It’s been almost two months since SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft completed its historic flight to the International Space Station. Like any successful team after a victory, the company has released a highlight video for fans and supporters. In addition to plenty of cheering, there’s some previously unseen footage from pre-launch to splashdown, including a glowing orange Merlin engine on the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket.
Naturally, as a video produced to promote the successful ISS mission, the spot skips over some of the technical hiccups and features plenty of cheering employees. But those SpaceXers did manage to launch a rocket, deliver cargo to the ISS and safely return cargo back to earth. Chances are even those who like to point out this orbital flight capability is nothing new would also be cheering if they worked on the project.
SpaceX does face more hurdles. It demonstrated its capability to fulfill its cargo hauling mission to the ISS, and soon will begin flying the first of 12 contracted cargo flights for NASA, including two scheduled for later this year. As the commercial flights begin, the company will be testing its model to see if the success can continue, and more importantly, with enough profit to sustain itself.
The California-based company passed a milestone on its next big project: flying people to space. NASA says SpaceX passed its most recent design review for a manned version of the Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX founder Elon Musk says this puts the company on track for flying astronauts to orbit “by the middle of the decade.”
