The last milestone in the certification process was the Demo-2 mission launched on May 30 with Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on board. Although both astronauts completed this mission with a successful return to Earth earlier this month, it was technically still part of the testing process for the Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket as part of certification for manned space travel. And regular missions will begin with Crew-1.

NASA reported that the date at the end of October (previously discussed at the end of September) was chosen so as not to interfere with the upcoming Soyuz spacecraft mission to the ISS, as well as the departure of the current crew of the space station. The agency is also awaiting a full review of Crew Dragon’s data and test parameters as part of the Demo-2 mission, which has definitely gone pretty much as planned, but which will still be closely scrutinized by NASA and SpaceX to pinpoint the smallest problems.

If the detailed verification of the data is successful and Crew-1 flies in October, then next spring the Crew-2 mission should take place to the International Space Station, during which four more cosmonauts will be sent to replace Crew-1 specialists in orbit.