Video of SpaceX SuperDrago Hot Fire
Video Caption: SuperDracos will power the Crew Dragon spacecraft’s revolutionary launch escape system, the first of its kind. Should an emergency occur during launch, eight SuperDraco engines built into Dragon’s side walls will produce up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to carry astronauts to safety.
SpaceX has test-fired SuperDraco engines 27 times as we refine the design for the demands of operational missions carrying astronauts to the International Space Station.
10 responses to “Video of SpaceX SuperDrago Hot Fire”
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I know incorporation of the escape rocket in the crew capsule seems elegant and land recovery as opposed to ocean recovery is an advantage of the Super Draco thrusters. However, the safety issues concern me. Unlike Apollo, highly toxic and/or corrosive monomethylhydrazine fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer will be in close proximity to astronauts. I hope there are redundant means of isolating the crew from the propellant tanks, feed lines and the thrusters themselves. Even a hard landing might cause a rupture of any one of the aforementioned.
Nice FUD post there.
The crews will be in pressure suits that will protect them from propellants. The tanks and propulsion plumbing are all side saddle on the main pressure structure so there is little crush hazard. After a propulsive landing there will very little propellant left on board. And so on and so forth…
The Shuttle used hydrazine for its thrusters.
Which was one of the reasons why the whole “refurbishability” of Shuttle was such an enormous operation.
I’m not saying that hypergolic fuels (especially hydrazine) are a showstopper here, but they aren’t making things easier.
Back when the SuperDracos where announced, there had been rumors that SpaceX would switch the Dracos and SuperDracos over to some other, non-toxic (or at least less-toxic) fuel mixture – NOFBX according to one of the rumors.
I was really disappointed when it turned out those rumors were all false…
Transitioning to a safer hypergolic fuel is probably on their list of things to do, though the “green” hypergolics are still in their infancy, they haven’t even been flight-tested yet.
Whereas hydrazine has a long flight history and its handling and operating characteristics are very well understood.
The Dragon’s abort / landing system is already innovative, putting a brand-new and untested technology in the critical path for its development would have been a huge risk.
If you read the reports on Skylab 3, even the small amount of residual fuel in the attitude thrusters was sufficient to incapacitate the crew on return when th e vents were left open due to a procedures error. More is worse but it may not dramatically increase the risk caused by the base thrusters.
Unlike Apollo, highly toxic and/or corrosive monomethylhydrazine fuel
and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer will be in close proximity to
astronauts.
Ridiculous. The Apollo CSM carried roughly 19 tonnes of hypergolic propellants and the lunar missions that included a LEM carried an additional 10 tonnes.
So this completes a milestone for SpaceX. How cash is nasa forking over for this??
This did not complete any CCtCap milestones, it’s just part of the development testing.