NASA on SpaceX launch: 'A great day for USA, Japan'

The launch of four astronauts into orbit by aeronautic company SpaceX was on Sunday called a "new era" in spaceflight by the administrators overseeing the mission. SpaceX launched the Falcon rocket, topped with the Dragon capsule carrying four crew members, on Sunday, in a nine minute journey into orbit. It is due to to reach the International Space Station late Monday, and will remain there until early next year.

Speaking at a news conference, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said it was a "great day for the United States of America and a great day for Japan." Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Human Spaceflight Technology Director General Hiroshi Sasaki (JAXA) said he believed the launch would mean "human space activities will expand from the ISS (International Space Station) to the moon."

Sunday’s launch follows by just a few months SpaceX’s two-pilot test flight. It kicks off what NASA hopes will be a long series of crew rotations between the U.S. and the space station, after years of delay.

In the next 15 months, SpaceX should be flying roughly seven Dragon missions for NASA, both crew and cargo, according to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell. "This mission represents the initiation of a dragon in orbit continuously... and certainly is really the beginning of a new era in human space flight," she said.