Watch Live Here – SpaceX Founder Elon Musk Unveils Manned “Dragon V2” Spaceship on May 29
SpaceX Dragon cargo freighter berthed to the International Space Station during recently concluded SpaceX-3 mission in May 2014. An upgraded, manrated version will carry US astronauts to space in the next two to three years. Credit: NASA
SpaceX is hosting a worldwide live premiere event tonight, May 29, unmasking the veil from the company’s commercial “Dragon V2” manned spaceship, the next step in US human spaceflight at 7 p.m. PST (10 p.m. EST, 0200 GMT).
And none other than billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO and founder, will be the master of ceremonies for the live show direct from SpaceX’s state-of-the-art design and manufacturing facility and Headquarters in Hawthorne, CA!
You can watch LIVE here – via the embedded player above.
Alternatively you can watch courtesy of a streaming webcast courtesy of SpaceX at: www.spacex.com/webcast
Read my “Dragon V2” or “Dragon Version 2” preview story – here.
Musk’s (and NASA’s) goal is to restore America’s capability to launch US astronauts to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station (ISS) by 2017 and to put an end total US dependency on Russia’s Soyuz for astronaut rides to orbit and back.
“SpaceX’s new Dragon V2 spacecraft is a next generation spacecraft designed to carry astronauts into space,” says SpaceX.
“Cover drops on May 29. Actual flight design hardware of crew Dragon, not a mockup,” Musk tweeted recently to build anticipation.
Dragon is among a trio of US private sector manned spaceships being developed with seed money from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program in a public/private partnership to develop a next-generation crew transportation vehicle to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS by 2017 – a capability totally lost following the space shuttle’s forced retirement in 2011.
The Boeing CST-100 and Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser ‘space taxis’ are also vying for funding in the next round of contracts to be awarded by NASA around late summer 2014.
The gumdrop-shaped ‘Dragon V2’ is an upgraded, man rated version of the unmanned Dragon spaceship that will carry a mix of cargo and up to a seven crewmembers to the International Space Station (ISS).
The cargo Dragon just successfully completed its third operational resupply mission to the ISS with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on May 18.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Recent Posts
NASA is Developing Solutions for Lunar Housekeeping’s Biggest Problem: Dust!
Through the Artemis Program, NASA will send the first astronauts to the Moon since the…
Where’s the Most Promising Place to Find Martian Life?
New research suggests that our best hopes for finding existing life on Mars isn’t on…
Can Entangled Particles Communicate Faster than Light?
Entanglement is perhaps one of the most confusing aspects of quantum mechanics. On its surface,…
IceCube Just Spent 10 Years Searching for Dark Matter
Neutrinos are tricky little blighters that are hard to observe. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory in…
Star Devouring Black Hole Spotted by Astronomers
A team of astronomers have detected a surprisingly fast and bright burst of energy from…
What Makes Brown Dwarfs So Weird?
Meet the brown dwarf: bigger than a planet, and smaller than a star. A category…