SpaceX capsule back on Earth, paves way for new manned US flights

SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule completed its NASA demonstration mission Friday with a successful splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, paving the way for the resumption of manned space flights from the US.

After hours of suspense, the Crew Dragon touched down in the Atlantic Ocean at 8:45 am some 230 miles (370 kilometers) off the coast of the US state of Florida.

The capsule brought its "crew" of one test dummy back to Earth in the same way that American astronauts returned to the planet in the Apollo era in the 1960s and 1970s, before the 1981-2011 Space Shuttle Program.

NASA TV footage showed the capsule gently drifting into the ocean, its decent slowed by its four main orange and white parachutes, which folded into the water around it as boats sped toward the site.

"Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed!" the SpaceX Twitter account tweeted.

"Beautiful parachute deployment," said Benji Reed, the director of crew mission management at SpaceX. "I'm still shaking." NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine hailed the splashdown, saying it "marked another milestone in a new era of human spaceflight."
The re-entry into Earth's atmosphere tested the vehicle's heat shield for the first time, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk had previously said that the phase was "probably my biggest concern."
"You see the light from the atmosphere as it heats up," astronaut Bob Behnken said of re-entry. "You see some orange light flickering."