SpaceX Passes Grueling NASA Safety Review

SpaceX, the vanguard of the private space industry, is now significantly closer to manned space flight missions thanks to their successful completion of NASA safety reviews.

The reviews, which occurred in October 2013 at SpaceX’s headquarters, set the company up to be the first private firm to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. So far, SpaceX has already flown a number of missions for the agency, including one that featured a corrected SNAFU.

While private missions to the ISS won’t liftoff until at least 2017, the task of ensuring astronaut safety is unsurprisingly long and laborious; for instance, the recent 2-day review focused almost entirely on the company’s safety practices. “We greatly appreciate NASA’s support and feedback throughout this process,” said Garrett Reisman, commercial crew project manager at SpaceX and a former astronaut himself. "Together we are taking all the necessary steps to make Dragon the safest, most reliable spacecraft ever flown."

SpaceX’s next step towards full manned spaceflight certification will occur sometime in the second quarter of 2014 when it attempts a pad abort test at Cape Canaveral, Florida. A second test, slated for the third quarter of 2014, will see a Dragon capsule separate from a Falcon 9 rocket and perform a parachute landing into the seasonably warm Atlantic Ocean.

According to NASA, this safety review marks the 9^th milestone that SpaceX has met as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capability program. With 6 milestones remaining, SpaceX is well on its way to becoming NASA’s first private workhorse.

Once thought to be only a dream, it appears that private spaceflight may be the major engineering and organizational milestone of the century. In particular, the types of missions that private space companies will be flying in 25 years could dramatically accelerate our exploration of space, including the eventual production of off-world colonies.

Images Courtesy of SpaceX