The NASA manager overseeing development of Boeing and SpaceX's commercial crew ferry ships says the space agency has approved SpaceX's proposal to strap in astronauts atop Falcon 9 rockets, then fuel the launchers in the final hour of the countdown as the company does for its uncrewed missions.
The "load-and-go" procedure has become standard for SpaceX's satellite launches, in which an automatic countdown sequencer commands chilled kerosene and cryogenic liquid oxygen to flow into the Falcon 9 rocket in the final minutes before liftoff.
[...] SpaceX's "load-and-go" procedure raised concerns after a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral in September 2016. The fiery accident occurred in the final minutes of a countdown while propellants were flowing into the rocket before a hold-down engine firing, destroying the launcher and an Israeli-owned communications satellite on-board.
Officials from SpaceX said the Crew Dragon's escape system, comprising a set of high-thrust SuperDraco engines around the circumference of the capsule, would be quick enough to push the spacecraft and its crew away from such an explosion during fueling.
The abort thrusters will be activated and armed before fueling of the Falcon 9 during crewed launches.
SpaceX plans an unmanned, in-flight abort test prior to the first crewed flight, which is tentatively scheduled for April 2019.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 13 2018, @04:25PM (18 children)
Basically, the astronauts will be going into a heavily shielded capsule that can escape and survive an explosion (Crew Dragon is designed to re-enter the atmosphere from orbit), before any propellant is loaded into the rocket. vs. boarding a fueled rocket with ground crew present, all of whom would die if there was an explosion.
The payload destroyed by the September 2016 accident didn't have the same level of protection.
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(Score: 2, Disagree) by ikanreed on Monday August 13 2018, @04:40PM (7 children)
I think you're wildly underestimating how devastating a rocket explosion is, and moderately overestimating how bad reentry is.
I mean, I wouldn't be able to design a craft that could survive re-entry, but the core problem is solved with ceramics with very high heat tolerance and good aerodynamics.
Explosions introduce not just heat, but allomorphic kinetic energy, and shrapnel. I highly doubt a M88 ARV would survive a rocket explosion, and that's built with heavy armor designed for explosions, not ultra-light spacecraft construction.
I mean, maybe I've just come to decide Musk is kind of an asshole, and am not giving credit for what might work, and someone has shown that a Dragon Crew Module would survive the explosion, but your conjecture here sounds pretty unlikely to me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday August 13 2018, @05:05PM (3 children)
Well, if you won't believe me, take it from Dr.Koenigsmann over here [digitaljournal.com]:
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday August 13 2018, @05:53PM (2 children)
What do you mean by this having expert analysis that directly undercuts my amateur observation? Surely I cannot be wrong about this?
(I'm totally wrong)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @06:13PM
This is how you do it buzzy my boy! The joke would complement your style, but you need the part in parenthesis.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 13 2018, @06:55PM
Considering that NASA was initially against the idea, then got convinced that it's safe by SpaceX, there's a good chance that it has been reviewed by a lot of experts who had a significant incentive to not put their name on the approval of something that could turn into horrible PR.
The NASA version of Titanic would have hit the iceberg straight on (better in hindsight), and kept pushing the iceberg all the way to NY, before getting retrofitted five years later with an oversized rudder. SpaceX risks a physics Nobel prize for managing to turn that ship.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday August 13 2018, @05:10PM
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/space-exploration-technologies/nasa-may-be-warming-to-the-idea-of-spacexs-load-and-go-fueling-procedure/ [spaceflightinsider.com]
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(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday August 13 2018, @05:18PM
Here is a pad explosion of the Falcon 9.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ [youtube.com]
1:11 - Explosion begins
1:20 - Payload falls from top of rocket
1:23 - You can see the payload, based on the light around it there does not look to be any punctures
So if you have the escape system primed to go and the computers sense a breach between 1:11 and 1:20 the DCM should be able to survive. Now.. I don't know how long it takes for those DCM engines to kick in.
From wikipedia
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:43AM
Who is doing that? Keep in mind that the whole point of the system is to not be there when the rocket explosion happens. The ground crew isn't present because all that crew loading happened before fueling nor is the crew on the capsule - because the launch abort system just moved them a considerable distance away from the exploding rocket and just like in orbit, they are designed to keep flying debris out of crew members.
As to reentry? It's a solved problem. SpaceX seems pretty good at solving out problems even when they aren't already solved.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 13 2018, @05:25PM (4 children)
NASA's procedure is to have crew and ground crew crawling an already fueled rocket.
Does that increase the chants of a spark which could ignite any fuel vapor that might be present?
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Monday August 13 2018, @06:04PM (3 children)
(Score: 3, Informative) by slap on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:48AM
"An already loaded rocket is static."
Actually, they continually add more liquid oxygen (and liquid hydrogen for those rockets that use it) as the liquids boil off - the tanks are not refrigerated and have minimal or no insulation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:47AM
No such thing when you're dealing with cryogenic temperature fuels. And they had to delay many a Shuttle launch due to hydrogen leaks.
Yet.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:38PM
NASA is political and you're missing the CYA component. At the congressional hearings, "it was loaded and ready to go" will sell better after a pre-launch accident.
Also really old timers or hard core space dudes will remember Apollo 1 and its fire and more importantly its investigation. They're worried the fueling process will start a fire and cook the crew in some unanticipated incident, not in an anticipated incident. You can't cook the crew in a completely unanticipated fueling accident if the crew is sleeping in their beds 20 miles away while fueling, and in the congressional investigation its hard to hand wave away sound bites about alternative procedures no matter how stupid or on average more dangerous, being 0% dangerous for the isolated situation where a crew gets cooked.
A fueling accident is how the procedure will get rolled back, even if the rollback is on average on a system wide basis more dangerous.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:58AM (4 children)
Can we have Mask the pedophile standing next to the crew capsule during the fill up? just in case, you know.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @01:40AM (3 children)
He's a pedo hunter, not a pedophile. Like duh.
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(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:08AM (2 children)
Usually people are hunting devils within themselves, but finding them in others.
Anyway, calling somebody pedo as a revenge for being called an idiot tells a lot about the person; especially given our current environment and their relative standing. Mask is a total ass and he can have his rocket where his submarine already is.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:38AM
Sounds like a view that is entirely anecdotal and rooted in media sensationalism. There's no juicier story than a Republican gay-bashing politician found to have a gay lover. Or the Atkins diet guy fattening up, having a history of heart failure, and dying from falling down on the street. Rather than pedophilia, Musk is guilty of perpetuating a stereotype of Thailand, although not an entirely unfounded one [wikipedia.org].
He is allowed to defend himself on social media, even given his "relative standing". But facts aside, as long as Musk gives us BFR, he could shoot a guy in the middle of Bel Air and I wouldn't care. Your disdain is worthless and beneath the Gaze of the Musky One.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:53AM
So all these critics of Musk are crypto-rocketmen with that secret lust for the cryogenically-fueled shaft? Ye gods! The internet has fallen further than I could possibly imagine!