As it happened: NASA leadership announces delays to first Artemis crewed launch, Moon landing missions

SpaceX completed Friday the last drop test of the Dragon crew capsule’s parachutes before the first launch of astronauts on the human-rated ship May 27, while technicians at Cape Canaveral have mated the spacecraft’s crew module with its unpressurized trunk section.

A scaled-down team of technicians and medical personnel — wearing facial masks as a precaution against the global coronavirus pandemic — met a three-person space station crew on the steppes of Kazakhstan Friday after their landing aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft wrapped up its five-day stay at the International Space Station at 2:31 a.m. EST (0731 GMT) Friday with a smooth undocking, then nailed an on-target splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean east of Florida at 8:45 a.m. EST (1345 GMT).