Splashdown!

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule splashed down about 230 miles off the Florida coast in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this morning at 8:45 am (EST):

By all accounts SpaceX’s Crew Dragon had a successful mission to the International Space Station and back home again.

Next up, SpaceX Demonstration Mission 2 (SpX-DM2). That is, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon’s first manned test flight to the International Space Station with these two guys in the image below – Douglas G. Hurley (commander) and Robert L. Behnken (pilot). Kjell N. Lindgren will serve as backup. Spx-DM2 is currently slated to occur in July 2019. (Perhaps this is meant to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. If so, I think that’s a bit gauche of SpaceX to do. They should consider moving it to a different date so it doesn’t detract from the Apollo 11 anniversary.)

If successful, not only will Spx-DM2 mean NASA no longer needs to rely on the Russian Soyuz to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station, but it will mark the first ever manned mission to the International Space Station by a commercial company (SpaceX). We live in exciting times! A new era of spaceflight.