History was created in the Space travel domain on 16 November, when the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience successfully docked to the International Space Station at 1101PM EST.

SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience is the first Commercial Human Spacecraft carrying 4 astronauts – Michael Hopkins, Victor Glower and Shannon Walker from NASA and Soichi Noguchi from JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). They are now part of part of the historical commercial Space travel mission undertaken jointly by NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

This first commercial human flight into space is known as the Commercial Crew Program and the first flight which docked ISS on November 16 is known as Crew – 1. There will be a total 6 commercial flights of this kind in the Commercial Crew Program series. The aim of this mission is to reduce the cost of going to space for agencies like NASA, facilitating greater scientific research.

Once this program is successfully completed, it will be possible for individuals to buy a ticket on a commercial rocket that will carry them into space. Hence, this is the beginning of a new era in Space travel.

NASA certified SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and the Falcon 9 Rocket last week, making it the first spacecraft certification provided by the premier Space agency. The other “firsts” in this mission for both NASA as well as SpaceX are as follows:

• It is the first flight of the NASA-certified commercial system
• It is the first international crew of 4 to launch on an American commercial spacecraft
• It is the first time ISS long duration expedition crew size will increase from 6 to 7

The 4 astronaut team of Crew Dragon joined the ISS team at 0110AM EST on Tuesday 17 November, when the hatches opened. Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA and Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov pf Roscosmos, who had landed into ISS earlier on October 14, welcomed the Crew Dragon team. This team of 9 together will conduct microgravity studies. Another experiment aboard the Crew Dragon aims to understand how spaceflight affects brain function. The spacecraft will also deliver over 500 pountds of cargo, science hardware and experiments to the ISS.

While the Crew Dragon spacecraft is capable of staying in orbit for 210 days, it will return in spring 2021, making it the longest human space mission launched from the US.