monitor the countdown of the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft on the Crew-2 mission with NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide onboard, Friday, April 23, 2021, in firing room four of the Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission is the second crew rotation mission of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet, and Hoshide launched at 5:49 a.m. EDT, from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center to begin a six month mission onboard the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)