A recovery ship hauls SpaceX's first Crew Dragon capsule out of the Atlantic Ocean after the spacecraft's splashdown on March 8, 2019. The United States' circuitous road to human spaceflight self-sufficiency just took another turn. On Saturday (April 20), a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule experienced an anomaly during a test of its SuperDraco escape engines, which are designed to get astronauts out of harm's way in the event of a launch emergency. Nobody was injured, but the capsule — which flew a successful uncrewed demonstration mission to the International Space Station (ISS) just last month — may have incurred serious damage. Related: SpaceX's Crew Dragon Demo-1 Test Flight in Pictures This particular spacecraft was scheduled to perform an in-flight abort trial this summer, an uncrewed test of those SuperDracos that will help pave the way for SpaceX's first crewed journey to the ISS for NASA. So, if this Crew Dragon cannot go, those key milestones could be pushed back significantly. A delay would hardly be unprecedented; the timeline for launching American astronauts from American soil has shifted to the right repeatedly over the past few years. Filling the shuttle's shoes The United States has been unable to get people to and from orbit without help since July 2011, when NASA's space shuttle fleet retired after 30 years of service. Ever since then, NASA has bought seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft, for more than $80 million apiece at current prices. (Virgin Galactic has performed two crewed spaceflights since December 2018 , but that company's SpaceShipTwo is a suborbital vehicle.) This dependence was always going to be temporary. NASA began funding commercial-crew activities in 2010, in an attempt to spur the development of private astronaut taxis that will fill the shuttle's shoes. The next year, NASA awarded a total of nearly $270 million to four companies for such work — SpaceX, Boeing, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada. In those early days, the stated goal was to get at least one private American crew-carrying vehicle up and running by the end of 2016 . In 2014, Boeing and SpaceX emerged from the pack with multibillion-dollar awards from NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Boeing got $4.2 billion to develop its CST-100 Starliner capsule, and SpaceX snagged $2.6 billion for Crew Dragon . At the time, NASA said the goal was to have at least one of those capsules operational by the end of 2017. The early schedule slips occurred primarily because Congress did not allocate enough funding for commercial crew, NASA officials have said. And both Boeing and SpaceX have experienced technical issues recently, adding to the delays. Related: Crew Dragon and Starliner: A Look at the Upcoming Astronaut Taxis Problems on the test stand Boeing, for example, had planned to fly an uncrewed test mission to the ISS — that company's equivalent of SpaceX's recently completed Demo-1 flight — in August 2018. But in June of last year, a problem cropped up during a test of Starliner's launch-abort engines. Shortly thereafter, Boeing representatives announced that the company was pushing back the test mission, known as Orbital Flight Test (OFT), to late 2018 or early 2019. OFT was soon retargeted for March 2019, then April, May and finally August. Boeing representatives attributed this latest slip to potential conflicts with another mission launching out of Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this spring; Starliner would have had just a two-day window in May to get up and out, and that was too tight for comfort . OFT will occur after a full-on test of Starliner's launch-abort system. That "pad abort test" is scheduled to take place sometime this summer. Boeing still aims to fly its first crewed test flight to the ISS before the end of the year, company representatives have said. Indeed, NASA's commercial-crew schedule lists "late 2019" as the current target date. SpaceX had been aiming to launch its in-flight abort test this June. If that had gone well, a crewed demonstration mission to the ISS, known as Demo-2, could have lifted off as early as July. Those target dates will almost certainly change as a result of Saturday's anomaly, but it's too soon to speculate by how much. "There are bound to be delays, because apparently both the capsule and the test stand were lost," said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. "But I think it's prudent to wait until we get a bit more information before we start talking about whether it's weeks or months or years," he told Space.com. Part of the business Logsdon also stressed that such setbacks aren't terribly surprising; they come with the territory of developing a new crewed spacecraft. "We've been down this road before," he said. "You have to remind people that we had engines blowing up during shuttle development, and, clearly, we had the Apollo 1 fire ." (That fire, which took place during a launch-rehearsal test on Jan. 27, 1967, is one of NASA's biggest tragedies. It claimed the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.) NASA officials made the same point, stressing that Saturday's unfortunate event offers a chance to make Crew Dragon a better, safer vehicle. "This is why we test," NASA chief Jim Bridenstine said in a statement. "We will learn, make the necessary adjustments and safely move forward with our Commercial Crew Program." There's another lesson here as well — one that the Apollo 1 fire, the losses of the shuttles Challenger and Columbia and other spaceflight disasters have drilled into us. "It's evidence that sending people into space is hard," Logsdon said. "I think it's important to take a deep breath, assess what actually happened and fix it, because we need to regain the ability to launch people."<doc-sep>SpaceX suffered a setback on Saturday when a test-fire accident sent up a plume of orange smoke from the pad where its Crew Dragon astronaut capsule’s escape system engines were being tested. In a statement on Twitter, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the anomaly happened during part of a static fire test of the Crew Dragon’s SuperDraco engines at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The SuperDraco engines power the capsule’s launch abort system, which is designed to propel astronauts away from the rocket in the case of a catastrophic launch failure. Bridenstine tweeted that NASA and SpaceX were “assessing the anomaly.” The extent of damage was unclear from Bridenstine’s statement. SpaceX said Sunday the test area was clear at the time and no one was injured. Advertisement The company said a investigation would be needed to determine probable cause. SpaceX had been set to fly the capsule with a crew aboard on another test flight this year. It is unclear how Saturday’s accident could affect that launch schedule. “This is why we test,” Bridenstine said in the Twitter statement. “We will learn, make the necessary adjustments and safely move forward with our Commercial Crew program.” The Hawthorne-based rocket company had been conducting a series of engine tests on a Crew Dragon test capsule Saturday at the company’s test stand at Cape Canaveral, a SpaceX representative said in a statement. Although initial tests were completed successfully, “the final test resulted in an anomaly on the test stand,” SpaceX said in the statement. “Ensuring that our systems meet rigorous safety standards and detecting anomalies like this prior to flight are the main reasons why we test,” SpaceX said. “Our teams are investigating and working closely with our NASA partners.” A photo taken Saturday by Florida Today visual journalist Craig Bailey showed a plume of orange smoke rising above Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. SpaceX said Sunday that the test capsule involved in Saturday’s anomaly was the one that flew in March during the first uncrewed launch of the Crew Dragon. That capsule successfully docked with the International Space Station and then returned to Earth on parachutes before landing in the Atlantic Ocean. It was set to be reused in June for an in-flight abort test, in which the spacecraft would be launched atop a rocket and then detached prematurely to test its emergency escape system. Advertisement SpaceX is building another Crew Dragon capsule that is set to carry astronauts in the crewed flight test.<doc-sep>The Crew Dragon Demo-1 capsule looks pretty charred as it returns to shore on SpaceX's recovery ship after ending its mission to the International Space Station with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean on March 8, 2019. This was before it exploded during an engine test on April 20, 2019. An explosion that may have destroyed a test version SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft during an engine test on Saturday (April 20) could push back NASA's plans to begin launching astronauts from U.S. soil this summer. "The NASA and SpaceX teams are assessing the anomaly that occurred today during a part of the Dragon Super Draco Static Fire Test at SpaceX Landing Zone 1 in Florida," NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said via Twitter Saturday night. "This is why we test. We will learn, make the necessary adjustments and safely move forward with our Commercial Crew Program." Ever since NASA's space shuttle program ended in 2011, the agency has relied on Russia's Soyuz rocket-capsule combo to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. NASA aims to end its reliance on Russian space vehicles by launching astronauts from U.S. soil using both SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner crew capsules. Related: SpaceX Crew Dragon Capsule Suffers Anomaly During Engine Test SpaceX has already completed one successful uncrewed test mission of the Crew Dragon last month. For the Demo-1 mission, the Crew Dragon spacecraft launched to the International Space Station on March 2 and returned to Earth with a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean one week later. When recovery workers pulled the capsule out of the water, the charred spacecraft resembled a toasted marshmallow . Although the Demo-1 mission did not have a crew on board, SpaceX did put a sensor-packed test dummy named Ripley inside the capsule to collect data during the flights to and from the space station. The first Crew Dragon mission with astronauts on board was scheduled to launch no earlier than July 25, although that date is likely to slip after Saturday's accident. Meanwhile, Boeing's Starliner is scheduled to launch on its first uncrewed test mission in August — a date that has already slipped by about a year from its initial targeted launch date of August 2018. Although it seemed like SpaceX would beat Boeing to launching the first crewed mission in a commercial spacecraft, the fiery anomaly with SpaceX's test of the Crew Dragon over the weekend could be a setback for both SpaceX and NASA. The Crew Dragon capsule that was damaged during Saturday's engine test was the same Crew Dragon that completed the Demo-1 mission in March, a SpaceX spokesperson told Space.com in an email. SpaceX initially planned to reuse that Crew Dragon capsule on future commercial crew missions, SpaceX's chief executive Elon Musk has said. But depending on the extent of the damage, the capsule may now no longer be reusable. "Initial data reviews indicate the anomaly occurred during the SuperDraco static fire test; additional review will be required to determine the probable cause," the SpaceX spokesperson said. "SpaceX will continue to work closely with our NASA partners to review the test data and implement corrective actions ... We will take lessons learned from this test — and our rigorous comprehensive test campaign — to ensure Crew Dragon is one of the safest human spaceflight vehicles ever built." SpaceX has not yet reported details about the exact cause of the anomaly or the extent of the damage to the capsule and Landing Zone 1, where the explosion occurred. Space.com will post more updates as we learn more.<doc-sep>
Less than two weeks after SpaceX triumphantly launched its huge Falcon Heavy rocket on its first commercial flight, the company suffered a setback when its Crew Dragon capsule was hit by an “anomaly” during testing that could force the postponement of the capsule’s first crewed flight to the International Space Station. No injuries were reported in the incident, which occurred during an uncrewed engine test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Photos taken by eyewitnesses showed plumes of smoke coming from the site. “Earlier today, SpaceX conducted a series of engine tests on a Crew Dragon test vehicle on our test stand at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral, Florida,” SpaceX officials said Saturday in a statement to Florida Today, a newspaper based in central Florida. “The initial tests completed successfully but the final test resulted in an anomaly on the test stand.” The company didn’t provide details about the anomaly but said it had begun an investigation. In a statement released Saturday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said the agency was working with SpaceX to assess the incident. "This is why we test,” he said. “We will learn, make the necessary adjustments and safely move forward with our Commercial Crew Program.” SpaceX launched the Crew Dragon capsule on its first uncrewed test flight to the space station March 2. The spacecraft spent almost a week attached to the orbiting outpost before returning to Earth and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida. The company is expected to conduct one more uncrewed flight of the capsule to test the spacecraft’s emergency abort system. After that, NASA could authorize the first Crew Dragon flight to the space station with two astronauts onboard. Neither SpaceX nor NASA has announced the dates for these upcoming flights or said how they could be affected by the recent accident. The Crew Dragon is one of two new commercially built capsules designed to ferry astronauts to and from the space station — and end NASA’s long reliance on Russian spacecraft. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule, which has been plagued by delays, is expected to conduct its first uncrewed test flight in August. Want more stories about space? SIGN UP FOR THE MACH NEWSLETTER AND FOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.