SpaceX rocket carrying four astronauts successfully takes off

SpaceX, the rocket company of high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, launched four astronauts on a flight to the International Space Station on Sunday. It is NASA's first full-fledged mission sending a crew into orbit aboard a privately owned spacecraft.

SpaceX's newly designed Crew Dragon capsule, which the crew has dubbed Resilience, lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 7:27 p.m. Eastern time (0027 GMT on Monday) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.