SPACEX'S

The SpaceX crew that will ferry back in February two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station docked with the orbiting laboratory on Sunday, a live stream of the mission showed.

The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 1:17 pm (1717 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday, with the Crew-9 mission aboard a Dragon spacecraft making contact with the ISS at 5:30 pm Sunday.

Two astronauts, a billionaire and an engineer, completed the world's first private spacewalk on Thursday outside a SpaceX capsule, marking a significant achievement in commercial spaceflight. Wearing newly designed spacesuits, they ventured outside the Crew Dragon capsule, a task previously reserved for astronauts from national space agencies, Reuters reports.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a Turksat 6A communications satellite, lifts off at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Monday, July 8, 2024.

Türkiye's first indigenous communications satellite Turksat 6A will be launched into orbit on Monday at 5.00 p.m. EDT from SpaceX's Kennedy facility in Florida, according to Turkish transport and infrastructure minister.

Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, in a statement on Monday, said the launch will mark Türkiye as one of the 11 countries capable of producing satellites through their own means.

Türkiye has dispatched its first domestically produced communications satellite, Türksat-6A, to the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the U.S., where it will be launched into space next month.

The satellite embarked on a 17-hour journey aboard a cargo aircraft, after which it will be entrusted to the teams of Elon Musk's SpaceX.