The Falcon and the Dragon

An infographic celebrating the historic launch of SpaceX Demo-2, an incredible moment for the future of spaceflight.

In July 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped out of the relative safety of his spacecraft and made cautious first steps over the surface of the moon, as 600 million people back on Earth watched on in wonder. It was the defining moment of a generation, the new dawn of an age of space travel. Unfortunately, over the next 50 years those dreams were never quite realised. Somewhere along the way we lost our appetite for space. After 1972, we never went back to the moon.

However now perhaps that dawn beckons once more. On May 30th 2020, SpaceX’s Dragon 2 made history as the first ever human crewed commercial spacecraft. And as Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken orbited around the Earth towards the International Space Station, they christened their spacecraft with a new name, Endeavour. Their historic journey to the ISS lasted around 19 hours, but it represents the start of an even longer one. It’s the beginning of an adventure that could take humans back to the Moon, see men and women take new cautious first steps on Mars, and one day lead humanity towards the most ambitious endeavour of all; becoming a multi-planetary species.

This infographic looks at the launch, from coundown to destination, exploring each part through a series of engaging data points. It also shows what led SpaceX to this moment, how dangerous the mission was, how many times a Falcon rocket has landed after launch and what this means for the future.