SpaceX and NASA Human-rated commercial space system certification complete

This week the first commercial spacecraft system in history was officially certified by NASA. This certification is a monumental point of reference in the Commercial Crew Program with SpaceX and their SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with Crew Dragon Resilience.

"Today's signing is about the people across NASA, SpaceX and other groups that came together to complete an unbelievable amount of hard work to accomplish this task," said Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operation Mission Directorate.

Above you'll see a presentation delivered by NASA's Kennedy Space Center on November 10, 2020. This video shows commentary from Doug Hurley, NASA Astronaut and Demo-2 Spacecraft Commander, Kathy Lueders, and Bob Behnken, NASA Astronaut and Demo-2 Operations Commander.

The importance of this certification for this mission and the future of commercial spaceflight cannot be understated. "Certification moves us from the design and test phase into the crew rotation phase of our work," said Lueders, "But we will not stop making sure every flight, including NASA's Space Crew-1 mission, will be approached with the same rigor we have put into making this the best system it can be for our astronauts."

The next step is set to take place in just a few days! The NASA SpaceX Crew-1 mission will work with the certified SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, and is scheduled for this Saturday. This mission will carry NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi to and from the International Space Station. This launch is scheduled to take off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on November 14, 2020.