SpaceX's safety rockets successfully tested

American space transport Services Company SpaceX has successfully tested one of the most important components its crewed vehicle needs, the escape engine, SuperDraco.

The company has test-fired a pair of its SuperDraco engines in Texas, demonstrating that the gear could ignite and throttle at the same time.

Demo of pad abort test profile — 2 SuperDraco engines ignite & throttle as they would during Pad Abort flight test https://t.co/2lrrQoQNq3

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 24, 2015

Beautiful launch! Dragon is in orbit. Will provide status updates as available.

— SpaceX Dragon (@SpaceXDragon) December 8, 2010

A big thank you to NASA for their continued support! What an awesome partnership!

— SpaceX Dragon (@SpaceXDragon) December 8, 2010

According to engadget.com, the SuperDracos are designed to push the crew capsule to safety in the event of a launch-based catastrophe like the one that destroyed the Antares rocket.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, has promised that when fitted to the Dragon V2, the engines will be able to land the vehicle and its passengers to safety without the use of a parachute.

SpaceX has shown that the 3D printed hardware is up to the task.

SpaceX will conduct a fuller abort test at Cape Canaveral later this year.

SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. It has developed the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 launch vehicles, both of which were designed from conception to eventually become reusable, and the Dragon spacecraft which is flown into orbit by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle to supply the International Space Station with cargo.