SpaceX releases stunning video of Crew Dragon spacecraft approaching ISS

SPACEX scored another win for the private space travel industry by successfully docking at the International Space Station (ISS).

The mission brought a four-person crew to the ISS for a planned expedition.

The International Space Station alongside a rendering of a ship that could eventually replace it

The crew left Earth at 17,500 miles per hour in the acclaimed and reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

According to SpaceX, it took the astronauts about 16 hours to get from the takeoff site at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the welcoming dock of the ISS.

While aboard, the crew will conduct over 200 “science experiments and technology demonstrations.”

One of the studies Crew-4 astronauts will delve into is searching for ways to make cement in space for future use on a lunar or Martian colony.

After liftoff, the crew orbited the Earth about one-and-a-half times before activating a final thruster burn to propel the ship to the ISS.

It’s during this orbiting period that the Falcon 9 rocket separates from the Dragon capsule.

The Dragon module docked at the ISS fully autonomously.

Once docked, the cabin pressurizes, the hatch opens and the astronauts come face to face with the seven astronauts currently aboard the ISS.

The Crew-4 astronauts are slated to stay aboard the ISS for six months – the standard mission duration according to Nasa.

Astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Kjell Lindgren are making their second trip to the ISS.

Cristoforetti was last in space in 2014 on a European Space Agency mission, and Lindgren last left Earth in 2015 as a flight engineer for Nasa.

Now, they’ve reached the ISS as agents of the SpaceX brand.

Some are troubled by the privatization of space – Nasa had served as a political unifier between the right and left for many years during the Cold War.

But it is clear visionaries like Elon Musk have the gumption to globalize the space travel effort by way of the private sector.