Dragon 2 Thruster Firing Video

For SpaceX, the weekend began with the late Friday announcement that it and the Air Force had reached an agreement during mediation in the lawsuit regarding the EELV program and the block buy of rocket cores from ULA. With the announcement more than a little ambiguous, observers split on who, if anyone really won.

The news wasn’t all heavy however. The public also got two visions of the Dragon 2 spacecraft over the weekend. The first was this tweet released by SpaceX on Vine showing a brief test of the craft’s two engine SuperDraco thruster pod.

Full functionality of Crew Dragon's SuperDraco jetpacks demonstrated with hotfire test in McGregor, TX. https://t.co/KfiyBkfR0V

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 24, 2015

The second, and admittedly more entertaining vision, was the Sunday evening episode of the The Simpsons, featuring SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who made his entry and inevitable departure aboard a cartoon version of the Dragon 2.

Image Credit: The Simpsons

In case anyone was left confused by Lisa Simpson’s parting observation “that for a man who likes electric cars, he sure burns a lot of rocket fuel, ” Musk took to Twitter to explain it.

If u saw @TheSimpsons and wonder why @SpaceX doesn't use an electric rocket to reach orbit, it is cuz that is impossible

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 26, 2015

We should get a little clearer picture of what the future for the real Dragon (and Boeing CST-100) spacecraft will look like after an 11:00 AM CST press conference about NASA’s Commercial Crew program today. The event will be live on NASA TV and on the agency website.