6 yıl önce

SpaceX crew capsule ends test flight with ocean splashdown

Live footage from NASA showed the capsule's four main parachutes opened without a hitch, and it splashed down at 8:45 am (1345 GMT).

AFP

This still image taken from NASA TV, shows the splashdown of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on March 8, 2019, in the Atlantic Ocean.

SpaceX’s swanky new crew capsule has returned to Earth, ending its first test flight with an old-fashioned splashdown.

The Dragon undocked from the International Space Station early Friday. Six hours later, the capsule carrying a test dummy, named Ripley, plopped into the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast.

It marks the first time in 50 years that a capsule designed for astronauts returned from space by plopping into the Atlantic.

Apollo 9 splashed down near the Bahamas on March 13, 1969.

Live footage from NASA showed the capsule's four main parachutes opened without a hitch, and it splashed down at 8:45 am (1345 GMT).

Canadian station astronaut David Saint-Jacques was the first to enter the Dragon when it arrived and the last to leave. He found the capsule "very slick" and called it business class.

.@SpaceX’s #CrewDragon returned to Earth with a splash in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida’s eastern shore at 8:45am ET, completing an end-to-end flight test to the @Space_Station and back as part of our @Commercial_Crew Program. Learn more: https://t.co/MFB7dVb60c pic.twitter.com/8lFL6X3Tue
— NASA (@NASA) March 8, 2019

NASA astronauts have been stuck riding Russian rockets since space shuttles retired eight years ago.

NASA is counting on SpaceX and Boeing to start launching astronauts this year. SpaceX is shooting for summer.

Launched on Saturday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a mission to demonstrate that it could carry astronauts to the ISS, Dragon docked at the station the following day before detaching early Friday for its return to Earth.