For the Commercial Crew Program, NASA requires participating companies to include and test a launch escape system in their crew-carrying vehicles.

[7] Prior to this, the last time American crewed spaceflight implemented the capability to escape a rocket during an emergency or anomaly was on the Saturn IB launch vehicle during Skylab missions and Apollo-Soyuz.

[10] The Space Shuttle program had fourteen astronaut casualties during its 30-year duration, half of which occurred when a booster rocket failed during ascent.

Originally, the flight-proven first stage chosen to be used for the test was B1048,[23] but it was eventually decided to be B1046, the first of the human-rated Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters to be built and flown.

[19] As the flight was the final test before SpaceX and NASA were to fly crew to the International Space Station, it was used by all parties involved to practice various procedures surrounding the launch and abort.

[22] As expected,[13][20] the rocket disintegrated into a fireball after its blunt end was exposed to the supersonic airstream following the escape of Dragon; as a result, the booster began tumbling and its propellant tanks gave way.

[21] The capsule followed its suborbital trajectory to an apogee of around 138.000 ft (42 km), and jettisoned its trunk and fins into the ocean before positioning itself for descent and successfully deploying both drogue chutes and all four main parachutes.