Crew Dragon Demo-2

Key facts

Mission & specifications

Mission

Crew Dragon Demo-2 ended nine years in which the United States — the nation that had sent people to the Moon — could not launch its own astronauts. After the Space Shuttle retired in 2011, every American who flew to the International Space Station rode a Russian Soyuz. NASA's answer was the Commercial Crew Program: rather than build and own its own spacecraft, it paid private companies to fly its astronauts. SpaceX's Dragon was the result, and Demo-2 was its first flight with people aboard. On 30 May 2020, veteran astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley lifted off from Launch Complex 39A — the same Florida pad that had launched Apollo 11 and many Shuttles — atop a Falcon 9. There was a poignant symmetry in the crew: Hurley had been the pilot on the very last Shuttle flight in 2011, and now flew the mission that restored what that landing had taken away. About nineteen hours later, Dragon caught up with the ISS and docked itself, the first commercial spacecraft to carry a crew to the station. Behnken and Hurley named their capsule Endeavour, after a Shuttle they had both flown. They stayed aboard the station for two months before undocking and, on 2 August 2020, splashing down off the Florida coast under four parachutes — the first water landing by US astronauts since Apollo in 1975. The test was a complete success, and it changed spaceflight: it proved a private company could safely fly humans, returned crewed launches to American soil, and opened an era in which NASA buys rides rather than owning the rockets. Every Crew Dragon mission since has built on Demo-2.

1. 2020Launch from pad 39ALaunch

   Behnken and Hurley lift off on a Falcon 9 from the pad that launched Apollo 11 — the first US crewed launch since 2011.

2. 2020First commercial crew dockingMilestone

   Dragon Endeavour docks itself with the ISS, the first private spacecraft to carry a crew to the station.

3. 2020Splashdown off FloridaMission end

   Dragon splashes down under four parachutes — the first US crewed water landing since Apollo in 1975.

Images

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