A Falcon 9 carrying the Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on 2020-01-19.
Demo-2 will use a Crew Dragon spacecraft originally constructed for the first post-certification operational ISS mission.
Recent tests showed the new 2020-03-03 parachute design for Crew Dragon performed very well.
Crew Dragon is being developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract awarded to SpaceX in 2014.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Crew Dragon spacecraft will launch from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center for the in-flight abort test.
The Crew Dragon will reach an apogee of about 40 km during the in-flight abort test and will splash down in the Atlantic 30 to 35 km offshore approximately 10 minutes after liftoff.
SpaceX performed a successful static-fire test on 2020-01-11 of the Falcon 9 booster that will launch a Crew Dragon spacecraft on an in-flight abort test.
The Crew Dragon capsule used on the in-flight abort test was originally built for the Demo-2 crewed test flight and was moved to the in-flight abort test after the Dragon that flew Demo-1 was destroyed in an April SuperDraco test.
Elon Musk indicated that the Crew Dragon spacecraft for the Demo-2 mission should be at the launch site in February but that completing all safety reviews will probably take a few more months.
SpaceX performed an uncrewed Crew Dragon test flight called Demo-1 in March 2019.
SpaceX planned as many as four launches in January 2020, including two other Starlink missions and an in-flight abort test of Crew Dragon.
A drop test failure in April 2019 led to changes in Crew Dragon parachute design and eliminated the possibility of a crewed mission in 2019.
SpaceX completed the tenth consecutive successful multi-parachute test of the Crew Dragon 2019-03-03 parachute design on 2019-12-22.
The 2019-03-03 parachute is the upgraded parachute design for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The 2019-12-20 Orbital Flight Test is a key test of Starliner before the spacecraft carries people and is similar to SpaceX’s Demo-1 Crew Dragon mission from 2019-03-01.
SpaceX planned to be ready to fly a crewed Crew Dragon flight test in early 2020 following an in-flight abort test scheduled no earlier than 2020-01-04.
Boeing stated that SpaceX had a head start since Crew Dragon is based on the cargo version of the spacecraft developed for the commercial cargo program.
SpaceX has started qualification of its new Mark 3 parachutes for Crew Dragon, achieving 13 successful tests after two initial failures.
SpaceX performed a static-fire test of its launch escape thrusters on Nov. 13, nearly seven months after an explosion destroyed another Crew Dragon spacecraft during a similar test.
SpaceX will have its final certification review for its Crew Dragon spacecraft in January 2020.