About 200 miles off Florida’s east coast, SpaceX teams have recovered the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft from the Atlantic Ocean and lifted it aboard SpaceX’s primary recovery ship, Go Searcher. The spacecraft splashed down at 8:45 a.m. EST, wrapping up the Demo-1 flight test that began one week ago today with liftoff aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Demo-1 is the first flight test of a space system designed for humans built and operated by a commercial company through a public-private partnership. The mission also marks a significant step toward returning to the nation the capability to launch astronauts on a U.S.-built spacecraft from U.S. soil.