View full post on X SpaceX is one of two companies, along with Boeing, working on a contract with NASA to build vehicles capable of carrying crews to the International Space Station as early as 2017. SpaceX has already been flying cargo to the station under a separate, $1.6 billion, 12-mission contract and has made seven flights to ISS already. Boeing has drop-tested its own crew capsule, the CST-100, but has not yet flown any propulsive tests.Blue Origin, the space company headed by Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, tested an abort system similar to the one flown by SpaceX at its West Texas proving ground in 2012. That company also conducted a full unmanned test flight of a suborbital rocket and capsule last month. The thrusters built into the walls of the crew Dragon serve another important function in addition to propelling human inhabitants to safety in the event of an exploding rocket below them. They also will enable future touchdowns on land in place of parachute splashdowns in water. "Imagine you land," Koenigsmann said, "you check out the vehicle, you bring it up to the launch pad, and you it launch again. That's the vision." "You check out the vehicle, you bring it up to the launch pad, and you it launch again." It's an echo of SpaceX's attempts this year to build first-stage boosters for its Falcon 9 rocket that can fly themselves back for gentle touchdowns rather than burning up in the atmosphere on reentry like most other rockets. So far the company has attempted to recover two boosters by landing them on a drone ship floating in the Atlantic, but both times steering thruster glitches resulted in fireballs rather than recoveries. SpaceX plans to try again to recover a first stage booster after a lunch in June. Ultimately, the company plans to have its boosters fly themselves back to dry land for easier recovery and return to flight, just like the Dragon capsules. SpaceX plans another test of the crew escape system as early as this summer. This time, the Dragon will be riding a Falcon 9 in flight, and that test will occur at about 40,000 feet as the ship passes through the point of maximum dynamic pressure, or Max Q, when vibrations and atmospheric buffeting are at their most intense. Michael Belfiore