Posted: Sun, Apr 21, 2019, 10:17 AM ET (1417 GMT)
A Crew Dragon spacecraft undergoing a series of static fire tests Saturday suffered a major anomaly, SpaceX confirmed. The spacecraft, at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, was performing a series of tests of its thrusters when the incident took place. The company provided few details about the anomaly, which created a dark cloud visible from beaches miles away. NASA said in a separate statement that the problem took place during testing of the vehicle's SuperDraco thrusters that are part of the capsule's launch escape system. SpaceX did not disclose which Crew Dragon capsule was being tested, but it is believed to be the one flown on the Demo-1 commercial crew test flight in March. The incident is likely to delay both an in-flight abort test, which planned to use the Demo-1 capsule, as well as the future Demo-2 crewed test flight.
