Crew Dragon First Crewed Flight
SpaceX's Crew Dragon carried astronauts to the ISS - the first crewed US spacecraft since 2011
May 30, 2020
America Returns to Crewed Spaceflight
On May 30, 2020, SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft launched NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It was the first crewed orbital launch from American soil since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011. For nine years, NASA had paid Russia up to $90 million per seat to fly astronauts to the station on Soyuz rockets. Crew Dragon ended that dependence.
A New Kind of Spacecraft
Crew Dragon was developed under NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which contracted private companies to build and operate spacecraft rather than building them in-house. SpaceX won a $2.6 billion contract in 2014. The capsule seats up to seven astronauts, has touchscreen controls, and features a launch escape system designed to pull the crew to safety in an emergency. The spacecraft also makes a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, just like the Apollo capsules of the 1960s.
A New Era of Commercial Spaceflight
The Crew Dragon launch took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving millions of people something hopeful to watch. The mission succeeded, and Behnken and Hurley returned safely in August 2020. Since then, Crew Dragon has carried multiple international crews to the station on regular rotation missions. Boeing is developing its own Starliner capsule under the same program. The first Crew Dragon flight marked a genuine turning point in how humans reach orbit. See the SpaceX founding story for context on how far the company came.