In 2020, a private company launched humans into orbit for the first time
The successful launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 marked a transformative shift in space exploration, ending a decade-long drought of American-manned launches and ushering in the era of commercial spaceflight.
On May 30, 2020, NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This mission was a historic milestone, representing the first time a private company had ever sent humans into orbit. For nearly nine years following the retirement of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, the United States had relied entirely on Russian Soyuz rockets to reach the International Space Station.
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