SpaceX debuts crew capsule

Associated Press

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

SpaceX closes in on human spaceflight with this weekend’s debut of a new capsule designed for astronauts.

The six-day test flight will be real in every regard, beginning with a Florida liftoff Saturday and a docking the next day with the International Space Station. But the Dragon capsule won’t carry humans, rather a test dummy – named Ripley after the tough heroine in the “Alien” films – in the same white SpaceX spacesuit that astronauts will wear.

NASA doesn’t expect this crucial shakedown cruise to go perfectly. But the lessons learned should improve safety when two NASA astronauts strap into a Dragon as early as July.

“Giant leaps are made by a series of consistent smaller steps. This one will be a big step!” retired astronaut Scott Kelly, NASA’s former one-year space station resident, tweeted Thursday.

Boeing is also in the race to end NASA’s eight-year drought of launching U.S. astronauts on U.S. rockets from U.S. soil. The space agency is turning to private taxi rides to reduce its pricey reliance on Russian rockets to get astronauts to and from the space station. NASA is providing $8 billion for SpaceX and Boeing to build and operate these new systems.

“On a personal level, this is an extremely important mission,” SpaceX executive Hans Koenigsmann told reporters Thursday. “And I’m pretty sure it’s not just me – I think everybody within SpaceX feels this and wants to get this right.”