SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule unmanned test flight has been postponed until January 2019

The unmanned test flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule has been postponed to sometime in January next year. This first flight without astronauts has been postponed several times. Manned flights will probably not follow until the second half of April 2019.

NASA says that the first unmanned test flight for the Crew Dragon capsule will take place in January 2019, given the possibilities of connecting the capsule to the International Space Station. SpaceX is working with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to have the hardware and other supplies ready by December at least.

Hans Koenigsmann, a vice president at SpaceX, recently told Spacenews that while the hardware will likely be ready by the end of this year, some paperwork may still need to be completed for the necessary certification. According to him, this was the end of the line whether it would still be possible to launch the Crew Dragon this year.

The first unmanned flight of Boeing’s competing Starliner capsule, which is also part of the Commercial Crew Program, has also been postponed again. This flight is now scheduled for March 2019, while the launch date was previously set at the end of 2018.

According to the original plans, the Crew Dragon should have already flown: the first unmanned test flight was scheduled for August, followed by the first manned test flight in December.

Both the Starliner and Crew Dragon will fly to the ISS on their first unmanned test flight after launch, dock with the space station, then undock and return to Earth. This should demonstrate that the systems are ready to transport astronauts to the ISS in due course. For that, NASA is still dependent on Russian Soyuz capsules.

On the left the Crew Dragon capsule from SpaceX and next to it the Starliner from Boeing.