On Saturday, during fire tests of the engines of the Crew Dragon manned spacecraft, which took place at the SpaceX landing complex at Cape Canaveral in the United States, problems occurred.
According to the Florida Today resource, because of the accident, large clouds of smoke appeared at the company's facility on the coast of Florida. If the problem turns out to be serious, it could derail the company's plans to send astronauts aboard a spacecraft into space in July.
"Today, SpaceX conducted a series of engine tests on the Crew Dragon test vehicle at our test facility at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral, Florida," a SpaceX spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. He noted that the initial stage of testing was successful, but at the final stage there was a failure.
In an interview with Florida Today, a spokesman for the US Air Force unit that controls launches from Cape Canaveral confirmed that no one was injured in the incident.
In March, SpaceX held its first successful Crew Dragon capsules aboard the Falcon 9 rocket. During the test flight, the spacecraft docked automatically with the International Space Station (ISS), and then successfully splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, using a system of four parachutes for braking.
Currently, the company's specialists, together with employees of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), are investigating the incident.
Source: 3dnews.ru