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20/03/27/1752255 story

SpaceX Encounters Problem Just Before Crew Dragon Parachute Test

posted by janrinok on Saturday March 28 2020, @09:19AM   
from the dizzy,-I'm-so-dizzy dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow8162:

SpaceX encounters problem just before Crew Dragon parachute test:

SpaceX just experienced a hiccup in the lead-up to its first crewed flight.

The California-based company hauled a test article of its Crew Dragon capsule skyward with a helicopter on Tuesday (March 24), to help prove out the vehicle's parachute system ahead of the historic Demo-2 mission.

Demo-2, which is currently scheduled to launch in mid- to late May, will carry NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS). It will be the first crewed orbital flight to launch from U.S. soil since NASA's space shuttle fleet retired in July 2011.

But the parachutes never got a chance to show their stuff. "During a planned parachute drop test today, the test article suspended underneath the helicopter became unstable," SpaceX said Tuesday in an emailed statement.

"Out of an abundance of caution and to keep the helicopter crew safe, the pilot pulled the emergency release," the statement added. "As the helicopter was not yet at target conditions, the test article was not armed, and as such, the parachute system did not initiate the parachute deployment sequence. While the test article was lost, this was not a failure of the parachute system, and most importantly, no one was injured. NASA and SpaceX are working together to determine the testing plan going forward in advance of Crew Dragon's second demonstration mission."

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Original Submission

• Fun new delays (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday March 28 2020, @09:32AM

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Saturday March 28 2020, @09:32AM (#976590) Journal

  This is not really a problem with the parachute... but the recent failure of a fifth-flown Falcon 9 booster could cause greater delays.

  SpaceX's in-flight rocket engine failure threatens NASA astronaut launch debut [teslarati.com]

  It’s likely that B1048’s engine failure was primarily related to the fact that the booster was SpaceX’s pathfinder for a fifth-flight reusability milestone, making it the most reused rocket booster ever launched. NASA currently requires all of its Crew Dragon missions to launch on new Falcon 9 rockets, hopefully mitigating direct corollaries between the Starlink L6 anomaly and astronaut launches. Regardless, the space agency says that the company will now have to complete its internal failure review and implement necessary hardware, software, or rule changes before it’s allowed to launch NASA astronauts.

  That investigation could take a matter of weeks, possibly even less, but it’s entirely possible that it could take months – let alone fixing the problems that allowed the in-flight Merlin 1D engine failure to happen in the first place. Ultimately, it will almost certainly make even the first flights of Falcon 9 and Heavy rocket boosters safer, but it could substantially delay SpaceX’s Demo-2 astronaut launch debut. Still targeted no earlier than (NET) mid-to-late May 2020, it’s safe to say that it’s reasonable to expect that schedule to slip over the next 4-6 weeks. Stay tuned for updates.

  Add in coronavirus issues and the cursed launch will likely slip yet again. Maybe not enough for Boeing to catch up though.

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