Kennedy Space Center

Forty years after the Challenger disaster, NPR explores the engineers' last-minute efforts to stop the launch, their decades of guilt and the vital lessons that remain critical for NASA today.

The first astronauts in more than 40 years from India, Poland and Hungary have arrived at the International Space Station, ferried there by SpaceX on a private flight. The crew of four will spend two weeks at the orbiting lab, performing dozens of experiments. They launched Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center and arrived on Thursday.

A crew of four is set to launch to the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday morning atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket in the company's Dragon spacecraft.

Three days after launch, the crew will attempt an ambitious and risky spacewalk -- the first for an all-civilian mission.

Since the dawn of human spaceflight more than 60 years ago, around 680 people have been to space. Only about 70 have been American women astronauts.

Three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut will spend about six months on the International Space Station - conducting experiments and research. They'll relieve four people of the Crew-7 mission.

Three astronauts and a cosmonaut will launch into space for their crew rotation.

The spacecraft making the 1.8 billion mile journey will have a poem etched into its surface. NASA is inviting the public to include their names.

An attempt earlier this week was scrubbed in the final minutes of the countdown.

The crew will have another chance Tuesday to launch to the International Space Station.

Since the first days of the space program, astronauts wear a special patch specific to each mission. A small North Carolina company has designed them all since the Apollo lunar launches.

Ramping up launches at the nation’s busiest spaceport has increased conflicts with cruise ships at Port Canaveral, a space-industry official told lawmakers this week.