SpaceX's emergency escape plan for astronauts was just tested successfully
NASA described it as a test flight “unlike any seen in Florida since the days of Apollo,” but for anyone watching the livestream, the SpaceX test looked pretty serene. SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon capsule was blasted into the atmosphere with just a few seconds of rocket burn before it executed its abort sequence. First, the spacecraft’s trunk was jettisoned, and then a succession of parachutes were deployed, dropping the capsule gently into the Atlantic ocean just a few thousand meters off the shore of Cape Canaveral.
the next step is testing the system in-flight
The “pad abort” test lasted only a few minutes, but it paves the way for the launch of a Dragon capsule carrying humans into space. If something goes wrong with a rocket launch…
Source:: The Verge