Your trusted source

US aeronautics company SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company, DW reported.

The Falcon 9 rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying three Americans and one Japanese in what was the second crew to be launched by SpaceX.

The newly designed Crew Dragon capsule has been dubbed Resilience by the crew in light of this year's many challenges, most notably the coronavirus pandemic.

The capsule is due to reach the space station late Monday and will remain there until spring. The 27-hour-long flight, door-to-door, will be fully automated but the crew can take control at any time.

The Resilience crew included commander Michael Hopkins, along with two other NASA astronauts, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker. They were joined by Soichi Noguchi who was making his third trip to space after previously flying on the US shuttle in 2005 and the Russian Soyuz in 2009.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk was unable the attend the launch after he tweeted that he "most likely" had a moderate case of COVID-19.