“This certification milestone is an incredible achievement for NASA and SpaceX that highlight the progress that the professional industry can make working together.”
SpaceX had to prove that its system works by running numerous tests on the ground and completing demo flights over the last few years. The company, led by Elon Musk, successfully flew astronauts Bob Behanken and Doug Hurley back in May for a Demo-2 flight. A few months later, Crew Dragon was released in the Atlantic Ocean with similar astronauts on a historic mission – it landed in the U.S. in 2011 after the final space shuttle mission. It was the first crew flight to land – one off.
In addition to the Demo-2 flight, SpaceX had to complete other tests to make sure the crew dragon’s parachute system worked. The company also had to place capsule abortion engines through their speed and an escape system to ensure that astronauts could escape from the rocket in case of an emergency during the ascent.
Now that the Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 system has been certified, NASA and SpaceX may begin to focus on future flights that will take more astronauts into orbit. Kathy Luders, Associate Administrator, NASA’s Directorate of Human Exploration and Operations Operations, said:
“Certification takes us from the design and testing phase to the crew rotation phase of our work, but we will not stop making sure that every flight, including NASA’s Space Crew-1 mission, will be approached with the same rigor with which we built this. It may be the best system for our astronauts. “
The first crew Dragon Operational Flight will take NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Waker, as well as Jaxa astronaut Sochi Noguchi to the ISS for a six-month mission. NASA and SpaceX are originally aiming for a Halloween launch, but their new target launch date is November 14, at the launch complex 39 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
