A new history was written last Saturday. The US space agency NASA launched two astronauts to the space station (ISS = International Space Station) on a rocket from the privately owned space exploration company SpaceX.
This is the first time astronauts has been sent into space by a private company. No such incident has taken place before. In the past, all the organizations that astronauts sent into space were through the government agencies of those countries.
The spacecraft takeoff from the 39A pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. There are two NASA astronauts in it. They are Robert Benken and Douglas Harley.
The astronauts started the journey with the SpaceX company's Falcon 9 rocket. It will take about 19 hours to reach the space station.
