A rocket designed and built by Elon Musk's SpaceX company has lifted off carrying two American astronauts on a history-making flight to the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken lifted off at 3:22pm local time from the same launch pad used to send the Apollo astronauts to the Moon a half-century ago.
"Let's light this candle," Commander Doug Hurley said just before lift-off.
Minutes later, they safely entered orbit.
Despite more storms in the forecast, the company pressed ahead in its historic attempt to launch astronauts for NASA, a first by a private company.
It's NASA's second go at the launch. The first attempt three days ago was halted due to bad weather.
Leading up to the successful launch, forecasters put the odds of success at just 50:50.
Ending the US launch hiatus
The flight also ended a nine-year launch drought for NASA, the longest such hiatus in its history.
Ever since it retired the space shuttle in 2011, NASA has relied on Russian spaceships launched from Kazakhstan to take US astronauts to and from the space station.
The two men are scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Sunday for a stay of up to four months, after which they will return to Earth with a splashdown at sea.
SpaceX and NASA managers monitored the weather not just at Kennedy Space Center, but all the way up the Eastern Seaboard and across the North Atlantic to Ireland.
Waves and wind needed to be within limits in case the SpaceX Dragon crew capsule had to make an emergency splashdown on the way to orbit.
Ultimately, NASA hopes to rely in part on its commercial partners as it works to send astronauts back to the moon in the next few years, and on to Mars in the 2030s.
NASA outsourced the job of designing and building its next generation of spaceships to SpaceX and Boeing, awarding them $7 billion in contracts in a public-private partnership aimed at driving down costs and spurring innovation.
Boeing's spaceship, the Starliner capsule, is not expected to fly astronauts until early 2021.
'Shining moment of hope'
The mission unfolded amid the gloom of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 100,000 Americans, and racial unrest across the US over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Mr Musk said earlier in the week that the project was aimed at "reigniting the dream of space and getting people fired up about the future".
NASA officials and others held out hope the flight would would be a morale-booster.
"Maybe there's an opportunity here for America to maybe pause and look up and see a bright, shining moment of hope at what the future looks like, that the United States of America can do extraordinary things even in difficult times," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said before the launch.
US President Donald Trump marvelled at the power of the rocket ship and the danger faced by its passengers as they soared into the stratosphere.
"That was a beautiful sight to see and I hope you all enjoyed it," Mr Trump said after the launch.
For Mr Trump, the second time was the charm. He also flew to the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday before the launch was postponed at the last minute because of bad weather.
"When you hear that sound and you hear all of that roar, you can imagine how dangerous it is," Mr Trump said.
"When you feel the shake — and we're very far away — but when you feel the shake over here, it's pretty amazing. Beautiful site. A beautiful ship, too."
Asked why he felt it was important to be in Florida for the launch, given all that is going on in the country, Mr Trump said it was a "great inspiration" for the country.
"We suffered something that was terrible, it should have never happened. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to be here today. I thought it was so important to be here today," Mr Trump said.
"And I think any one of you would say, that was an inspiration to see what we just saw."
ABC/AP
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