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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the unscheduled-spontaneous-disassembly dept.

SpaceX and NASA detail cause of Dragon test failure, crewed flight this year looks 'increasingly difficult'

SpaceX held a press conference on Monday to discuss the results of a months-long investigation conducted by itself and NASA into an anomaly that took place during a static fire test in April. The investigation found that the "anomaly" that occurred during the test was the result of oxidizer mixing with the helium component of the SuperDraco rocket engine propellant system at very high pressure.

On April 20, SpaceX held an abort engine test for a prototype of its Crew Dragon vehicle (which had been flown previously for the uncrewed ISS mission). Crew Dragon is designed to be the first crew-carrying SpaceX spacecraft, and is undergoing a number of tests to prove to NASA its flight-readiness. After the first few tests proved successful, the test encountered a failure that was instantly visible, with an unexpected explosion that produced a plume of fire visible for miles around the testing site at its Landing Zone 1 facility in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Also at Ars Technica and Teslarati.

See also:
SpaceX's response to Crew Dragon explosion unfairly maligned by head of NASA
Update: In-Flight Abort Static Fire Test Anomaly Investigation

Previously: Reuters: Boeing Starliner Flights to the ISS Delayed by at Least Another 3 Months
SpaceX Crew Dragon Suffers "Anomaly" During Static Fire Test
Investigation Into Crew Dragon Incident Continues

[Ed Note - The article at Teslarati has a good description of the suspected failure.]


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  • (Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Tuesday July 16 2019, @10:49AM (8 children)

    by aiwarrior (1812) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @10:49AM (#867489) Journal

    Not only do they have a new test case, they found what the root cause was. Ever safer it seems.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday July 16 2019, @11:36AM (7 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday July 16 2019, @11:36AM (#867500) Journal

    It's annoying for Crew Dragon to be delayed because it is a dead end.

    2020: Likely first manned flight of Crew Dragon, although it could slip further.
    2021: Starship begins replacing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy for satellite launches.
    2023: As currently planned, Starship sends artists on a trip around the Moon.
    2024: Possible Starship manned mission to Mars (I would be shocked if this doesn't slip, but 2024 is the plan).
    2025: U.S. could end its involvement with ISS. So no more Crew Dragon launches needed, unless private customers like Bigelow [space.com] step up.

    Starship will make Crew Dragon utterly obsolete. Thoughts of sending astronauts to the Moon or LOP-G using Falcon Heavy + Crew Dragon seemed to have been a bluff.

    In other good news, we may see Starhopper hover test any day now:

    https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/07/spacex-resume-starhopper-tests/ [nasaspaceflight.com]

    More Starship details could be revealed at the end of the month, after test(s).

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:07PM (2 children)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:07PM (#867532)

      > 2023: As currently planned, Starship sends artists on a trip around the Moon.
      > Starship will make Crew Dragon utterly obsolete

      Another reading - Crew Dragon is a risk mitigation for delays in Starship; which implies SpaceX sees significant risk in the proposed schedule.

      One might also imagine that Crew Dragon derisks Starship; SpaceX can test life support systems etc using Crew Dragon.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:33PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:33PM (#867672)

        Mostly, Crew Dragon exists because that is what NASA wanted to buy. They didn't ask for a giant spaceship that can go to Mars, so SpaceX built what they asked for.

        It's noteworthy that SpaceX is staying completely out of the LOP-G debacle. They probably believe that Starship will make LOP-G obsolete before it is built, and that there is no particular useful experience that can be gained by getting involved that would be worth the diversion of resources. There's a reasonable chance that Starship obsoletes the entire SLS before it flies. Crew Dragon at least has an actual mission.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:43AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @01:43AM (#867793)

          Starship? You mean the cast iron can?

    • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:33PM (1 child)

      by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @01:33PM (#867543)

      >U.S. could end its involvement with ISS. So no more Crew Dragon launches needed, unless private customers like Bigelow [space.com] step up.
      Unless of course some other countries would like to ship passengers to the ISS in a well-certified vehicle.

      >Starship will make Crew Dragon utterly obsolete.
      Absolutely. Eventually. Assuming they can get it working as reliably as planned. But right now Starship is just a bunch of blueprints and early testing prototypes for the cargo version, it could easily be 10-20 years before they actually have a passenger-certified vehicle. Not that they necessarily need certification to carry non-government passengers, but governments will likely be the ones sending most passengers for the forseable future.

      And frankly I think going through the certification process with Crew Dragon is probably good for them - they do have a tendency to advance extremely aggressively with safety being something of an afterthought. Starship might change that a bit since extremely high reuse is going to be needed for it to be viable, and unplanned energetic disassembly interferes with that. But all the more reason to get some practice designing and building to much higher reliability standards than they're accustomed to with their existing cargo vehicles.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:20PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:20PM (#867667)

        Safety is not an afterthought. SpaceX's mission success rate is better than Delta, better than the Shuttle (but what isn't), better than Apollo.

        The only thing that is different about SpaceX is that they admit their mistakes and they don't hide their risks under umpteen layers of bureaucracy. That is a strength, not a weakness.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:10PM (1 child)

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:10PM (#867581)

      There was a reason NASA had the Gemini program and did not go straight to Apollo.

      Starship doesn't actually exist yet. SpaceX needs to fly actual people into actual space and work with the systems before it builds what would easily be its most complicated spacecraft to date. Crew Dragon isn't terribly revolutionary, aside from its ability to be reused. Better to test out the techniques of spaceflight in a design that has been proven to work.

      If Crew Dragon can't succeed, why would anyone trust Starship?

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:29PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday July 16 2019, @06:29PM (#867646) Journal

        Nobody said Crew Dragon can't succeed. But Crew Dragon is a bit of an afterthought and hackjob that can't even do the propulsive landings that were previously planned. Starship on the other hand is designed from the start with the purpose of putting a large amount of people onto the surface of Mars. Starship is intended to replace all Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, for any purpose.

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