On Sunday 19, Elon Musk’s SpaceX completed a crucial emergency abort system test at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The escape system of the company’s Crew Dragon capsule was tested, and SpaceX destroyed its rocket on purpose in order to make sure that SpaceX will be able to fly NASA astronauts to space in a few months in case of emergency.
The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 10:30 am from Kennedy Space Center. No people were aboard the capsule, only two mannequins “completed” the flight. One minute later, the capsule’s engine burst into flames, and the booster was destroyed. Capsule’s thrusters pushed it to the safe area shortly before deliberate shutting down of the engines and rocket’s demolition. An emergency abort system was successfully launched. The capsule reached 27 miles, which is 44 kilometers, and nine minutes after launch, the Crew Dragon safely parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean.
Crew Dragon separating from Falcon 9 during today’s test, which verified the spacecraft’s ability to carry astronauts to safety in the unlikely event of an emergency on ascent pic.twitter.com/rxUDPFD0v5
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 19, 2020
“I’m super fired up,” said Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX. "It's just going to be wonderful to get astronauts back into orbit from American soil after almost a decade of not being able to do so. That's just super exciting."
Initially, the launch was scheduled for Saturday morning. But the plan was changed because of the weather.
Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have been selected to take part in a space flight on a Crew Dragon. However, the space agency has not named the date of the flight just yet.
