SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule has successfully docked at the International Space Station just over a day after it blasted off from Earth.
Elon Musk's newest spacecraft blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on top of a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday morning.
And just over 27 hours later, it successfully docked at the International Space Station during a live webcast from NASA in which loud cheers and applause could be heard from astronauts.
Later, crews at the ISS opened the hatches and went inside the spacecraft to take measures of the air quality.
The crew Dragon is the first American-made, designed-for-crew spacecraft to pull up to the station in eight years.
Just two hours after the Dragon's grand entrance, the station crew entered to take air samples. The astronauts wore oxygen masks and hoods until getting the all-clear.
Billionare Mr Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, posted a tweet confirming his new space capsule had docked successfully.
The only passenger for this journey was a life-size test dummy, named Ripley after the lead character in the "Alien" movies.
SpaceX needs to nail the debut of its crew Dragon capsule before putting people on board later this year.
The space craft launched at 2.49am local time (7.49am UK time) on Saturday.
This latest, flashiest Dragon reached the space station Sunday morning, just 27 hours after liftoff.
It will spend five days docked to the orbiting outpost, before making a retro-style splashdown in the Atlantic next Friday - all vital training for the next space demo, possibly this summer, when two astronauts strap in.
"This is critically important ... We're on the precipice of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil again for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. He got a special tour of the pad on the eve of launch, by SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk.
An estimated 5,000 NASA and contractor employees, tourists and journalists gathered in the wee hours at Kennedy Space Center with the SpaceX launch team, as the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the same spot where Apollo moon rockets and space shuttles once soared.
Looking on were the two NASA astronauts who will strap in as early as July for the second space demo, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. It's been eight years since Hurley and three other astronauts flew the last space shuttle mission, and human launches from Florida ceased.
Since ending its previous shuttle programme in 2011, the space agency has had to buy seats on board Russia's Soyuz spacecraft instead - an expensive arrangement, costing 81 million dollars a seat.
Alongside the dummy was equipment weighing about 400 pounds, to make it similar to future launches when people would be on board.
Nasa will be scrutinising data from the test, in hopes of awarding SpaceX with certification to carry a crew.
