SpaceX readies Crew Dragon spacecraft for first test flight to the space station

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By Denise Chow

SpaceX will conduct the first test flight of its Crew Dragon capsule this weekend, in what could be a major milestone for the commercial spaceflight industry.

The test flight is scheduled to occur Saturday (March 2) at 2:48 a.m. EST. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and fly to the International Space Station. It is scheduled to dock with the orbiting outpost at around 5:55 a.m. EST on Sunday (March 3).

The test flight, dubbed Demo-1, is the first time that a commercially built spacecraft designed to carry astronauts will launch to the space station. If successful, SpaceX will be one step closer to flying human passengers aboard the Crew Dragon capsule.

“I guarantee you that not everything will work exactly right, and that’s cool,” William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration, said Friday in a news briefing. “That’s exactly what we want to do.”

source: nbcnews.com