One of the space company's Crew Dragon capsules exploded on a test stand at a Florida Air Force station moments before firing eight emergency abort thrusters designed to propel an on-board crew to safety in the event of a failure. Crew Dragon was slated earlier this year to carry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station in a first manned test mission in July, although that date slipped until November following the explosion and some other hitches in the vehicle's design. "I'm pretty optimistic at this point in time because we have a good path forward," Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president of Build & Flight Reliability told reporters on a conference call as the company provided fresh details from the investigation.
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