The first ever commercial crewed spacecraft mission ended successfully on Sunday when the Crew Dragon capsule plashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of the US state of Florida. The spacecraft, designed, developed, owned and operated by private-sector company SpaceX, was carrying US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) astronauts Robert Behnken and Doug Hurley. SpaceX was founded and is headed by South African-born engineer and entrepreneur Elon Musk. This mission was technically a demonstration mission, known as Demo-2 (Demo-1 was an uncrewed mission), which was the final step before Nasa can complete certification the Crew Dragon spacecraft, the Falcon 9 rocket, their ground support systems, and mission procedures and operations, for routine crewed missions.
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