SpaceX

SpaceX

SpaceX

SpaceX

SpaceX

SpaceX may not have launched a rocket on Tuesday (it has yet to confirm a new launch date for the GPS 3 mission), but it did finally get a chance to show off its new Dragon spacecraft that will carry humans into orbit.

Not only did Vice President Mike Pence visit the company's processing hangar at Launch Pad 39A on Tuesday, but the company also released new photos of the spacecraft and its Falcon 9 rocket.

The photos contain some interesting details. Notably, the standalone photo of Dragon and its "trunk" is shown in its on-orbit configuration. Unlike most spacecraft that deploy solar panels, the solar arrays are built into the trunk itself. "The Cargo Dragon’s deployable solar arrays have been eliminated to reduce the number of mechanisms on the vehicle and further increase reliability," SpaceX's then-director of crew operations, Garrett Reisman, explained before Congress.

A photo of Dragon and the rocket also shows the Falcon 9 booster in the midst of being integrated for flight. At far left is the upper stage, with the gray Merlin engine bell extending into the black interstage area between the upper stage and the first stage. This is a new Block 5 core of the Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA has set a launch date of January 17 for the first uncrewed demonstration mission for the new Dragon spacecraft. One source, who has (rightly) been skeptical about past launch dates set by the commercial crew program, expressed optimism that both SpaceX and NASA are working effectively toward a January launch date for this mission, which will fly to the International Space Station.

This means that, provided this launch and spaceflight goes off well, a flight with experienced NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Robert Behnken could follow about six months later. Thus, perhaps sometime around mid-July of 2019, humans could launch into space from Florida again. Were this to indeed happen in July, it would be almost precisely eight years since the final space shuttle mission took place.

Listing image by SpaceX