SpaceX is banking on its commercial space taxi, Crew Dragon to fly seven astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in an orbital mission to and from Earth. So far, the American aerospace company has completed over 700 tests of the space cab’s SuperDraco engines, which allow for orbital maneuvering.
Now, the Crew Dragon is being tested rigorously for its emergency abort system, as per the video that was posted by SpaceX. The dramatic video shows the space cab outfitted with eight SuperDraco engines, and SpaceX claims the setup can move the whole capsule half a mile in 7.5 seconds when all fired together at the time of an emergency. The maximum speed that the Crew Dragon can reach at this point is 436 metres per hour.
SpaceX has published this Crew Dragon’s SuperDraco abort thrusters at the same time as the company is about to close a failure investigation into a Dragon capsule’s April explosion, pinned primarily on abort-related hardware.
Elon Musk’s private space company tweeted out the test numbers, saying that the tests “demonstrate the Crew Dragon’s ability to safely carry astronauts away from the rocket in the unlikely event of an emergency.”
As the system deploys mid-air, parachutes ensure that the craft safely lands back on Earth. This mechanism is carefully designed for when something goes wrong with the rocket carrying the Crew Dragon to orbit. The module, thus, can fire up its thrusters to quickly evade the danger and then, balloon down sustaining minimal damage to the craft.
This SpaceX’s human-carrying capsule forms part of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, a new plan to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station using commercial spacecraft. SpaceX is working alongside Boeing, which is developing the CST-100 Starliner, to help NASA move away from buying seats on Russian rockets and move launched a bit closer to its base of operations.
It all seems impressive, but SpaceX is racing against the clock. The Government Accountability Office warned in June that NASA needs a backup plan if SpaceX and Boeing fail to meet their deadlines, with the chance that the agency’s contract expires with Russia’s Roscosmos before the crafts are ready.
In this video, Engineering Today will discuss SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule which is gearing up to take on its next major challenge, ahead of its first mission that will launch astronauts for the first time.
Let’s get into details.
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