Hungary | Pakistan

Nasa retiree turned private astronaut Peggy Whitson was launched on the fifth flight to orbit of her career early on Wednesday, joined by crewmates from India, Poland and Hungary heading for their countries’ first visit to the International Space Station (ISS). The astronaut team lifted off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at about 2:30am EDT (11:30am PKT), beginning the latest mission organized by Texas-based startup Axiom Space in partnership with Elon Musk’s rocket venture SpaceX. The four-member crew was carried aloft on a towering SpaceX launch vehicle consisting of a Crew Dragon capsule perched atop a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket. Live video showed the towering spacecraft streaking into the night sky over Florida’s Atlantic coast trailed by a brilliant yellowish plume of fiery exhaust. Cameras inside the crew compartment beamed footage of the four astronauts strapped into their pressurized cabin, seated calmly side by side in helmeted white-and-black flight suits as their spacec...