On 19 January 2020 SpaceX and NASA conducted a test of the Crew Dragon launch escape system. They launched an unmanned Crew Dragon with a Falcon 9 rocket and had the Falcon 9 deliberately fail to test the escape system. As you can see in the video below, all went well and there was an amazing – and expected – explosion along the way. This is a very important step towards having US astronauts launch into space on a US built space craft from US soil, perhaps as soon as the second quarter of the year.