SpaceX and Boeing Have New Commercial Crew Launch Date Targets

NASA is targeting March 2 for launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon on its uncrewed Demo-1 test flight. Boeing’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test is targeted for launch no earlier than April.

Extra time was needed to complete hardware testing, data verification, remaining NASA and provider reviews, and training of flight controllers and mission managers.

In January, SpaceX successfully completed a static fire test of its Falcon 9 with Crew Dragon atop the rocket at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida, in preparation for Demo-1.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner continues to undergo testing in preparation for its Orbital Flight Test, and United Launch Alliance is conducting final processing of the Atlas V rocket that will launch Starliner from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

New Flight Planning Dates

SpaceX Demo-1 (uncrewed): March 2, 2019
Boeing Orbital Flight Test (uncrewed): NET April 2019
Boeing Pad Abort Test: NET May 2019
SpaceX In-Flight Abort Test: June 2019
SpaceX Demo-2 (crewed): July 2019
Boeing Crew Flight Test (crewed): NET August 2019

Dragon 2 Features

The SpaceX Dragon 2 will be partly reusable. SpaceX expects ten flights are possible before significant vehicle refurbishing is needed.

It will have a payload capacity of 3,307 kilograms (7,291 lb) Cargo Dragon 2. It will be able to carry seven astronauts.

It will use four main parachutes for water landing when returning from space.

SpaceX could develop propulsive landing using the SuperDraco engines. However, propulsive landing capability has not been funded and there is no current plan to use rockets on the return.

The Dragon 2 has a SpaceX-developed SPAM backshell and an updated third-generation PICA-X heat shield.

Prior Success With a Static Fire

SOURCES- NASA, SpaceX

Written By Brian Wang. Nextbigfuture

14 thoughts on “SpaceX and Boeing Have New Commercial Crew Launch Date Targets”

  1. All the military has to do to take over and revive Venezuela’s economy is start a protection racket on property rights — including the socialized property of the government — charging rent on the liquidation value as established by the highest escrowed bids deposited with the military, with the high bid exempted from rent. Then distribute the rent evenly to all of its members to do with as they will. The militia members, acting individually, will quickly deliver social goods to the needy in their respective locales and collectively will do everything in their power to maximize the value of property.

  2. That’s my point. If he doesn’t have the resources to even keep that elite well fed so they do the brutal suppression, that is when he loses power.

  3. That is the thing about socialism, in it’s truest form it creates such a stark division between the haves and the have not’s, and when the have not’s roughly double the number of have’s than the tipping point is reached and a coupe is soon to follow.

  4. So open revolt with national guard support == clickbait?

    NBF made a prediction about this happening and took flak from some members over the prediction.

  5. History has dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of brutal leadership that holds to power for years, decades, sometimes centuries, despite not having enough resources to keep more than a tiny elite well fed and happy.

    It just doesn’t work out according to simple equations.

  6. So has Maduro run out of funds to pay thugs to suppress the opposition? That is when an autocrat gets overthrown. See “The Dictators Handbook”.

  7. I am not right wing, just old. I consider myself progressive but I have a low tolerance for bull snot.

  8. I had to look it up, RWNJ. For those interested it stands for Right Wing Nut Job. I’ll just continue to call both right and left wing nut jobs snowflakes.

  9. Quote Article
    ” but by then protests had died down and millions of Venezuelans had left the country”

    Support dictators, just bring all the unhappy population to the United States.
    The dictator loves that because no one is left oppose him. The emigrants love it because they do not have to stand up for their freedom, just move to a country where the citizens have already paid for their freedom with their own blood.

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