SpaceX just took a giant leap forward in its
quest to launch astronauts.
The private spaceflight company intentionally
destroyed one of its rockets on Sunday (Jan.
19) as part of a crucial test of its new Crew
Dragon capsule's launch escape system.
The uncrewed test, known as an in-flight abort
(IFA) test, is considered to be the last major
milestone for California's SpaceX Company
before the US space agency NASA certifies
the firm to carry astronauts to the International
Space Station (ISS) later this year.
Originally scheduled to launch on Saturday
(Jan. 18), the unpiloted SpaceX Crew capsule
was grounded for 24 hours due to unfavorable
weather conditions at both the launch site
and the Crew Dragon recovery zone, the Atlantic
Ocean just off the Florida coast.
After a one-day delay due to rough seas in
the splashdown zone — and a two-and-a-half-hour
hold Sunday to wait for improved winds — the
Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off on top of
a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10:30 a.m. EST
Sunday from pad 39A at kennedy space center
in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the same launch
pad once used by NASA’s Saturn 5 moon rockets
and space shuttles.
In this video Engineering Today will discuss
this in-flight abort test which SpaceX successfully
completed for its Crew Dragon spacecraft.
Why SpaceX things this picture perfect test
paves way for human mission?
Let’s get into details.
It was the fourth and final flight for that
particular Falcon 9 rocket booster.
Recovery wasn't planned, and the impressive
fireball showed SpaceX's prediction that the
rocket wouldn't survive were pretty much on
the money.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, fully fueled for
launch, appears to explode and break apart
after Crew Dragon's abort maneuver.
This was expected and SpaceX warned viewers
to expect the rocket's fiery fate.
While the nine Merlin engines on the Falcon
9 rocket cut off in response to the escape
command, nearly 130,000 pounds of thrust from
eight SuperDraco engines pushed the SpaceX
Crew Dragon rapidly away from the top of the
launcher.
SpaceX Crew Dragon's "trunk" is seen here
after separating from the crew capsule section.
Crew Dragon was expected to reach a maximum
altitude of about 25 miles (40 kilometers)
during the launch.
The four Mark 3 main parachutes deploy to
slow SpaceX Crew Dragon during its descent
back to Earth.
The spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic
Ocean about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east
of the launch site.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 surpassed the speed of
sound in less than a minute, and the Crew
Dragon’s pre-programmed escape sequence
initiated around 84 seconds after liftoff,
when the rocket was at an altitude of roughly
62,000 feet (19 kilometers), a fireball was
spotted in the sky.
A few moments later, a sonic boom echoed through
the sky.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 exploded as expected,
and a second boom was heard when its remnants
hit the ocean.
SpaceX said the capsule, and two mannequins
seated inside, accelerated at about 3.5 gravitational
force during the abort, a relatively gentle
ride for astronauts in good physical condition.
The capsule later deployed parachutes and
splashed down in the Atlantic for recovery
by SpaceX vessels.
Onlookers were hoping to see the Crew Dragon
descend under parachute, but unfortunately
clouds obstructed much of the view.
The mission starred an unpiloted crew capsule
that blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space
Center here in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon
9 rocket with a thrice-flown first stage.
Before meeting its demise on that day, this
booster made three trips to space in 2018,
lofting the first Bangladeshi satellite; an
Indonesian communications satellite; and then
an epic rideshare mission that launched a
stack of 64 satellites.
The booster could have theoretically flown
several more orbital-class launches before
it might have otherwise been quietly retired,
but it is still the first SpaceX Falcon 9
Block 5 booster qualified for flight.
When NASA retired its fleet of space shuttles
in 2011, the agency looked to the commercial
sector to ferry crews to and from the ISS,
selecting SpaceX and Boeing as its future
space taxi providers.
NASA has paid SpaceX over $3.1 billion, after
the latter won the contract to fly manned
missions for the agency in 2014.
Once these missions commence, it will also
pay the private company $55 million per astronaut
for a seat on a flight.
In 2011, NASA shut down its Space Shuttle
program, and have relied on the space agencies
of other countries, like Russia, to send their
astronauts in space.
If the upcoming mission by SpaceX is successful,
the agency will need to rely less on other
countries, and could also save money on future
launches.
In-flight anomalies are rare, but they do
happen.
The importance of having an effective abort
capability was underlined by the 2018 experience
of Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and Nasa
flight engineer Nick Hague.
They were on a routine journey to the ISS
when their Soyuz rocket damaged itself two
minutes into the ascent.
The men only escaped death because their capsule
also had an emergency system to pull the vessel
to safety.
It will be recalled also that the Challenger
space shuttle in 1986 had no such escape capability
and all seven crew members died when the orbiter
began to break up 72 seconds into its mission.
NASA wants to ensure that, if one of SpaceX's
Falcon 9 rockets were to have a similar anomaly,
its astronauts would still be brought home
safely; this is what the in-flight abort test
is all about.
Nick Hague tweeted after watching Sunday's
demonstration: "Trust me... surviving a rocket
failure by way of a successful abort system
made today's test personal.
Thank you SpaceX & usairforce Guardian Angels!"
“For this test, Falcon 9’s ascent trajectory
will mimic a Crew Dragon mission to the International
Space Station to best match the physical environments
the rocket and spacecraft will encounter during
a normal ascent,” SpaceX said in a mission
statement.
Though much analysis will follow, everything
seemed to go exactly as planned this day.
"It looks like, right now, a great test,"
SpaceX principal integration engineer John
Insprucker said during the company's live
webcast, just after splashdown.
No one was on board the Crew Dragon during
the in-flight abort, but SpaceX is treating
the drill as if it were an actual emergency.
To that end, SpaceX outfitted one of its boats
with a helicopter landing pad designed to
facilitate the recovery of the Crew Dragon
during nominal and emergency landings alike.
This test was the last major hurdle that SpaceX
must clear before it can launch astronauts.
As such, both NASA and SpaceX are paying close
attention to the in-flight abort and all the
data it returns.
“This is a big test for us,” Benji Reed,
SpaceX's director of crew mission management,
said prior to launch.
“It is a test of the system that is supposed
to test the crews and is a very important
step in us making progress toward crew transportation
to the space station.”
After a data review, SpaceX hopes that NASA
will clear Crew Dragon to carry humans.
Once that happens, SpaceX will fly two NASA
astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, to
the space station.
Elon Musk described the test as "picture perfect"
in a post-mission briefing, observing that
things had gone as well as one could expect.
Musk said on 19th January Sunday night that
SpaceX plans to send NASA astronauts to space
between April and June.
The mission, Demo-2, will see the crew rocket
up to the International Space Station for
several days.
Speaking with the press after the test, Musk
said the company expects the crewed mission’s
hardware to be ready by the end of quarter1:
We’re highly confident that the hardware
will be ready in quarter1, most likely at
the end of February but no later than March.
And we think it appears probable that the
first crewed launch would occur in the second
quarter.
NASA’s initial plan was to send astronauts
for a couple of weeks, but now it’s considering
keeping them on ISS to conduct research for
a longer duration.
The space agency’s administrator, Jim Bridenstine,
said a lengthened mission will require some
additional training for the crew:
If it’s going to be a longer duration, then
we have to have some additional training for
our astronauts to actually be prepared to
do things on the International Space Station
that we weren’t planning to have that initial
test crew necessarily do.
So we’ve got to look at that and make a
determination.
Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, said that they
were excited to see how everything was going
according to the plan.
If that initial crew flight goes smoothly,
NASA will greenlight Dragon to begin regular
crewed flights.
