SpaceX Crew Dragon leaves space station for Earth

Washington, March 8 (IANS) The Elon Musk-owned SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday for its return to Earth which will end the first unmanned flight test of the vehicle built to carry humans."Departure Confirmed! At 2.32am ET, @SpaceX's #CrewDragon spacecraft undocked from the @Space_Station. The spacecraft is slowly maneuvering away from our orbital laboratory into an orbital track that will return it and its cargo safely to Earth," NASA said in a tweet.The uncrewed demonstration mission, called Demo-1, has one final milestone and that is the safe return to Earth with a scheduled splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean around 8.45 am EST (7.15 pm India time) on Friday, NASA said in a blog post.After beginning its first unmanned flight on March 2, the Crew Dragon capsule docked with the ISS on March 3.It is the first flight test of a space system designed for humans and built and operated by a US commercial company through a public-private partnership.
--IANS gb/bc