SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been working on his company's Crew Dragon mission for sometime now. The CEO on Monday shared a video simulation of what the company's Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS) could look like.
The two-minute clip that Musk tweeted shows flight crew boarding the capsule-like spaceship Crew Dragon, countdown, take off and separation of the vehicle from the Falcon 9 rocket. In the simulation, the capsule is seen docking with the ISS and then detaching.
NASA hopes the capsule could be ready for its first crewed "Demo-2" test flight to the ISS in the first quarter of 2020, Engadget reported. In November SpaceX completed a series of static fire engine tests of its new passenger spacecraft, Crew Dragon, paving the way for an in-flight launch escape demonstration.
In April, during a similar set of engine tests, the spacecraft experienced an anomaly which led to an explosion and loss of the vehicle.
In the following months, a team made up of SpaceX and NASA personnel determined that a slug of liquid propellant in the high-flow helium pressurisation system unexpectedly caused a titanium ignition event resulting in an explosion.
*Edited from an IANS report