SpaceX’s 1st Dragon capsule for astronauts arrives at launch site for historic mission – Space.com

A SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft arrives at Open Advanced 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Home Middle in Florida, transported from the firm’s processing facility at Cape Canaveral Air Drive Problem on Friday, Might perhaps also merely 15, 2020, in preparation for the Demo-2 flight test.

(Image: © NASA/Kim Shiflett)

The Dragon spacecraft that will float SpaceX’s first-ever mission with astronauts on board has reached its Florida originate space sooner than a ancient liftoff subsequent week.

The Crew Dragon tablet arrived at Open Advanced 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Home Middle (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday evening (Might perhaps also merely 15), making the short walk from SpaceX’s processing facility at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Drive Problem.

The arrival marked one other mountainous milestone for SpaceX within the leadup to the planned originate of the Demo-2 mission on Might perhaps also merely 27.

Linked: SpaceX’s ancient Demo-2 mission defined in 13 steps

Extra: SpaceX’s Demo-2 Crew Dragon flight with in footage

Demo-2 will raise NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to and from the Global Home Problem (ISS). The Might perhaps also merely 27 liftoff atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands out as the first orbital human spaceflight to originate from U.S. soil since NASA’s home shuttle lickety-split retired in July 2011. Since then, NASA has relied completely on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to assemble this taxi provider.

Crew Dragon has made sooner or later shuttle to the ISS already, an uncrewed jaunt known as Demo-1 that launched in March 2019. The firm launched one other Crew Dragon in January to indicate the spacecraft’s in-flight abort system in case of an emergency at some stage within the day shuttle to home.

Demo-2 is designed to utterly validate the Crew Dragon-Falcon 9 system, paving the model for operational crewed flights to and from the ISS. SpaceX holds a $2.6 billion contract to float six such missions, the first of which is expected to originate later this year if all goes nicely with Demo-2.

The assignment at KSC goes to ramp up seriously over the following week and a half as SpaceX and NASA gear up for the originate. As an illustration, Behnken and Hurley will float to KSC from their home inappropriate, NASA’s Johnson Home Middle in Houston, on Wednesday (Might perhaps also merely 20). And NASA’s Demo-2 Flight Readiness Review to resolve if the mission is willing for a Might perhaps also merely 27 originate will initiate the following day, company officers acknowledged.

Treasure SpaceX, Boeing holds an astronaut-ferrying contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which the aerospace huge will fulfill the utilization of a tablet known as the CST-100 Starliner. But Boeing is no longer for all time willing to delivery flying other folks; Starliner encountered concerns at some stage in its model of Demo-1, which launched this previous December, and wasn’t ready to meet up with the ISS as planned. Boeing will re-float that uncrewed mission sooner than placing astronauts aboard Starliner.

• SpaceX’s Crew Dragon home tablet defined (infographic)
• SpaceX celebrates Crew Dragon’s 1st originate anniversary with yarn video 
• Peep the evolution of SpaceX’s rockets in footage

Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Monumental Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the peek for alien existence. Apply him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Apply us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Fb.