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Science & Technology |
SpaceX fires up redesigned Crew Dragon as NASA reveals SuperDraco thruster “flaps” |
2019-11-16 |
On November 13th, SpaceX revealed that a planned static fire test of a Crew Dragon’s powerful abort thrusters was completed without issue, a strong sign that the company has successfully redesigned the spacecraft to prevent a catastrophic April 2019 explosion from reoccurring. Pending a far more extensive analysis, Wednesday’s static fire should leave SpaceX on track to perform Crew Dragon’s next major flight test before the end of 2019. In an unexpected flourish of transparency, SpaceX and NASA published photos of the Crew Dragon capsule’s static fire test just a few hours after it was completed, an excellent sign that the ‘quick-look’ data analysis immediately following the test was extremely positive. Spaceflight Now was first to visually confirm that the test had occurred, publishing a photo that revealed a whitish cloud of smoke produced by the static fire around 3:15 pm EST (20:15 UTC). Alongside photos of the SuperDraco thruster test published by NASA and SpaceX shortly after its conclusion, SpaceX confirmed that the test was completed without issue. Regardless of whether everything performed exactly as intended, this means that factory-fresh Crew Dragon capsule C205 made it through the test unscathed, likely securing SpaceX and NASA a large volume of uninterrupted telemetry data, as well as the hardware itself. Just hours after C205’s static fire was completed, NASA published a detailed update, confirming that the tests were finished without any immediately apparent issues. Now, SpaceX and @NASA will |
Posted by:3dc |
#1 completed without issue No rapid disassembly. |
Posted by: Skidmark 2019-11-16 08:54 |