SpaceX NASA crew dock after 'slick' flight
"The Dragon was a slick vehicle, we had good air flow, we had an excellent evening, and we're just excited to be back in low earth orbit again," Behnken said, after he was asked by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine if they got any sleep and how the flight was.
The launch on Saturday by SpaceX, the private rocket company of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, represented another milestone for the reusable rockets it pioneered to make spaceflight less costly and more frequent.
It also marked the first time that commercially developed space vehicles - owned and operated by a private entity rather than NASA - have carried Americans into orbit.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:22 p.m. EDT (1922 GMT) for the journey to the International Space Station. Just before liftoff, Hurley said, "SpaceX, we're go for launch. Let's light this candle," paraphrasing the famous comment uttered on the launch pad in 1961 by Alan Shepard, the first American flown into space.
