SpaceX is about to embark on a new frontier: sending people into space.
Elon Musk’s space-faring company has made its name sending cargo and satellites into the stratosphere for fee-paying customers, but a partnership with NASA means the firm will soon start sending astronauts to the International Space Station.
On April 20, the SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle had experienced an “anomaly”, as the company called it at the time, on a test pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The explosion took place during testing of the thrusters on the same Crew Dragon spacecraft that flew the uncrewed Demo-1 mission to the International Space Station in March. SpaceX was testing the thrusters, including both the smaller Draco thrusters and larger SuperDraco thrusters, ahead of an in-flight abort test of the spacecraft then planned for this summer.
SpaceX revealed July 15, the cause of the explosion that destroyed its Crew Dragon spacecraft – and delayed its first launch of humans to the International Space Station.
It may take a bit…