Demo-2 Lifted Off at 3:22 p.m. EDT on May 30, 2020. NASA's Day Count Is Not the Archive's.

A launch clock, a splashdown place, and a day count are three records. NASA’s May 30, 2020 release and NASA’s August 2, 2020 release do not print the same coast. NASA’s August 2 release does not print the day count on the splashdown note in the update archive. The later all-civilian flight is Inspiration4. This one had NASA astronauts aboard, under the Commercial Crew Program.

The May 30 note and the August 2 note in the archive are the launch summary and the splashdown summary. This page is the mission record from the NASA releases. The company is SpaceX.

What’s confirmed

Liftoff, as the May 30 release prints it

NASA’s launch release, dated May 30, 2020, says the SpaceX Crew Dragon carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off at 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday on Falcon 9 from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. The photo caption repeats that clock, that pad, and those two names, and it calls Demo-2 “the first launch with astronauts of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station” as part of the Commercial Crew Program.

The body says: “For the first time in history, NASA astronauts have launched from American soil in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station.” The caption says American astronauts launched “on an American rocket from American soil to low-Earth orbit for the first time since the conclusion of the Space Shuttle Program in 2011.” Those are two sentences. This page does not collapse them into one category.

The release calls the flight an end-to-end test of launch, in-orbit operations, docking, and landing. It says this is SpaceX’s second spaceflight test of Crew Dragon and its first test with astronauts aboard. It identifies Elon Musk as chief engineer at SpaceX and quotes him: “This is a dream come true for me and everyone at SpaceX.” A later sentence in the same quotation says “you can look at this as the results of a hundred thousand people roughly when you add up all the suppliers.” “Roughly” is in the release.

The same release, written on launch day, says that at the end of the mission the spacecraft “will then autonomously undock” and that splashdown will be “off Florida’s Atlantic coast,” with recovery to the dock at Cape Canaveral. It also says the operational Crew Dragon “will be capable of staying in orbit for at least 210 days as a NASA requirement.”

Label: Launch-day release. 3:22 p.m. EDT, May 30, 2020, LC-39A, Behnken and Hurley, are that release. “Atlantic coast” is a plan in that release, not the place the August 2 release prints. “At least 210 days” is a requirement the release states for the operational spacecraft. It is not the length of this flight. “Hundred thousand people roughly” is Musk’s sentence, as the release quotes it.

Splashdown, and the counts NASA prints

NASA’s August 2, 2020 release says Crew Dragon, carrying Behnken and Hurley, splashed down under parachutes in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, at 2:48 p.m. EDT Sunday and was recovered by SpaceX. The photo caption names the recovery ship Go Navigator.

The release says that after reaching orbit they named the spacecraft Endeavour, “as a tribute to the first space shuttle each astronaut had flown aboard.” It says that nearly 19 hours after launch, Crew Dragon docked to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module on May 31.

It says they spent 62 days aboard station. “Overall, the astronaut duo spent 64 days in orbit, completed 1,024 orbits around Earth and traveled 27,147,284 statute miles.”

It says their return was the first splashdown for American astronauts since Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, and Donald “Deke” Slayton landed in the Pacific off Hawaii on July 24, 1975, at the end of Apollo-Soyuz.

It says Behnken conducted four spacewalks with Expedition 63 commander Chris Cassidy. It says Behnken is tied for the most spacewalks by an American astronaut, at 10, with Michael Lopez-Alegria, Peggy Whitson, and Chris Cassidy, and that he has spent 61 hours and 10 minutes spacewalking.

The release says completion of Demo-2 paves the way for NASA to certify the system, “which is expected to take about six weeks,” and that SpaceX is readying Crew-1 “later this year.”

Label: August 2 release. Gulf of Mexico, not the Atlantic coast in the May 30 release. 2:48 p.m. EDT. Endeavour is the name the release says the crew gave the spacecraft. 62 days aboard station and 64 days in orbit are both in this release. They are not the same count, and this page does not pick one. “About six weeks” and “later this year” are the release’s schedule language on August 2. They are not the November certification.

The splashdown note on this site attributes 63 days to SpaceX’s August 2, 2020 post. This pass did not re-open that post. Sixty-three is not a number in the NASA release this desk read. The three counts stay in their own documents.

Certification is a later document

NASA’s November 10, 2020 release says NASA signed the Human Rating Certification Plan that Tuesday for SpaceX’s crew transportation system. It says the Crew Dragon, including Falcon 9 and the associated ground systems, is the first new crew spacecraft NASA-certified for regular astronaut flights since the space shuttle nearly 40 years earlier. It names Demo-2, with Behnken and Hurley, as one of the events that paved the way. It says Crew-1 will fly NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, along with JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi, on a six-month mission. It says Crew Dragon is targeting launch on a Falcon 9 on Saturday, Nov. 14, from Launch Complex 39A. “Nov. 14” is the release’s abbreviation.

Label: November 10 release. Certification is not the August 2 “about six weeks” sentence. Nov. 14 is a target in that release. The certification note on this site says the docking post shows the launch moving to November 15. That note is a summary of SpaceX’s post. This page does not merge Nov. 14 and November 15.

Claims and open questions

“First time in history” in the May 30 body is the release’s phrase for a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft, from American soil, on the way to the station. The caption’s “since 2011” is a different sentence, about an American rocket from American soil to low-Earth orbit. This page does not treat them as one superlative.

The May 30 release’s Atlantic-coast splashdown did not happen in the place the August 2 release prints. No correction of the May 30 sentence was inside the August 2 release this desk read. The August 2 release simply prints the Gulf.

The 63-day figure remains the archive’s attribution to a company post this pass did not re-open.

On the map

Inspiration4 is the 2021 flight NASA’s pre-launch release called not a NASA mission. Polaris Dawn is the 2024 Dragon flight with a spacewalk. SpaceX is the company. The update archive still holds the launch note, the splashdown note, and the November 10 note.

Sources

Checked October 21, 2026.