e-FTW
New electron smell
Yeah, what is the square footage? Can one live in it? Build futuristic houses on the cheap? Lol
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e-FTW
New electron smell
Found another cool shot, taken from the top of the VAB:
From (more inside): John Jack McGill on Twitter
From (more inside): John Jack McGill on Twitter
e-FTW
New electron smell
From US Launch Report, posted by Scott Manley:
Am amazed this thing held together all the way down (or almost all the way? It might have broken up a bit just before hitting the water, as there is a puff of smoke).
You can also see the shock wave at 8m45s.
You can also see the shock wave at 8m45s.
MichaelP90DL
Active Member
e-FTW
New electron smell
We are not there yet. SpaceX has not launched humans yet on the DM-2 test flight. After that, and some more reviews I assume, they will get certified for operational launches.
And Boeing needs to also launch and get certified to end reliance on Russia completely and for Commercial Crew to work. Unless there is a provision in the program where SpaceX does the work of both providers But that would require doubling the load on SpaceX production and operations. And NASA really wants what Bridenstine called differential redundancy (two providers that do it differently).
Folks will still fly on Soyuz, but the US will not be forced to.
e-FTW
New electron smell
e-FTW
New electron smell
4:27 Watch Doug’s non-verbal reaction when he mentions that loading fuel while they are onboard will be “a different experience”. Ever so-slight bop.
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Article says all went well
SpaceX releases preliminary results from Crew Dragon abort test – Spaceflight Now
SpaceX releases preliminary results from Crew Dragon abort test – Spaceflight Now
The most interesting section of that article to me, quote:
”The Crew Dragon began its launch escape maneuver at 10:31:25 a.m. EST (1531:25 GMT) — initiated by a low setting of an on-board acceleration trigger — when the Falcon 9 was traveling at a velocity around 1,200 mph (536 meters per second), according to SpaceX.
Eight SuperDraco thrusters immediately pressurized and ignited as the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage engines were commanded to shut down as part of the abort sequence.
The escape engines on the Crew Dragon produced nearly 130,000 pounds of thrust at full power. The SuperDracos performed flawlessly, SpaceX said, accelerating the capsule away from the top of the Falcon 9 at a peak acceleration of 3.3Gs.”
There is a discussion on reddit that, as I understand it, concludes that the abort sequence “trigger” was a vehicle acceleration value at a specific point in the flight that was pre-programmed to be just outside of the standard flight parameters. The moment that acceleration value was reached the Super Dracos ignited and the booster engines were all shut down, the capsule separated, etc.
If I have that wrong, please correct me.
Mostly a guess on my part, based on what I think I heard:
I think it was the other way around, they lowered the trigger value so a normal part of the launch caused an abort. That keeps everything else stock.
But to make the scenario realistic, wouldn’t it make more sense to program the rocket to produce an off nominal (low) acceleration value at a specific point — thereby simulating an engine(s) out failure — and that would trigger the abort sequence to start?
What is the point in starting the abort sequence with a nominal vehicle acceleration value that in real life would never trigger an abort?
Not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand.
From your post "initiated by a low setting of an on-board acceleration trigger" I take that to mean the high bound trigger was set lower, i.e. instead of 2G max acceleration for that part of the launch, they set it to 1.8G .
You wouldn't want to abort from the expected vehicle envelope versus a slower (lower acceleration) event because a slower rocket is easier to escape from. Increasing the acceleration has design level risks, so you wouldn't want to do that either.
In a real world scenario, the system would theoretically activate from an in progress catastrophic failure which would occur during the normal flight envelope. A loss of power failure may not be sufficient to abort since they can recover in some of those cases (longer burn on remaining engines).
I like this photo of the SuperDracos firing just before separation even better than the one posted a few days ago.
It's from Mongo's linked Spaceflight Now article.
Whatever equipment took this, it must have another shot taken a few hundredths of a second later that shows the Dragon pulling away from the booster. That would be the one I'd like for my next black SpaceX T shirt!
I wonder if that is a touched up version of this video or a separate camera:
SpaceX on Twitter
SpaceX on Instagram: “Crew Dragon separating from Falcon 9 during today’s test, which verified the spacecraft’s ability to carry astronauts to safety in the…”
e-FTW
New electron smell
A view of how the Everyday Astronaut and team setup to cover this with a big telescope. Cool video and great ending ;-)
e-FTW
New electron smell
Nikxice
Active Member
I see that most of the comments on reddit focus on whether those artifacts go back to Elon or Ebay. I'm pretty certain that SpaceX and NASA will get involved. Those components played a significant role during the successful IFA so they'd likely want to get them inspected. This got me curious about the different doors and location of the parachutes. The door that drifted ashore had the Dragon logo on top with 'DRAGON' written near the bottom, but that door wasn't part of the initial drogue chute deployment. That 'DRAGON' door is associated with the 4 main chutes and those are stored below the crew hatch. The 2 drogue chutes deploy from the panel just above the crew hatch labeled 'SPACEX'. It's remarkable to watch the drogues interact with the bottom door as the main chutes start their deployment. Slowing down the sequence reveals quite a ballet. I looked around for a proper diagram of Crew Dragon but couldn't find much with any detail. Towards the bottom of this Space.com article there's a short video with a good perspective on the chute deployment sequence.
https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-dragon-challenges-parachutes-abort-engines.html?jwsource=cl
adiggs
Well-Known Member
I'd guess that if you throw stuff into the ocean and leave, then it's salvage and finder's keepers. Of course, I expect SpaceX and NASA can make a very generous offer for that trash that would be hard to say no to
Isn't there some weird salvage law in Florida that basically gives dibs to some private treasure hunter for anything farther than the low water line? Or maybe that's just stuff on the ocean floor?
