Spacecraft Carried Away From Launch Pad Test Stand, In-Flight Test Being Planned

The Crew Dragon test article has splashed down just offshore from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The flight test is unlike any seen in Florida. With its parachutes floating beside it, the spacecraft is waiting for a ship to lift it out of the sea and return it to the Cape.

The capsule was launched from a test stand rather than from an actual booster, according to the Associated Press.

SpaceX controllers will pore over the telemetry and other data recorded during today’s flight test to evaluate the launch abort system and SuperDraco engines. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program experts also will help evaluate the results as the development of one of the new generation of American spacecraft continues on pace.

According to NASA's Commercial Crew blog, in the coming months, the SpaceX team will put the Crew Dragon through an in-flight abort test that will again put the SuperDraco engines and the spacecraft through a simulated emergency. That test will take place on the opposite coast of the United States from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

(Images provided by NASA)

FMI: www.nasa.gov