SpaceX Completes Crew Dragon Static Fire Tests
CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla., Nov. 13, 2019 (NASA PR) — Today, SpaceX completed a series of static fire engine tests of the Crew Dragon spacecraft in advance of an in-flight launch escape demonstration, known as the In-Flight Abort Test.
The engine tests, conducted near SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, began with two burns for a duration of one-second each for two of Crew Dragon’s 16 Draco thrusters. The Draco thrusters are used for on-orbit maneuvering and attitude control, and would also be used for re-orientation during certain in-flight launch escapes. Following these initial Draco thruster burns, the team completed a full-duration firing for approximately nine seconds of Crew Dragon’s eight SuperDraco engines. The SuperDraco engines are designed to accelerate Dragon away from the F9 launch vehicle in the event of an emergency after liftoff.
In quick succession, immediately after the SuperDracos shut down, two Dracos thrusters fired and all eight SuperDraco flaps closed, mimicking the sequence required to reorient the spacecraft in-flight to a parachute deploy attitude and close the flaps prior to reentry. The full sequence, from SuperDraco startup to flap closure, spanned approximately 70 seconds.
In April, during a similar set of engine tests, the spacecraft experienced an anomaly which led to an explosion and loss of the vehicle. In the following months, an Anomaly Investigation Team made up of SpaceX and NASA personnel determined that a slug of liquid propellant in the high-flow helium pressurization system unexpectedly caused a titanium ignition event resulting in an explosion. Based on that investigation’s findings and months of testing, SpaceX redesigned components of the system to eliminate the possibility of slugs entering the high-flow pressurization system.
Today’s tests will help validate the launch escape system ahead of Crew Dragon’s in-flight abort demonstration planned as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. SpaceX and NASA will now review the data from today’s test, perform detailed hardware inspections, and establish a target launch date for the In-Flight Abort Test.
8 responses to “SpaceX Completes Crew Dragon Static Fire Tests”
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hopefully they have run this to ground
Yes, quite so and now looking forward to the IFA test, then, if all goes well, it should be the first flight for D2 with astronauts to the ISS.
Sorry, forgot the extra parachute tests which I think are currently underway. Hope they pan out as well?
Cheers Neil
there seem to be a few issues
Yes but not clear exactly what they are. The recent NASA IG report discusses waivers and deferral items potentially leading to increased risk but doesn’t provide details.
Most disconcerting.
Cheers Neil
Congratulations! Hope NASA does a quick approval of the inflight abort.
Congrats to SpaceX on the achievement of this never-was-a-milestone. You are hereby awarded zero dollars. If you were Boeing, then this achievement would merit a performance bonus, but you are not Boeing. What this signals, if anything, is that you are no longer moving backwards and forward progress can once again be entertained as a possibility. Now go do something that actually is on the checkoff sheet.
That would be parachute and IFA.
That is all they have left.
What is interesting is that both IFA and I think, failed parachute tests were edge cases.
As such, SX should have a solid system.
And given the choice of Russia, Orion, cst100, or dragon 2, I would take the last. I really think that not only the least expensive, but safest.
Congrats to SpaceX let’s have that in flight abort test that was going to happen in 2015!