“This is an amazing achievement in American history,” Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator, said on NASA Television afterward.
The mission, even though there were no astronauts aboard, was a milestone in NASA’s strategy of turning to private companies to provide trips to orbit for its astronauts. Instead of building its own vehicles, like the space shuttles that were retired in 2011, the space agency hired SpaceX and Boeing to develop commercial space systems.
Saturday, SpaceX was the first to launch its spacecraft, an upgraded version of the Dragon capsule that has carried cargo to the space station for years. The Crew Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station a day later. Early Friday, it left and after a couple of orbits of Earth, it fired its thrusters to allow Earth’s gravity to pull it down.
Bridenstine praised not only SpaceX and NASA but also earlier presidential administrations. More than a decade ago, NASA under the George W. Bush awarded the first contracts for companies to take cargo to the International Space Station. The Obama administration expanded that to include astronauts.
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“We’re going to have numerous providers that are going to compete on cost and innovation,” Bridenstine said.
The Crew Dragon capsule landed right on schedule, at 8:45 a.m. ET about 230 miles off the east coast of Florida.
“If you missed it, I’m sorry, because that was really cool to see,” Daniel Huot, a NASA spokesman, said on NASA Television.
Even though there were no people aboard, there was a spacesuit-adorned mannequin, nicknamed Ripley after the heroine in the “Alien” movies, sitting in one of the Crew Dragon seats. The mannequin’s sensors will tell engineers how the trip would have been for humans.
The capsule was fished out of the ocean, covered in scorch marks from the atmospheric re-entry that made it look like a toasted marshmallow. Once brought back to shore, the same capsule will be refurbished for another launch, also uncrewed, as soon as June. That trip will be more harrowing — a simulated malfunction of the rocket. The spacecraft’s thrusters will attempt to whisk away the capsule, which will then parachute into the ocean.
If that works, two NASA astronauts will ride in another Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station, perhaps as soon as July.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.