SpaceX Has Delayed First Manned NASA Launch to 2018 from 2017

Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has decided to delay to 2018 from 2017 the first manned launch of its Dragon capsule intended to carry U.S. astronauts into orbit. The company privately reported the slippage to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration earlier this year and confirmed it on Monday. The nearly one-year delay, to the second quarter of 2018 from the spring of 2017, comes in the midst of top-priority efforts to develop new launchpad fueling procedures affecting the company’s entire fleet of Falcon 9 rockets. A company spokesman initially described it as a slip of several months, but a NASA document indicates the initial manned mission had been targeted for April 2017. More

(Source: Wall Street Journal - Dec 14)