SpaceX Plans for Pad Abort Test at Cape
SpaceX Dragon abort test article. (Credit: SpaceX)
SpaceX is gearing up for two critical commercial crew tests involving its Dragon capsule in the coming months: a pad abort test in Florida, and an in-flight abort at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
The pad abort test will occur sometime between Feb. 10 and May 10 according to an application for special temporary authority (STA) that SpaceX has filed with the Federal Commission Commission. The STA is required for use of radio frequency during the test.
The application specifies a maximum altitude of 6,000 feet and a maximum downrange distance of three kilometers. SpaceX will conduct the test from Complex 40 of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The STA application indicates this is an extension of an earlier FCC approval. SpaceX had earlier anticipated conducting the abort test no earlier than Nov. 20, 2014.
No date has been announced for the in-flight abort test at Vandenberg.
The two abort tests are the final two milestones to be accomplished under SpaceX’s Commercial Crew Integrated Capabilities (CCiCap) agreement with NASA. The milestones are worth $30 million apiece.
Both milestones are running significantly behind the original schedule. The pad abort was originally set for November 2013; the in-flight abort for April 2014.
SpaceX has completed 18 of 20 milestones under CCiCAP, collecting a total of $400 out of a total of $460 million in awards.
In September, NASA awarded SpaceX and Boeing contracts under its Commercial Crew Transportation Capability effort. The companies will build, test and fly their vehicles to the International Space Station under this final phase of the commercial crew program.
SpaceX CCiCAP Milestone Status
Award Period: August 2012 – March 2015
Milestones: 20
Milestones Completed: 18
Milestones Remaining: 2
Total Possible Award: $460 Million
Total Award to Date: $400 Million
Total Award Remaining: $60 Million
| NO. | DESCRIPTION | ORIGINAL DATE |
STATUS | AMOUNT |
| 1 | CCiCap Kickoff Meeting. SpaceX will hold a kickoff meeting at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA, or a nearby facility to review the current state of existing hardware, processes and designs, describe plans for CCiCap program execution during both the base period and the optional period and lay the groundwork for a successful partnership between NASA and SpaceX. | August 2012 | Complete | $40 Million |
| 2 | Financial and Business Review. SpaceX will hold a financial and business review to accomplish verification of financial ability to meet NASA’s stated goals for the CCiCap program by providing NASA insight into SpaceX finances. | August 2012 |
Complete | $20 Million |
| 3 | Integrated System Requirements Review (ISRR). SpaceX will hold an integrated System Requirements Review (ISRR) to examine the functional and performance requirements defined for the entire CTS for the Commercial Crew Program design reference mission per section 3.1 of CCT-DRM-1110, as well as to evaluate the interpretation and applicability of each requirement. | October 2012 | Complete | $50 Million |
| 4 | Ground Systems and Ascent Preliminary Design Review (PDR). SpaceX will hold a Ground Systems and Ascent Preliminary Design Review (PDR) to demonstrate that the overall CTS preliminary design for ground systems and ascent meets all requirements with acceptable risk and within schedule constraints and that it establishes the basis for proceeding with detailed design. | December 2012 | Complete | $35 Million |
| 5 | Pad Abort Test Review. SpaceX will hold a Pad Abort Test Review to demonstrate the maturity of the pad abort test article design and test concept of operations. | March 2013 | Complete | $20 Million |
| 6 | Human Certification Plan Review. SpaceX will hold a Human Certification Plan Review to present the Human Certification Plan. This Human Certification Plan Review will cover plans for certification of the design of the spacecraft, launch vehicle, and ground and mission operations systems. | May 2013 | Complete | $50 Million |
| 7 | On-Orbit and Entry Preliminary Design Review (PDR). SpaceX will hold an On-Orbit and Entry Preliminary Design Review (PDR) to demonstrate that the overall CTS preliminary design for orbit, rendezvous and docking with the ISS, and entry flight regimes meets all requirements with acceptable risk and within schedule constraints and that it establishes the basis for proceeding with detailed design. | July 2013 | Complete | $34 Million |
| 7A | Delta Ground Systems Preliminary Design Review (PDR). A PDR of the delta ground systems. |
July 2013 | Complete | $1 Million |
| 8 | In-Flight Abort Test Review. SpaceX will hold an In-Flight Abort Test Review to demonstrate the maturity of the in-flight abort test article design and test concept of operations. | September 2013 | Complete | $10 Million |
| 9 | Safety Review. SpaceX will hold a Safety Review at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, CA, or a nearby facility to demonstrate that the CTS design is progressing toward meeting the Commercial Crew Program’s safety goals. | October 2013 | Complete | $50 Million |
| 10 | Flight Review of Upgraded Falcon 9. SpaceX will conduct a review of a launch of the upgraded Falcon 9 launch vehicle demonstrating the operation of enhanced first-stage M1D engines, stage separation systems, enhanced second-stage MVacD engine and mission-critical vehicle telemetry during flight. Demonstration of the upgraded launch vehicle will serve as a risk reduction for the planned inflight abort test. | November 2013 | Compete | $0 |
| 12 | Dragon Primary Structure Qualification. SpaceX will conduct static structural testing of all Dragon primary structure components to ultimate load factors, as applicable. This series of tests will validate the Dragon structure’s ability to maintain integrity during all driving load cases as well as verify the accuracy of math models used to analyze the Dragon structure. Individual tests will be designed to exercise all credible failure modes and minimum margin areas. | January 2014 | Complete | $30 Million |
| 13A | Integrated Crew Vehicle Critical Design Review (CDR). Milestone 13, Integrated Critical Design Review, has been split into four separate milestones. The goal of the CDR is to demonstrate that the maturity of the CTS design is appropriate to support proceeding with full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and test. |
March 2014 | Complete | $27 Million |
| 13B | Ground Systems and Mission Operations Critical Design Review (CDR). Part 2 of the CDR focused on ground systems and mission operations. The goal of the CDR is to demonstrate that the maturity of the CTS design is appropriate to support proceeding with full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and test. | March 2014 | Complete | $3 Million |
| 13C | Crew Vehicle Technical Interchange Meetings. Part 3 of the CDR. The goal of the CDR is to demonstrate that the maturity of the CTS design is appropriate to support proceeding with full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and test. | March 2014 | Complete | $5 Million |
| 13D | Delta Crew Vehicle Critical Design Review (CDR). The final milestone in the CDR.The goal of the CDR is to demonstrate that the maturity of the CTS design is appropriate to support proceeding with full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and test. |
March 2014 | Complete | $5 Million |
| 15A | Dragon Parachute Tests Phases I & II. SpaceX will conduct parachute drop tests in order to validate the new parachute design as capable of supporting a pad abort event. Milestone 15A included a crane drop test. | November 2013 | Complete | $15 Million |
| 15B | Dragon Parachute Tests Phases I & II. SpaceX will conduct parachute drop tests in order to validate the new parachute design as capable of supporting a pad abort event. Milestone 15B featured a helicopter drop test. | November 2013 | Complete | $5 Million |
| TOTAL TO DATE (OUT OF $460 MILLION): | $400 Million | |||
| 11 | Pad Abort Test. SpaceX will conduct a pad abort test of the Dragon spacecraft. The scenario where an abort is initiated while the CTS is still on the pad is a design driver for the launch abort system as it dictates the total impulse and also requires parachute deployment in close proximity to the ground. | December 2013 | TBA | $30 Million |
| 14 | In-Flight Abort Test. SpaceX will conduct an in-flight abort test of the Dragon spacecraft. The in-flight abort test will supplement the pad abort test and complete the corners-of-the-box stress cases. The in-flight abort scenario represents a Dragon abort while under propulsive flight of the launch vehicle during the worst-case dynamic loads on the CTS. | April 2014 | TBA | $30 Million |
| TOTAL REMAINING (OUT OF $460 MILLION): | $60 Million | |||
36 responses to “SpaceX Plans for Pad Abort Test at Cape”
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Personally, this is the tech that I want to see spacex to focus on. It will enable Bigelow quicker. However, from Musk’s POV , the money is on lowering the cost to launch. That is understandable, but….
Remember the same system that they use for pad abort is also for powered landing. two (or more) birds with one stone.
Birds AND cattle, that explains the farmer.
According to agreement with NASA, they need to complete this tests until March 31:
http://www.parabolicarc.com…
This is the one I’ve been waiting for. Great to finally hear some news on this again, even if it’s not exactly an announcement.
After the pad and then the launch aborts are successfully completed, we’ll be “this close” to restoring US manned spaceflight capability after much too long of a pause.
Also, after a successful pad abort, I think congress will feel more compelled to fully fund commercial crew to a swift completion — after all, everyone likes to be associated with a winner. Unfortunately, launch abort seems likely to come too late to have any effect this year (the fiscal year already started back on October 1).
2015, the space revolution year, just gets better and better.
This is the time for crucial deadlines to be met.
Finally. Elon says space launches need to be like an airliner. He should follow his own advice. The rocket landing is too complicated and expensive. He or anyone else, should build a launcher with small or delta wings at the rear. The lower portion, wings body, would be all tanks for kerosene. Not much much internal pressure, so any shape. The top body would be a normal lox tank. The landing gear would be fixed. The dome of the lox tank would make the nose. A near straight up launch would be used. The 2nd stage would coast until it was pointed in the right direction for the initial orbit. Like Soyuz the first stage would enter the atmosphere in a flat spin. Soyuz, Proton survive intact, so would this system. They use normal aircraft construction. The first stage would be brought out of the spin with a spin recovery chute. Glides to a landing. Refueled. 2nd stage and fairing added and launch again just like an airliner. This has been suggested for 75-100 years. All have been neat and came in nose high. Soyuz-Proton has proven that is not the way to go. Flat spin is. Cargo only. The spin might be too much for passengers. This method could be cheaply built and launched by anyone, anywhere. Just like an airliner. 1 million lbs. of thrust needed however. Re- Usability for everyone. Simple is better. A simple cheap build and would soon pay for itself many times over. A F-106 might be used to prove the concept, but most likely a complete build would be cheaper. What ever happened to the aero in aero-space Boeing?
Why don’t you build one and show us how it’s done?
OK. Can you find enough investors? I don’t think I can. I would be a consultant.
“The 2nd stage would coast until it was pointed in the right direction for the initial orbit.”
You can point it in any direction you like, but unless it is actually travelling toward orbit, then all the first stage has done is lift it up high.
Getting to 200+km is less than 10% of the problem, the other 90+% of the problem is getting to mach25. The job of the first stage is predominantly to give the second stage some velocity toward orbit. Your scheme puts the entirety of the acceleration effort on the second stage, which makes that the big expensive part of the rocket and so defeats much of the original purpose.
I gotta say I question your perspective by comparing this scheme to propulsive landing as being the “expensive and complicated” option.
Do a little more thinking. It is traveling toward orbit. From the 1st. stage firing. All of the fuel not used in burn back would be used in the not quiet straight up launch. This might make up the difference in speed. It has to be an arc so that when it re-enters it is in gliding distance of the runway of course. F9 2nd stage has a lot fuel left over. It has gone 6000mi. out. Coasting it would gain altitude and it would not slow much before it got to the right point. It would slow and arc more and more from gravity. The pointing is merely to make sure it is fires square with the path. As it arcs over the orbit is changing. When the 200mi. orbit is reached It fires. This is standard procedure in circle-izing burns and also in BEO burns. F9 does it near Australia. They coast until they get to the point they have pre-calculated. The best would be to launch normally and land down range. Like Texas to Florida. Question away. This is all standard aviation. Very few safety or enviro issues. A sonic boom is about it. Every thing else is well known and has been done before. Just RC it in for a landing. Very much simpler and cheaper than boost back. The testing would be much cheaper than what SpaceX has spent. Like no ships to lease. The first one built would be operational.H e has had several 1st stage non-recovery. The 1st. flight would be 100%. Like Elons 50%. Just a guess. It looks all obvious to me. It seems not to anyone else. As some say, Thanks for your support.
“It is traveling toward orbit. From the 1st. stage firing. It would slow and arc more and more from gravity.”
You don’t seem to be understanding the principle of velocity vectors.
“Do a little more thinking.”
Always good advice.
http://www.spacex.com/sites…
Notice the trajectory is “around the Earth”, not straight up “above the Earth”. Lift-off straight up would not give the second stage any “around the Earth” velocity. The second stage cannot convert the “straight up” velocity into “around” velocity, simply by coasting and pointing.
Indeed. ‘Straight up’ is okay if it’s suborbital, and you expect and intend to come back down near the launch site, or if you intend to ascend directly to escape velocity without going into orbit first.
And even then it would be a special case, as the most interesting destinations would rarely pass through your zenith…
Nothing like stating the obvious and what all space fans know. Not exactly straight up launch. Is that better?
Only marginally. The first stage really needs to be accelerating the second stage to a significant velocity in a down-range direction. This means the first stage will be a goodly distance down range at separation. How you gonna glide back from there?. You could save some fuel for a propulsion to help with the glide cross-range, but that’s extra mass. You’ve already added mass for lifting surfaces as well as mass to make the structure strong enough for horizontal landing. For vertical touchdown, the rocket is already strong in that direction, since it has to be for liftoff.
Also, since the first stage has accelerated downrange, it is moving at some speed away from where it started – F9 is between mach 6 I think. Are you proposing to “flat spin” re-entry at mach 6?.
Since you asked. Yes. Since proton and Soyuz already do it I see no reason not to copy. Maybe they have a patent on it, but I doubt it. SpacedX is headed toward the close to straight up direction. At separation the altitude is getting higher than the down range. This is why the landing area is closer to the launch pad. Off Jacksonville vs South Carolina. They may keep getting steeper and be able to come down within 10K and steer back to the landing pad at The Cape. This moving in a little at time sounds like standard test practice.
“SpacedX is headed toward the close to straight up direction. At separation the altitude is getting higher than the down range. “
No. They have made the propellent tanks bigger and increased the engine power (Merlin-1D vs 1C). This means that they can still push a slightly larger second stage to a useful velocity and above atmospheric drag, whilst being able to separate the first stage sooner. F9 v1.1 is already at 1.3mlbf of thrust to be able to do this.
Even if you could lift a sufficiently large second stage that could do all of the orbital acceleration, you would end up with a much more expensive first stage. It would have to survive liftoff, a flat-spin re-entry, have added mass and expense to include lifting surfaces, have added mass and expense to survive a 200mph runway landing. All this would be considerably more expensive and more complex than a vertical decent to a vertical landing. Not to mention that in the process you’ve put a much larger and more expensive second stage into orbit, which heaps up the expense and/or recovery issues even more.
The method you suggest is more complicated and more expensive, probably less payload to orbit efficient and certainly more expensive for payload to orbit.
There was no changes between CRS-4 and 5. 4 was 61 hi and 40 DR. 5 was 58-33. The angle is greater. From launch video. The staging times are the same at about +2.40. Sorry you have not changed my guess at what they are doing. I predict they will move in close enough and come down on land. No boost back. We will see. If I am wrong I will post that I was wrong.
“You only have negative replies to me, are you harassing me?”
Certainly not. You are perfectly entitled to your misconceptions. I will no longer try to correct you.
I stopped reading when you suggested launching straight up. You have no idea how orbital mechanics work.
OK. If you had read more, from the context, that it would not be exactly straight up. And angle enough so that arc would bring the 1st stage within gliding distance. The 2nd stage would be on the same arc, but ahead. It would fire a long enough when it was at the right spot to for the high point of the orbit would be 200mi. When the orbit approaches the low point it fires again and makes the orbit circular. I forget that some people can’t see the obvious, allow for some non precise statements. Does this sound like I know any more about orbital mechanics than you estimated?
Musk sharing the love…
some more eye candy…
Musk tweet:
“Before impact, fins lose power and go hardover. Engines fights to restore, but … “
Wow. Thanks. Must have broken the landing gear. My system, see below, is better. This is too expensive, too complicated. A simple glide back system would have been much cheaper than what Musk has already spent. It may have something to do with Mars though. That is no reason for other companies, investors should follow his example. If profit is the only thing wanted, then my glide back re-usable would make the most money. I wish I had the money or investors to prove it.
Oh. OK.
Good luck using your system on the moon and mars.
Not intended to be used there of course. Enough revenue would be generated on Earth. 100,000hrs. like an airliner. Just change engines, like an airliner. I can see it in the Boneyard after that.
People have tried the glide back method. The problem is once you get done making it strong enough to take the load along the horizontal axis you have no usable payload left. Full retropropulsion barely works as it is. Most rockets have 2.5-3% payload. The F9 has 4%, but they have to use up about 2% for better avionics, legs, fins, and fuel for the landing burn.
And wings don’t work on the moon, Mars, or really any planet or moon anywhere in the solar system other than Titan and Earth.
4% for F9? I thought the number is much smaller, about 2.9% or so
Yes, it is 2.9%, but that is after taking into account reuse, meaning if they launched it with no legs, no fins, etc, they would get about 4%.
Now I’m not 100% on this, but that’s what SpaceX have said- that the numbers on their website already take into account the payload hit due to reusability components. But of course their design for how to accomplish reuse has changed, so it is likely these numbers have changed as well.
Soyuz and Proton have a good payload. They crash land with small damage. It comes straight down on it side. No bounce marks. My guesstimate from research I have done is that they vent the fuel which spins it up 90 deg. to the flight path. It does not burn or come apart. A vertical fin may not take the spin, but with computers, none have to be used. I have seen flat spins in aircraft and it really slows the descent. It hits the atmosphere the same way. It may not be the reason though. I wish NASA would try it and make a video. I have no ideas of any other way it could re-entry without any damage, since it is obvious in images and video the ground causes the damage. Once the air gets thick enough the stage is brought out of the spin, pointed nose down, up elevator is given going nose up and sinking like the Shuttle or the wing loading would be a lot better and it land like jet. The 150′ long stage has a lot of side area. It may be enough. I have not calculated it. Some sort of control surfaces are needed like like the paddles on F9. If the lower wing is used, it would be wet, the height could be reduced and there would be no added weight. Landing gear may add the too much weight you are talking about. I have seen the insides and it is standard ring,stringer,skin construction. The material does not look thicker, but I can’t tell. But it looks like it is wrong to say it is not strong enough horizontal, since there is no bending. Is what you are talking about a paper rocket or was it built and flown?
Nothing like stating the obvious on the Moon and Mars, I thought it would be understood it was an Earth system. This system is mostly standard aviation. It would be highly likely not to have a crash or failure, even on the first try. How many failures have SpaceX had on recoveries? A Blue Sky fantasy of mine I am sure.
I am adding that Musk did say in the parachute recovery days that he could make F1 strong enough to re-enter with out damage. This was before the info about Proton and Soyuz came out. He may have tried flat spin and it still broke up, but I do not remember him saying so. Before Space tourists I had not seen anything about Proton and Soyuz coming down with no damage.
All has to fit for this retro-rocket landing approach, otherwise total loss of vehicle.
This is interesting because eventually the stage will be going slow enough that those control surfaces won’t have any effectiveness. I wonder when / where that happens in the landing (assuming they have sufficient hydraulic fluid). They probably nailed that down pretty well in their low speed tests in TX right?
Looking at the water “landing”, it seems the stage is moving quite fast (guessing 200-400mph) until just before touchdown. At what seems like the last possible moment, the engine fires and the legs open. Opening the legs that late, and going that fast, also maximises their aerodynamic braking effect – it’s all that drag proportional to square of the speed cobblers. Also, it maximises the control authority of the fins for the same reason. Basically, from a fuel use perspective you don’t want to be translating by engine power if you can at all help it. It all looks a bit hairy scary to me, particularly in comparison to the Grasshopper testing, which was all so slow and graceful, but it’s the most fuel efficient method.
At least one person considers both sides.