17 November 2020 - Elon Musk's SpaceX takes Baby Yoda to space
Baby Yoda is now in space, after being carried on board SpaceX flight by NASA astronauts
Adam Smith (The Independent, 16/11/2020)
SpaceX astronauts smuggled a small Baby Yoda plushie into space during its recent Crew-1 mission.
The company’s Falcon 9 rocket launched from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre launchpad – the first full-length flight for Nasa by SpaceX – and is expected to reach the International Space Station today.
SpaceX launches 4 astronauts to space station, beginning new era for NASA
William Harwood (CBS News, 16/11/2020)
Lighting up the night sky, four astronauts shot into orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Sunday for a 27-hour voyage to the International Space Station in the first operational flight of a commercially developed Crew Dragon capsule.
Astronauts really just took Baby Yoda with them up to space
Giulia Heyward, Saba Hamedy (CNN, 17/11/2020)
Baby Yoda became an honorary astronaut over the weekend. A plush toy version of the creature -- which stole people's hearts in Disney+'s Star Wars series "The Mandalorian" -- can be seen in a live stream from inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon.
In the video, Baby Yoda is spotted bouncing around alongside astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi. The four astronauts on Sunday became part the second-ever crewed flight of a SpaceX spacecraft. The first Crew Dragon to launch humans, which was still considered a test mission, took off in May.
SpaceX's Crewed Launch Continues What NASA's Gemini Astronauts Started
Jeffrey Kluger (TIME, 16/11/2020)
We’re not sure if Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin were watching Sunday when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon lifted off from Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral for its first fully operational mission—but the odds are pretty good that they were. Astronauts from past eras of space travel tend to keep up with the doings in the modern one. Either way, the overall audience for the launch was big—NASA’s site carried it live, as did the cable news channels.