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The Dragon ship was propelled to a safe distance, lowering itself softly into the Atlantic via three parachutes.
SpaceX expects to start launching astronauts in 2017. It is one of two companies that have been contracted by the US space agency (NASA) to develop vehicles to ferry people to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The other firm is Boeing. Both have to demonstrate effective launch escape technologies for their rockets and capsules to receive certification. Only with the necessary assurance will Nasa permit its astronauts to climb aboard.
Pad abort systems used in prior capsules were always dead weight, bolted on top, and jettisoned a few minutes after launch. By using the Dragon's own internal engines, SpaceX hopes to save weight on a system that everyone hopes is never used.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday May 07 2015, @03:58PM
I like spin...
Previous Launch Abort tech got jettisoned once it was useless because the flight phase didn't require it anymore. Now these guys want to carry significant extra explosive payload all the way to orbit, and everyone should cheer that they are the smartest. Please disregard how the position of those engines restricts the payload and ensures the close-by destruction of the carrier rocket, probably forcing extra heat shielding all around.
But they did it, so it must be worth it when they finally succeed at reusing the ship.
I would just like the reporting to be less OMG-so-cool-SpaceX, because one could assume the other players did consider that solution, and decided against it. Telling us why would be good journalism.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Thursday May 07 2015, @04:45PM
"By using the Dragon's own internal engines, SpaceX hopes to save weight on a system that everyone hopes is never used."
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @05:07PM
Not sure whether you're trolling, but I'll bite.
One of the main design objectives for the crew dragon (indeed, also for cargo-only dragon vehicles) is a powered landing. Powered landing obviously *requires* taking some rockets and their propellant along during the spacebound leg of the trip.
So why not use stuff that you're hauling anyway, during a situation where you definitely won't need it later? Instead of building / jettisoning a separate system?
I think such reuse is an elegant engineering solution.
Sure, they have not demonstrated powered reentry/landing so far, but that's only a temporary artefact of the development timeline.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday May 07 2015, @05:22PM
I'm merely pointing out that the future powered landing feature isn't covered in the "it's better to use the onboard engines" explanations. Every article on the topic says that SpaceX is cool because they invented the idea of not having to discard the Launch-Abort Ugly Overhead Tower.
It's kind of trivial to consider that your landing engines could be your emergency engines, if they can be designed to fire up quickly. The copy-paste-releases press doesn't bother and just repeats the same "discarding is less nice" line.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday May 07 2015, @06:06PM
The engines used for launch abort aren't the powered landing engines. These are the orbital maneuvering engines, (and/or) they use the same fuel supply.
If you watched the launch video [engadget.com] (second video on that page - Skip to the 15:50 minute position - WARNING: Loud!) you can see that they are using a engine mode that they would be unlikely to use in normal maneuvering while in space.
I suspect, but don't know for sure, that these are pulse engines, and for this purpose, they just put them into continuous operation.
So this is a true weight saving, and less space junk solution.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Adamsjas on Thursday May 07 2015, @07:42PM
The first video on the page is better, no scrolling to a specific time, and better views.
I could watch that dozen times. I'll never get that sound out of my head!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @06:09PM
Sounds like you would be bitching about it either way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2015, @06:17PM
It's two part liquid fuel engines dumbass. The old style escape tower rockets used on Gemini and Apollo were solid fuel.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 07 2015, @07:41PM
Not being a rocket scientist myself, I shy away from saying, "this is dumb why didn't they design the rocket this *obviously right* way?"
Neither do I comment on brain surgeon technique.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"