SpaceX’s Crew Dragon splashes down in the Atlantic, bringing its first crucial test flight to an end

On Friday morning, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule successfully splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean after spending nearly a week at the International Space Station. The plunge brings the spacecraft’s first test flight to an end. With the splashdown, SpaceX has proven its capsule can survive the harrowing journey to space and back, and that means the company has just made a significant leap forward in its quest to put people on the Crew Dragon someday.

The splashdown marks the last major milestone of SpaceX’s Demonstration-1 or DM-1 mission, a critical test flight required for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. That’s the agency’s initiative aimed at sending NASA astronauts to space on private US spacecraft. SpaceX has been developing the Crew…

Continue reading…

from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/2EJFa2j
via IFTTT