ABOVE VIDEO:Highlights from the SpaceX’s historic Demo-1 Crew Dragon Test Flight from Kennedy Space Center.
BREVARD COUNTY • KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA –SpaceX successfully launched Crew Dragon’s first demonstration mission Saturday morning from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Launch occurred at 2:49 a.m. ET on March 2.
It was the first time in history a commercially-built and operated American crew spacecraft and rocket launched from American soil.
The Demo-1 mission, SpaceX’s inaugural flight with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, will provide the teams an end-to-end flight test to ensure the spacecraft and systems operate as designed before launching with astronauts.
This test flight without crew on board the spacecraft is intended to demonstrate SpaceX’s capabilities to safely and reliably fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Following stage separation, SpaceX landed Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.