You couldn’t follow live the latest SpaceX test in anticipation of future manned flights it will perform on behalf of NASA? Never mind, you can now see a brief summary thanks to a series of very striking photos that the American company has just shared on his Flickr account. Otherwise, it is always possible to review the entire flight thanks to the mission replay, it only lasted for a big half hour.
Now that SpaceX has completed all the static and real-life tests of its Falcon 9 rocket as well as the Crew Dragon transport capsule, in particular by testing the good automatic docking of the ship to the International Space Station and ensuring that all safety procedures will be ready to operate if necessary, SpaceX can now proceed to the next step: that of the first real transport of astronauts to the ISS.
A first transport in the coming months
Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will inaugurate the ball in the first half of 2020. This shot will still have test value for SpaceX. If it goes off without a hitch, then NASA will allow the aerospace manufacturer to carry out real crew rotations, probably as early as the second half of the year. Americans will not be the only ones to benefit. Canadians, Europeans and Japanese will also be able to board via SpaceX.
The January 19 test was intended to demonstrate SpaceX’s ability to urgently evacuate astronauts en route to the International Space Station, if it turns out that the Falcon 9 launcher experiences a critical failure during flight. In the event of danger, the capsule which carries the crew, located at the top of the rocket, is ejected at full speed from kilometers away. This is shown in the photos below, showing in particular the separation between the spacecraft and the rocket.
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