NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 Flight Day 1 Highlights {Expedition 68 .}

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 astronauts lifted off at 12 p.m. EDT Wednesday, Oct. 5, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, bound for the International Space Station for the fifth commercial crew rotation mission aboard the microgravity laboratory. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled the Crew Dragon spacecraft with NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, into orbit to begin a long-duration science mission on the space station. The Crew Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance, will dock autonomously to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module at 4:57 p.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 6.