Click here to Join L2 “We would rather have it be a true partnership where we launch on their rockets, and they launch on our rockets,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, at an event on Oct. 10 at SpaceX’s headquarters. The Commercial Crew Program has been plagued with delays. When the winning providers were chosen in 2013, the first crewed flights were scheduled for 2017. However, a lack of funding from Congress in the early years of the program, combined with technical setbacks in recent months, has caused the first crewed flights to slip into 2020. Despite the delays, 2019 has seen substantial progress from SpaceX. The company successfully completed the Demo-1 mission in March. That mission saw a Crew Dragon capsule fly into orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket for the first time, dock with the International Space Station, and then return home with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. The SpaceX Demo-1 capsule descends under parachutes. Credit: SpaceX But amongst the success have also been setbacks. SpaceX has been working two primary technical challenges over the past year. These include a major test stand anomaly and continued problems with the spacecraft’s parachutes. On April 20th, the same Crew Dragon which performed the Demo-1 mission was to execute a static fire test to verify that its systems were functioning properly ahead of an inflight abort test. The inflight abort test is where an uncrewed Crew Dragon capsule attempts to escape from a Falcon 9 at the moment of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the launch vehicle. The April static fire test was a precursor to the inflight abort – allowing the capsule to perform the abort maneuvers while being held down to a test stand. The Demo-1 capsule is recovered by a recovery ship in March, 2019. The capsule was destroyed the following month in a test stand anomaly. Credit: NASA The static fire went horribly wrong – with Crew Dragon exploding on the test stand. Consequently, the subsequent inflight abort test has yet to occur.