Environmental groups are suing the Federal Aviation Administration in federal court over SpaceX's launch of its massive Starship rocket last month. The groups argue that the agency failed to adequately investigate the potential harm the launch – or a mishap – could do to the surrounding environment.

The rocket, which is the most powerful ever built, took off from a launch pad at SpaceX's privately owned spaceport in South Texas on April 20 before exploding over the Gulf of Mexico about four minutes into flight.

The lawsuit, which was filed Monday in a federal court in Washington, D.C., alleges that the FAA authorized the launch "without complying with bedrock federal environmental law, without fully analyzing the significant environmental and community impacts of the Space X launch program – including destruction of some of the most vital migratory bird habitat in North America – and without requiring mitigation sufficient to offset those impacts."

The lawsuit says the area around the launch is essential habitat to federally protected species, including the endangered ocelot.

"It's vital that we protect life on Earth even as we look to the stars in this modern era of spaceflight," Center for Biological Diversity senior attorney Jared Margolis said in a statement.

The FAA declined to comment on the active litigation.

'All kinds of environmental harm'

Ahead of the launch on April 20, the FAA issued a finding that the launch would have no significant impact on its surrounding environment. Therefore, the agency didn't proceed with a more in-depth environmental assessment, which would have taken more time.

Margolis told CNN that the SpaceX explosion proves the groups' legal argument that the FAA erred in its decision-making.

"They just proved our point here," Margolis said. "What ended up occurring was exactly what we expected. There's all kinds of environmental harm that's clearly an issue and needs to be fully considered, and they didn't consider it."

Environmental groups are suing the FAA in hopes the agency will go back and do a far more comprehensive environmental analysis of the impacts of the launch. Margolis said a more in-depth environmental analysis from FAA could have issued a finding that SpaceX needed to use more water to cool down its launch pad, which ended up exploding.

Margolis argued that even when launches don't end in a massive explosion, they still can present a danger to bird species that use the area for migratory routes.

"It's an incredibly important area for birds," Margolis said. "There's an incredible amount of heat and light from the launches even when they don't go wrong."

Video above: SpaceX Starship explodes after launch

Margolis said the impact of scattered debris from the explosion isn't over yet; environmental groups are concerned that recovery efforts of trucks and other heavy equipment to pick up residual metal and concrete could further harm wildlife.

"You have so much [debris] in the area that recovering it could cause even more damage," he said.

The FAA's role

The FAA licenses commercial rocket launches and gave the green light for the SpaceX launch attempt after more than a year of back-and-forth.

The agency is also currently charged with overseeing a mishap investigation into what caused the Starship's failed test flight last month. Such investigations are routine and have taken place after previous – but smaller-scale – Starship test launches in South Texas.

The FAA's review "will determine the root cause of the event and identify corrective actions the operator must implement to avoid a recurrence," the agency said in an emailed statement last week.

Separately, the FAA is also carrying out an "anomaly response plan," which is part of the Programmatic Environmental Assessment the FAA issued for Starship in 2022.

"SpaceX is responsible for its implementation and for local, state and federal compliance requirements," FAA spokesperson Steve Kulm said via email on Sunday.

When asked whether the FAA could confirm if debris reached areas that it was not expected to reach, Kulm said that Cameron County – which encompasses SpaceX's facilities near Boca Chica Beach – "issued a statement to address all inquiries regarding the dust to be sent to SpaceX."

CNN has reached out to SpaceX for comment on the lawsuit, though the company typically does not respond to routine requests for comment from reporters. SpaceX is not named as a defendant on the suit.

Metal 'hurled thousands of feet away'

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also said in a statement last week that it was working with SpaceX, the FAA and other involved parties to "provide on-the-ground guidance to minimize further impacts and reduce long-term damages to natural resources."

That activity includes ensuring that SpaceX is complying with the Endangered Species Act, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, which became the subject of concern after reports that debris from the launch or explosion may have reached nearby protected wildlife areas.

"Following the launch and mid-air explosion, Cameron County closed Boca Chica Beach and State Highway 4 for 48 hours due to launch pad safety concerns, which prevented Service staff from accessing refuge-owned and managed land," the agency's statement reads. "Once the closure ended, Service staff began their assessment of the launch impacts at 10 a.m. April 22, 2023."

The agency cataloged some of the impacts:

• "Numerous large concrete chunks, stainless steel sheets, metal and other objects hurled thousands of feet away along with a plume cloud of pulverized concrete that deposited material up to 6.5 miles northwest of the pad site," according to the statement. Locals in Port Isabel reported a strange dust settling over the community after launch.
• "Although no debris was documented on refuge fee-owned lands, staff documented approximately 385 acres of debris on SpaceX's facility and at Boca Chica State Park, which is leased by the Service and managed as a component of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge," the statement reads.
• "Additionally, a 3.5-acre fire started south of the pad site on Boca Chica State Park land. At this time, no dead birds or wildlife have been found on refuge-owned or managed lands," the agency said.

SpaceX's take

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during a Twitter Spaces chat on Saturday evening that he believed SpaceX would be ready to launch Starship on another test flight within six to eight weeks from a technological standpoint.

When asked about potential legal backlash from environmental groups on Saturday, Musk was defiant. "Look at an aerial picture... apart from the area around the launch stand – tell me where things are damaged. ... I think you can't even see it at this point," Musk said.

"To the best of our knowledge, there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment," Musk added.

Musk said he was "glad to report that the pad damage is actually quite small," though it would take "six to eight weeks" to get the infrastructure prepared for another launch.

This story has been updated with additional information.

A shipment of Starlink user terminals — small antennas that allow customers to access SpaceX's satellite-based internet service — arrived in Ukraine Monday, providing a backstop for Ukrainians who may see their traditional service interrupted amid the Russian invasion.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk announced Saturday that he had activated Starlink internet service in Ukraine as the country suffered power outages and gaps in internet service due to Russia's invasion. Musk also promised at the time that more were "en route."

The support from SpaceX arrived after Ukraine's vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who is also Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, tweeted a plea to Musk over the weekend: "while you try to colonize Mars — Russia try to occupy Ukraine! While your rockets successfully land from space — Russian rockets attack Ukrainian civil people! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and to address sane Russians to stand."

Fedorov shared a photo of the Starlink terminals as they arrived in Ukraine and tweeted his thanks to Musk.

"You are most welcome," the SpaceX CEO replied.

Starlink is a satellite-based internet constellation intended to blanket the planet in high-speed broadband and could potentially bring connectivity to billions of people who still lack reliable internet access. Satellite-based internet has long provided a crucial backstop to land-based internet service, as it can remain active even when infrastructure on the ground is ravaged by war or natural disasters. It can also reach areas where ground-based infrastructure has yet to be installed. However, satellite internet traditionally had a reputation for spotty and slow connections.

Starlink, however, makes use of satellites that operate in low-Earth orbit — roughly 340 miles high, in SpaceX's case — to provide continuous coverage, allowing for much faster upload and download speeds. Starlink, which SpaceX has worked to rapidly deploy over the past couple of years, had about 145,000 users in 25 countries as of January.

SpaceX has already launched about 2,000 Starlink satellites and aims to launch thousands more to continue blanketing the planet in internet connectivity.

The Twitter exchange between Musk and Fedorov took place as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his country's deterrence forces, which includes nuclear arms, to be placed on high alert. Ukrainian Deputy Interior Minister Evgeny Yenin said talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations will take place Monday morning.

There have been "intermittent" power outages in Ukraine, but the internet is still "generally available," a senior U.S. defense official told reporters Saturday.

The Starlink system was recently used in Tonga, in the South Pacific Ocean, to provide internet service to connect remote villages following the eruption of an underwater volcano in January, according to SpaceX. The eruption was likely the biggest recorded anywhere on the planet in more than 30 years, CNN reported.

SpaceX's unmanned Dragon cargo ship successfully undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) Sunday morning and is making its return to Earth.

The CRS-24 cargo ship successfully exited the Space Station's "keep out sphere" at 10:40 a.m. after a previously scheduled attempt was postponed due to bad weather at its splashdown location off the Florida coast, according to statements from SpaceX. The keep out sphere is a 200-meter radius around the ISS.

NASA transmitted the undocking live on NASA TV and on its social media platforms.

The Dragon is expected to have a "parachute-assisted splashdown" off the coast of Panama City, Florida at approximately 3:05 p.m CT Monday, according to NASA. The splashdown will not be transmitted live, but NASA's space station blog will provide updates.

The experiments on board the Dragon will be transported to NASA's Space Station Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center after landing.

"Splashing down off the coast of Florida enables quick transportation of the experiments to NASA's Space Station Processing Facility at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, allowing researchers to collect data with minimal sample exposure to Earth's gravity," NASA said.

The cargo ship is bringing back medical supplies along with more than 4,900 pounds of valuable "cargo and research," NASA's mission control said during its transmission.

This includes a retired light imaging microscope, which has been supporting numerous scientific investigations for 12 years, as well as samples from studies on colloids.

Cytoskeleton, an investigation to analyze the impact of microgravity on cellular signaling molecules, is also on board the Dragon.

"This investigation contributes to our understanding of how the human body responds to microgravity and could support development of countermeasures to help crew members maintain optimum health on future missions," NASA said.

The Dragon launched on December 21, delivering hardware, research, and crew supplies to the ISS. The cargo ship's return will mark SpaceX's 24th "commercial resupply services mission for NASA," according to the space research agency.

NASA is scheduled to launch a "planetary defense-driven test" late Tuesday night.

The goal of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is to adjust the speed and path of an asteroid by using kinetic impactor technology.

The asteroid DART will be targeting is not a threat to Earth, NASA said.

"While no known asteroid larger than 140 meters in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, only about 40 percent of those asteroids have been found as of October 2021," NASA said.

The DART spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 10:20 p.m. PT aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

The spacecraft is expected to reach its destination in September 2022 and begin testing its impact on the asteroid.

The European Space Agency says this will be the first time humans have tried to alter the dynamics of a solar system body, according to CNN.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Monday, riding home with SpaceX to end a 200-day space station mission that began last spring.

Their capsule streaked through the late-night sky like a dazzling meteor before parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. Recovery boats quickly moved in with spotlights.

“On behalf of SpaceX, welcome home to Planet Earth,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed from Southern California. Within an hour, all four astronauts were out of the capsule, exchanging fist bumps with the team on the recovery ship.

Their homecoming — coming just eight hours after leaving the International Space Station — paved the way for SpaceX's launch of their four replacements as early as Wednesday night.

The newcomers were scheduled to launch first, but NASA switched the order because of bad weather and an astronaut's undisclosed medical condition. The welcoming duties will now fall to the lone American and two Russians left behind at the space station.

Before Monday afternoon’s undocking, German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who’s waiting to launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, tweeted it was a shame the two crews wouldn’t overlap at the space station but “we trust you’ll leave everything nice and tidy.” His will be SpaceX's fourth crew flight for NASA in just 1 1/2 years.

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and France's Thomas Pesquet should have been back Monday morning, but high wind in the recovery zone delayed their return.

“One more night with this magical view. Who could complain? I’ll miss our spaceship!” Pesquet tweeted Sunday alongside a brief video showing the space station illuminated against the blackness of space and the twinkling city lights on the nighttime side of Earth.

From the space station, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei -- midway through a one-year flight -- bid farewell to each of his departing friends, telling McArthur "I’ll miss hearing your laughter in adjacent modules.”

Before leaving the neighborhood, the four took a spin around the space station, taking pictures. This was a first for SpaceX; NASA's shuttles used to do it all the time before their retirement a decade ago. The last Russian capsule fly-around was three years ago.

It wasn't the most comfortable ride back. The toilet in their capsule was broken, and so the astronauts needed to rely on diapers for the eight-hour trip home. They shrugged it off late last week as just one more challenge in their mission.

The first issue arose shortly after their April liftoff; Mission Control warned a piece of space junk was threatening to collide with their capsule. It turned out to be a false alarm. Then in July, thrusters on a newly arrived Russian lab inadvertently fired and sent the station into a spin. The four astronauts took shelter in their docked SpaceX capsule, ready to make a hasty departure if necessary.

Among the upbeat milestones: four spacewalks to enhance the station's solar power, a movie-making visit by a Russian film crew and the first-ever space harvest of chile peppers.

The next crew will also spend six months up there, welcoming back-to-back groups of tourists. A Japanese tycoon and his personal assistant will get a lift from the Russian Space Agency in December, followed by three businessmen arriving via SpaceX in February. SpaceX's first privately chartered flight, in September, bypassed the space station.

NASA’s Kathy Lueders, head of space operations, said engineers would evaluate the lagging inflation of one of the four main parachutes, something seen in testing when the lines bunch together. Overall, though, “the return looked spotless.”

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to see all four of the crew members back on Earth,” she added, “and I’m looking forward to launching another set of four this week.”

"We are not going to launch today."

Due to the weather conditions, the launch is scrubbing. Our next opportunity will be Saturday, May 30 at 3:22pm ET. Live

#LaunchAmerica




coverage will begin at 11am ET.

pic.twitter.com/c7R1AmLLYh

— NASA (@NASA)

May 27, 2020

On Saturday, for the first time in nine years, American astronauts will lift off from their home soil en route to space — and will do so aboard a privately-funded spacecraft.

Should weather in Cape Canaveral, Florida cooperate,




astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will blast off in a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft en route to the International Space Station (ISS).

The mission, SpaceX Demo-2, is the first test of SpaceX carrying humans into space. After launch, the astronauts will confirm the spacecraft is functioning properly during the 24-hour flight before the craft docks at the ISS.

The SpaceX craft will also carry the astronauts home, but at this point it's unclear when that will happen. NASA says it will determine how long the astronauts will stay at the ISS after they arrive. The maximum time they'll spend at the space station is between two to three months.

Watch the launch site in the player below.

The launch will mark the first time that a rocket developed by a private company will carry American astronauts into space — a milestone in the U.S.' newly-imagined space program.

In 2011, NASA ended its space shuttle program — and with it, its ability to send astronauts into space. The program had

simply become too expensive




for the federal government to justify paying for it. The U.S. still sent astronauts into space, but only on rockets launched in other countries, like Russia.

While NASA sought a cost-effective way to get astronauts into space, private space transportation companies like SapceX and Blue Origin began testing methods to lower the cost of space travel — including reusable rockets.

NASA and SpaceX have been launching rockets in partnership for several years, but Wednesday will mark the first time there will be humans aboard.

NASA believes that the public-private partnership will allow the agency to focus its efforts on deep space exploration. The agency is already planning on sending astronauts back to the moon, with the

hopes of a return by 2024.




NASA has also been exploring the possibility of

sending humans to Mars




— which would mark the first time in history that humans have visited a new planet.

The two astronauts involved in the mission are both NASA veterans who have flown in space before.

Behnken was selected as an astronaut in 2000, and flew two space shuttle missions — one in 2008, and another in 2010. He has more than 708 hours in space, including 37 hours on spacewalks.

Hurley was also selected as an astronaut in 2000. He piloted two space flights: one in 2009, the other in 2011.

“After five years of every day working on this program, I think Bob and I are only two of many people ready to get this thing airborne,” Hurley said.

The United States is aiming to launch a group of small satellites to fill a critical gap in the ability to foresee precipitation dangers, like the deluge that overwhelmed Northeastern cities at the start of September.

The U.S. Air Force announced Thursday a nearly $20 million contract with Tomorrow.io to develop and deploy an entire constellation of small satellites equipped with advanced radar to measure precipitation from space.

Currently, there is only a single satellite equipped with that capability among the more than 3,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth.

"This is a problem," a NASA official told CNN. "It's a big-dollar thing to do and, so far, the agencies have been unwilling to do more."

That orbiting satellite, known as the Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory satellite, was launched in February 2014 by NASA and Japan's counterpart, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The observatory cost nearly a billion dollars and is larger than a school bus — but it can do what no other satellite can. Unlike most weather satellites, which can only observe the outermost layer of a storm, the GPM satellite can "see" inside the clouds to predict more precisely when, where and how much rain or snow will fall. The satellite also unifies data measuring precipitation by an existing group of satellites, run by a consortium of international partners.

That kind of data is critical in forecasting extreme weather events. When the remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the Northeast and killed at least 52 people from Maryland to Connecticut, the National Weather Service warned of "heavy rainfall and potentially significant flash, urban, and river flooding" a full 24 hours in advance. But the historic amount of rain that fell in New York City — more than 3 inches in a single hour — still caught city and state officials by surprise.

"We did not know that between 8:50 and 9:50 p.m. last night, that the heavens would literally open up and bring Niagara Falls level of water to the streets of New York," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said after the grave loss of life.

The more precipitation radars there are in space, the more accurate the forecast will be on Earth.

The United States is equipped with a network of ground-based precipitation radars. But many parts of the world are not, including the two-thirds of the Earth's surface covered by oceans. Those areas — and vast swaths of China, Russia and Africa — are virtually untouched by terrestrial precipitation radars, and they are regions of great interest for the U.S. military.

"When you go to these regions, there is no functioning weather systems on the ground. And even if they do exist, the U.S. doesn't really have access to them. And that impact, I can tell you as a pilot myself, that impacts every single decision you do in the military," Rei Goffer, a former pilot in the Israeli Air Force and the cofounder of Tomorrow.io, told CNN.

"What we have done is miniaturized the radar instrument," Goffer said. "We've taken it from a school bus-size instrument to something that's about the size of a mini fridge."

The reduction in size makes the satellites far less expensive to launch. Goffer believes his company can assist the U.S. military and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the same way SpaceX has helped NASA — by providing cost-effective solutions to decades-old problems and freeing up the federal agencies to focus on long-term priorities.

"We really see ourselves as the SpaceX of weather," Goffer said. "Weather is one of the last domains that has not seen massive investment and massive innovation coming from the private sector, until now."

Tomorrow.io's first satellites are scheduled to launch in late 2022, and the company hopes to have the full constellation of approximately 32 small satellites operational by the end of 2024.

"I would not bet against them," a NASA official told CNN. "But it's extremely challenging."

It takes the GPM's core satellite, on average, two to three days to "refresh" or scan the entire planet. Tomorrow.io is aiming to get that refresh rate down to once an hour. The expansion of global radar coverage could greatly improve the accuracy of forecasts, especially as climate change contributes to more extreme weather.

"One of the things you had with Ida is that these storms are changing more frequently and more volatilely than in the past," Dan Slagen, Tomorrow.io's chief marketing officer, said. "So being able to have the faster refresh rate, especially coming from space, will help us on those types of storms tremendously."

As Jared Isaacman and his three fellow crewmates were free-flying through Earth's orbit, shielded from the unforgiving vacuum of space by nothing but a 13-foot-wide carbon-fiber capsule, an alarm started blaring.

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft's systems were warning the crew of a "significant" issue, Isaacman said. They'd spent months poring over SpaceX manuals and training to respond to in-space emergencies, so they leaped into action, working with SpaceX ground controllers to pinpoint the cause of the error.

As it turned out, the Crew Dragon wasn't in jeopardy. But the on-board toilet was.

Nothing in space is easy, including going to the bathroom. In a healthy human on Earth, making sure everything ends up in the toilet is usually a matter of simple aim. But in space, there is no feeling of gravity. There's no guarantee that what comes out will go where it's supposed to. Waste can — and does — go in every possible direction.

To solve that problem, space toilets have fans inside them, which are used to create suction. Essentially they pull waste out of the human body and keep it stored away.

And the Crew Dragon's "waste management system" fans were experiencing mechanical problems. That is what tripped the alarm the crew heard.

Scott "Kidd" Poteet, an Inspiration4 mission director who helped oversee the mission from the ground, tipped reporters off about the issue in an interview with CBS. Poteet and SpaceX's director of crew mission management later confirmed there were "issues" with the waste management system at a press conference but didn't go into detail, setting off an immediate wave of speculation that the error could've created a disastrous mess.

When asked directly about that on Thursday, however, Isaacman said "I want to be 100% clear: There were no issues in the cabin at all as it relates to that."

But Isaacman and his fellow travelers on the Inspiration4 mission did have to work with SpaceX to respond to the problem during their three-day stay in orbit, during which they experienced numerous communications blackouts, highlighting the importance of the crew's thorough training regimen.

"I would say probably somewhere around 10% of our time on orbit we had no [communication with the ground], and we were a very calm, cool crew during that," he said, adding that "mental toughness and a good frame of mind and a good attitude" were crucial to the mission.

"The psychological aspect is one area where you can't compromise because...there were obviously circumstances that happened up there where if you had somebody that didn't have that mental toughness and started to react poorly, that really could've brought down the whole mission," Isaacman said.

SpaceX did not respond to CNN's requests for comment.

The toilet anecdote also highlights a fundamental truth about humanity and its extraterrestrial ambitions — no matter how polished and glitzy we may imagine our space-faring future, biological realities remain.

Excreta in space, a history

Isaacman was — as numerous astronauts before him — bashful when it came to discussing the "toilet situation."

"Nobody really wants to get into the gory details," Isaacman said. But when the Inspiration4 crew talked to some NASA astronauts, they said "using the bathroom in space is hard, and you've got to be very — what was the word? — very kind to one another."

He added that, despite the on-board toilet issues, nobody suffered any accidents or indignities.

"I don't know who was training them, but we were able to work through it and get [the toilet] going even with what was initially challenging circumstances, so there was nothing ever like, you know, in the cabin or anything like that," he said.

Figuring out how to safely relieve oneself in space was, however, was a fundamental question posed at the dawn of human spaceflight half a century ago, and the path to answers was not error-free.

During the 1969 Apollo 10 mission — the one that saw Thomas Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan circumnavigate the moon — Stafford reported back to mission control on Day Six of the mission that a piece of waste was floating through the cabin, according to once-confidential government documents.

"Give me a napkin, quick," Stafford is recorded as saying a few minutes before Cernan spots another one: "Here's another goddamn turd."

The feces collection process at the time, a NASA report later revealed, was an "extremely basic" plastic bag that was "taped to the buttocks."

"The fecal bag system was marginally functional and was described as very 'distasteful' by the crew," an official NASA report from 2007 later revealed. "The bags provided no odor control in the small capsule and the odor was prominent."

In-space toilets have evolved since then, thanks to strenuous efforts from NASA scientists, as journalist Mary Roach, author of "Packing for Mars," told NPR in 2010.

"The problem here is you've got this very elaborate space toilet, and you need to test it. Well, you've got to, you know, haul it over to Ellington Field, board it onto a zero-gravity simulator — a plane that does these elaborate up-and-down arcs — and then you've got to find some poor volunteer from the Waste System Management Office to test it. And I don't know about you, but, I mean, to do it on demand in 20 seconds, now that is asking a lot of your colon. So it's very elaborate and tricky."

And, Roach writes in "Packing for Mars," astronaut potty training is no laughing matter.

"The simple act of urination can, without gravity, become a medical emergency requiring catheterization and embarrassing radio consults with flight surgeons," she wrote. And because urine behaves differently inside the bladder in space, it can be very difficult to tell when one needs to go.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk pledged to donate $50 million to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, helping exceed the $200 million fundraising goal set for last week's Inspiration4 space mission.

Musk tweeted, "Count me in for $50M" in response to a public call for donations from Inspiration4 on Saturday.

The capsule splashed down off the coast of Florida Saturday evening, concluding the first-ever flight to Earth's orbit carrying only space tourists.

"Thanks so much SpaceX, it was a heck of a ride for us," billionaire and Inspiration4 mission commander Jared Isaacman could be heard saying on the company's livestream.

Along with Musk, Isaacman financed the mission and arranged the trip. He billed the mission as a fundraiser for St. Jude, and by Saturday evening's splashdown it had reached $160 million. Isaacman personally donated $100 million to the fundraiser.

One of the passengers was Hayley Arceneaux, a 29-year-old cancer survivor who works as a physician's assistant at St. Jude. The hospital selected Arceneaux for this mission at Isaacman's request.

There's also an upcoming auction to benefit St. Jude that will sell off some of the items the crew took into space, including signed collectibles and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

Related video above: NASA Announces Astronauts Going to ISS on SpaceX Crew-2 Mission

A space station astronaut is celebrating her 50th birthday with the coolest present ever — a supply ship bearing ice cream and other treats.

SpaceX's latest cargo delivery showed up Monday at the International Space Station after a day in transit. Overseeing the automated docking was NASA astronaut Megan McArthur.

"No one's ever sent me a spaceship for my birthday before. I appreciate it," she radioed after the capsule arrived.

Launched Sunday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, the capsule contains lemons, cherry tomatoes, avocados and ice cream for McArthur and her six crewmates, along with a couple tons of research and other gear.

The shipment arrived just a few days ahead of the first of three spacewalks.

Starting Friday, the two Russians on board will perform back-to-back spacewalks to outfit a new laboratory that arrived in July.

Then a Japanese-French spacewalking duo will venture out Sept. 12 to install a bracket for new solar panels due to arrive next year. That NASA-directed spacewalk should have occurred last week, but was postponed after U.S. spacewalker, Mark Vande Hei, suffered a pinched nerve in his neck. Station managers opted to replace him with French astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. —

Video above captured in North Carolina

Up and down the east coast people captured a dazzling light in the morning sky Sunday.

People weren't sure what the light streaking across the early morning sky was, capturing video and photos of the object around 6:10 a.m.

The bright light was most likely from a SpaceX launch.

According to SpaceX, it launched "60 Starlink satellites" at 6:01 a.m. Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Video below is from Pennsylvania:

"This was the ninth launch and landing of this Falcon 9 first stage booster," SpaceX said on its website.

For the first time since 2011, NASA astronauts will launch into space from U.S. soil.

NASA and Elon Musk's space company SpaceX are looking to launch Demo-2 on May 27,

NBC News reported.

According to SpaceX

, this will be the second demo mission for their Crew Dragon, which will launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will fly the spacecraft, SpaceX announced.

CNBC's space reporter Michael Sheetz said the plan is for Behnken and Hurley to spend two to three months in space.

"In January 2020, SpaceX demonstrated Crew Dragon's in-flight launch escape capability to reliably carry crew to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency on the launch pad or at any point during ascent," SpaceX officials said in a statement. "SpaceX has completed over 700 tests of the spacecraft's SuperDraco engines, which fired together at full throttle can power Dragon 0.5 miles away from Falcon 9 in 7.5 seconds, accelerating the vehicle more than 400 mph."

SpaceX said they've also completed 26 tests on the crew's Mark 3 parachutes.