SpaceX Crew Dragon’s Demo-2 test flight is still scheduled for May
SpaceX and NASA are pushing through with Crew Dragon’s first manned flight in May. They’re gearing up for a mid-to-late May launch, so it’ll happen a bit later than the original May 7th target date. However, it doesn’t sound like they’re expecting the coronavirus outbreak to cause a huge delay. The historic flight will launch humans to space from US soil for the first time since the final space shuttle mission on July 8th, 2011. NASA has been buying seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft to take its astronauts to the ISS since then.
SpaceX has been putting Crew Dragon to the test for quite a while now, successfully making sure that its engine, launch escape system and the capsule as a whole are working perfectly. The manned flight in May, which will ferry astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the space station, is the last test the company needs to pass before Crew Dragon is certified to carry out operational crew flights to and from the space station. The spacecraft will fly on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. We’ll let you know the exact date when the agency announces it in the coming weeks.
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