Four astronauts took off for the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX capsule Wednesday evening.
Why it matters: The launch marks yet another successful SpaceX-crewed flight to orbit and one that will help staff the space station for NASA.
Driving the news: The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the four new crew members took flight at 9:03p.m. ET on Wednesday.
- The Dragon capsule is carrying NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, and Kayla Barron alongside European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer.
- The crew is expected to dock with the space station on Thursday at about 7:10p.m. ET.
- SpaceX successfully returned a different crew of astronauts to Earth from the space station earlier this week.
The big picture: Boeing is also planning to start flying people to the International Space Station under a contract with NASA at some point in the not-too-distant future.
- The company is expected to launch a repeat of an uncrewed test of its Starliner capsule in the first half of 2022, with a crewed test expected to fly sometime after that.
