Test Mission Of SpaceX Crew Dragon Ends With Successful Splashdown In The Atlantic

Test Mission Of SpaceX Crew Dragon Ends With Successful Splashdown In The Atlantic

SpaceX’s new commercial astronaut capsule, the Crew Dragon, has completed its first test flight, falling into the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday morning.

The Crew Dragon splashed down at 12:45AM AEDT, landing at precisely the anticipated time, give or take a few seconds.

Indeed, the Demo-1 mission — an important test of NASA’s revamped commercial crew program — went exactly as planned, signifying an important milestone for the United States as it strives to regain its ability to independently send astronauts into space — something it hasn’t been able to do since the days of the Space Shuttle Program.

The uncrewed Dragon launched from the Kennedy Space Center on March 2 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, docking with the International Space Station 27 hours later. The ISS crew spent some time monitoring the spacecraft before re-closing the hatch yesterday.

At 6:32PM AEDT Friday, the Crew Dragon undocked from the ISS and its thrusters placed it onto its final re-entry path into Earth’s atmosphere. Re-entry began around 12:30AM Saturday, followed by the parachute-assisted splashdown some 15 minutes later. SpaceX’s Go Searcher recovery ship participated in retrieving the capsule.

“Today’s successful, splashdown of the SpaceX Demo-1 Crew Dragon capsule after its mission to the ISS marked another milestone in a new era of human spaceflight,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote in a tweet. The commercial crew program “is one step closer to launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil,” he tweeted.

The Demo-1 mission now complete, SpaceX and NASA will carefully analyse the capsule to assess its performance, particularly to see how it may have been affected by the launch and re-entry. Assuming all went well, an abort test of the Crew Dragon will happen in June, followed by the Demo-2 test, in which the capsule will deliver two NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, to the ISS.

[NASA]


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