SpaceX finally sent humans to space. What happens next?
The SpaceX Dragon Capsule Demo-2 sent two NASA astronauts to orbit on Saturday, the first time a private company has ever sent a crewed mission to space. | Getty Images
Privately owned orbital human spaceflights are here. A new era of commercialized space travel begins. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Demo-2 is off to a roaring start. After a delayed launch earlier in the week, the spacecraft lifted off at 3:22 pm ET on Saturday. It left the planet, and entered Earth’s orbit where it will later dock with the International Space Station (ISS), beginning a new era of commercial space tourism and exploration — all with the help of mercurial billionaire Elon Musk.
If all goes as planned , the Crew Dragon capsule, which rides on the top of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, will make a 19-hour trip to the ISS. The capsule is designed to fly mostly autonomously, but astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will take the controls while in Earth’s orbit to test out its manual capabilities. Docking with the ISS, however, is supposed to be completely autonomous, which is a new feature of the upgraded capsule . A second version of the capsule, the Cargo Dragon, is designed to use this automated docking for seamless deliveries to the ISS. After docking, the astronauts will live on the space station for a few months — the exact timing is not yet decided — before getting back in the Crew Dragon and returning to Earth.
Watch the launch and flight below:
As smoothly as the Saturday launch went, the mission’s success was not a certainty. Originally planned for Wednesday, that launch was canceled due to weather, and SpaceX’s program has suffered a few setbacks in its years-long quest to send people into space, including a few rocket launch failures. On Friday, a prototype of its Starship exploded during an engine fire test. Meanwhile, the new mission is called Crew Dragon Demo-2, because the Crew Dragon Demo-1 spacecraft exploded during a test in 2019. Before its failure, however, Demo-1 did make a successful uncrewed test flight to the ISS.
Assuming the rest of the mission goes according to plan, Crew Dragon Demo-2 will represent the biggest step yet toward the next phrase of space travel, where vessels owned by private companies, rather than government bodies, send astronauts and paying tourists into orbital space. Part of this exciting future could involve space exploration, including trips back to the moon and on to Mars. It will also show us the true potential of the space tourism industry.
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