Are SpaceX’s Commercial Crew Test Flights Slipping Again?
During an announcement tonight about the first private passenger to fly around the Moon, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk indicated that the dates for the company’s commercial crew test flights may be slipping again.
At an event introducing Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire who is paying to fly himself and six to eight artists on the first crewed Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) flight around the Moon in 2023, Musk was asked about the commercial crew schedule.
Stressing the commercial crew program is SpaceX’s top priority along with national security launches, he casually mentioned that he expects the uncrewed test flight in December and the crewed test flight in “the second quarter” of 2019.
In August, SpaceX and Boeing announced slips to their respective dates for test flights of the Falcon 9/Crew Dragon and Atlas V/Starliner systems. At the time, SpaceX said its uncrewed test flight would be in November 2018, a date that is still listed on NASA’s commercial crew website along with April 2019 as the crewed test flight. April is the beginning of the second quarter, so it is possible SpaceX is still aiming for then, but the time period also includes May and June.
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