KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. -- With Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi on board, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched the privately owned spacecraft Crew Dragon at 7:27 p.m. on Sunday (9:27 a.m. Monday, Japan time) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
The SpaceX spacecraft, carrying three other astronauts, entered its planned orbit about 12 minutes after liftoff. It is expected to dock at the International Space Station on Tuesday daytime, Japan time.
This will be the 55-year old Noguchi's third time staying at the ISS, having previously done so in 2005 and 2009-2010, also making him the oldest Japanese astronaut to stay there. Takao Doi went to the ISS at age 53 in 2008.
Noguchi has also become the first Japanese astronaut to fly to space in a privately owned spacecraft.
During his scheduled half-year residence in space, Noguchi will work with NASA astronauts to conduct medical experiments and microsatellite deployment from Japan's Kibo laboratory module at the ISS.
Crew Dragon is a state-of-art spacecraft featuring controls on touch screens developed by U.S. space company SpaceX, which was founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk.
In a manned test flight from May through August, Crew Dragon successfully sent astronauts to the ISS and returned to Earth.
This second manned mission is seen as the start of regular operations for sending people to the ISS, paving the way to full-fledged space development with privately developed spacecraft. It has already been decided that Noguchi's colleague Akihiko Hoshide, 51, will fly on the Crew Dragon next spring.
Previously, sending U.S. and Japanese astronauts to the ISS had depended on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft and rockets since the end of the U.S. Space Shuttle program in 2011.
Since fees on the Soyuz are expensive and launch timing cannot be freely controlled by NASA, SpaceX and Boeing Co. were commissioned in 2014 to develop manned spacecraft.
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