SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are now officially certified for human spaceflight by NASA

SpaceX

and NASA have completed the multi-year certification program for the

Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft launch system, the first ever human-rated

commercial space system to be developed. The final stage in the

certification process was the Demo-2 mission that SpaceX launched

earlier this year, carrying NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley

to the International Space Station on May 30, 2020, and now all

necessary review of the results of that successful mission is complete.NASA announced the milestone

via its official blog, noting that this certification included a Flight

Readiness Review in preparation for the first ever official ISS crew

mission of the Falcon 9 and Dragon, which is set for this Saturday,

November 14 – weather permitting. That will carry four astronauts,

including three from NASA and one from Japan’s space agency, to the ISS

for an official full-length stay conducting experiments and maintaining

the orbital station.This is the final step in the multi-mission

certification process, which included a number of previous launches

including an uncrewed ISS docking mission, which ran fully automated,

and a launch pad abort test to demonstrate how the launch vehicle’s

safety system would work in the unlikely event of an accident following

launch but prior to reaching orbit. SpaceX

also developed and extensively tested a new parachute system for

controlling the descent of the Dragon crew capsule upon it’s return from

the station to Earth.