Live coverage: International Space Station crew lands in Kazakhstan

The hatch issue caused NASA to modify its prelaunch preparations within the Vehicle Assembly Building but it continues to target an early February launch of the mission to carry four astronauts on a loop around the Moon.

The Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 rocket roll to the launch pad on a foggy Florida morning before going upright shortly before sunset later in the day.

Strapped into a new SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule making its maiden flight, Whitson, test pilot Shubhanshu Shukla of India, European Space Agency astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski of Poland, and Hungarian engineer Tibor Kapu roared away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 2:31 a.m. EDT.