SpaceX and NASA have made history once again, successfully completing the crucial final phase of their Demo-2 mission for the Crew Dragon spacecraft, SpaceX’s first spacecraft made for human flight. This marks the end of this last demonstration mission, which flew NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station on May 30, where they remained for two months prior to making the return trip on Sunday.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon appears to have performed exactly as intended throughout the mission, handling the launch, ISS docking, undocking, de-orbit and splashdown in a fully automated process that kept the astronauts safe and secure throughout. This final phase included recovery of Behnken and Hurley at sea in the Gulf of Mexico using SpaceX’s GO Navigator recovery vessel, which went smoothly, with the capsule loaded onto Navigator around 3:18 PM EDT, and the hatch opened at roughly 4:00 PM EDT, and the crew exiting starting at around 4:06 PM EDT. There were a number of private vessels in the area (you can see them in the gif below), which is a violation of the security conditions, but SpaceX established a perimeter and continued, which is essentially the best they can do under these conditions. Read more from Techcrunch
