SpaceX completed the last big test of its crew capsule before launching astronauts in as little as two months, mimicking an emergency escape shortly after liftoff Sunday. Recycled from three previous launches, the SpaceX rocket was destroyed as it crashed into the sea in pieces. Hurley and Behnken, the NASA astronauts assigned to the first SpaceX crew, monitored the flight from the firing room, including the capsule recovery effort. Last month, meanwhile, Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule ended up in the wrong orbit on its first test flight and had to skip the space station. An investigation team was still looking into why the Starliner’s automated timer was off by 11 hours during the December test flight.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 19, 2020 16:30 UTC