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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.]


Original Submission

Related Stories

Reuters: Boeing Starliner Flights to the ISS Delayed by at Least Another 3 Months 13 comments

Boeing delays by months test flights for U.S. human space program: sources

Boeing Co has delayed by at least three months its first uncrewed flight to the International Space Station under NASA's human spaceflight program, and pushed its crewed flight until November, industry sources said on Wednesday.

Reuters reported last month that NASA has warned Boeing and rival contractor SpaceX of design and safety concerns the companies need to address before flying humans to space.

Boeing's first test flight was slated for April but it has been pushed to August, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The new schedule means that Boeing's crewed mission, initially scheduled for August, will be delayed until November.

Also at Spaceflight Insider, Astronomy Magazine, and BGR.

Related:


Original Submission

SpaceX Crew Dragon Suffers "Anomaly" During Static Fire Test 13 comments

SpaceX confirms anomaly during Crew Dragon engine test

An accident Saturday during an engine test on a Crew Dragon test vehicle at Cape Canaveral sent a reddish-orange plume into the sky visible for miles around, a setback for SpaceX and NASA as teams prepare the capsule for its first mission with astronauts.

SpaceX is testing the Crew Dragon ahead of the capsule's first test flight with astronauts later this year, following a successful Crew Dragon demonstration mission to the International Space Station in early March.

SpaceX confirmed the accident, first reported by Florida Today, in a statement Saturday evening.

"Earlier today, SpaceX conducted a series of engine tests on a Crew Dragon test vehicle on our test stand at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral, Florida," a company spokesperson said. "The initial tests completed successfully but the final test resulted in an anomaly on the test stand."

A photo captured by a Florida Today photographer from a local beach showed an orange plume visible on the horizon in the direction of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Such plumes are usually associated with burning or leaking toxic hypergolic propellants.

Also at NASASpaceFlight and Ars Technica.


Original Submission

Investigation Into Crew Dragon Incident Continues 8 comments

Investigation into Crew Dragon incident continues - SpaceNews.com

WASHINGTON — More than a month after a Crew Dragon spacecraft was destroyed in a test of its propulsion system, NASA and SpaceX investigators are still working to determine the cause of the accident and its implications for upcoming test flights.

In a May 28 presentation to the NASA Advisory Council's human exploration and operations committee, Kathy Lueders, manager of the commercial crew program at NASA, offered few updates on the progress of the investigation into the April 20 incident at a SpaceX pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

In that incident, SpaceX was testing both the Draco thrusters and larger SuperDraco abort thrusters in preparation for an in-flight abort test of the capsule that, at the time, was scheduled for the end of June. "An anomaly occurred during activation of the SuperDraco system," she said, but offered no details on what caused that anomaly.

[...] With the investigation ongoing, Lueders said the dates of both the in-flight abort test and the Demo-2 mission are under review. Assembly of the Demo-2 capsule continues, she said, although she said workers are keeping open the vehicle's propulsion system in case they need to make modifications as a result of the investigation. "They're making progress in a lot of the other areas while trying to keep, most particularly in the prop area, access to the systems that may need to be modified," she said.

She didn't give an indication of when that investigation will be completed. "You don't push your anomaly investigation team too quick," she said, stressing the importance for them to be "methodical" while working through all parts of the fault tree of potential causes.


Original Submission

SpaceX Tests Crew Dragon with Redesigned SuperDraco Thrusters 4 comments

SpaceX fires up redesigned Crew Dragon as NASA reveals SuperDraco thruster "flaps"

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.

[...] Each capable of producing several dozen pounds of thrust, both Crew and Cargo Dragon use Draco thrusters to orient themselves in orbit, rendezvous with the International Space Station, and lower their orbits to reenter Earth's atmosphere. Crew Dragon's Draco thrusters are also designed to control its attitude during abort scenarios, stabilizing and flipping the spacecraft to prevent a loss of control and ensure proper orientation during emergency parachute deployment. The Draco firings during Crew Dragon's November 13th static fire were meant to simulate that additional use-case.

Aside from verifying that SpaceX has successfully redesigned Crew Dragon to mitigate the failure mode that caused capsule C201's catastrophic explosion in April 2019, the Draco static fires specifically mirrored the burns Crew Dragon C205 will need to perform to successfully complete its In-Flight Abort (IFA) test. As noted by NASA and SpaceX, with the static fire complete, both teams will now comb through the data produced, inspect Crew Dragon to verify its health and the performance of its redesigned high-flow pressurization system, and perform any necessary refurbishment.

NASA's post on Crew Dragon's static fire revealed another thoroughly intriguing detail: the SpaceX spacecraft's SuperDraco thrusters apparently have flaps! A bit of retroactive speculation suggests that SuperDracos are closed out with plugs of some sort to create a seal against the environment before Crew Dragon is rolled out to the launch pad. Perhaps, in the event of a SuperDraco ignition, SpaceX included actuating flaps as a method of resealing those thrusters prior to splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.

Related: SpaceX Crew Dragon Suffers "Anomaly" During Static Fire Test
Investigation Into Crew Dragon Incident Continues
SpaceX and NASA Investigation Identifies Cause of Crew Dragon Explosion
NASA and SpaceX Hope for Manned Mission to ISS in Early 2020
Boeing Performs Starliner Pad Abort Test. Declares Success Though 1 of 3 Parachutes Fails to Deploy.


Original Submission

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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.

    • (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).

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (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.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
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