SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down in Atlantic to Cap Historic Test Flight
Splashdown occurred at 8:45 a.m. EST about 230 miles off the Florida coast.
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SpaceX Crew Dragon Splashes Down in Atlantic to Cap Historic Test Flight
By Mike Wall 39 minutes ago Spaceflight
Splashdown occurred at 8:45 a.m. EST about 230 miles off the Florida coast.
The first mission of SpaceX's new astronaut taxi is in the books.
The Crew Dragon capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast today (Marchat 8:45 a.m. EST (1345 GMT), wrapping up a historic mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
There were no astronauts aboard this flight, only the sensor-packed dummy Ripley named after a character from the "Alien" films. But the success of the test flight, known as Demo-1, helps paves the way for a crewed mission of the SpaceX vehicle, perhaps as early as this summer.
That will be a huge milestone when it comes; astronauts haven't launched to orbit from American soil since NASA retired its space shuttle fleet in July 2011.
"Fifty years after humans landed on the moon for the first time, America has driven a golden spike on the trail to new space exploration feats through the work of our commercial partner SpaceX and all of the dedicated and talented flight controllers at NASA and our international partners," NASA astronaut Anne McClain radioed Mission Control from the ISS when Crew Dragon undocked from the orbiting lab earlier today.
"This is a new era in human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday (March 6) during a webcast event with Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke to McClain and Canadian Space Agency's David Saint-Jacques from NASA's Mission Control center in Houston.
NASA officials said there was a bit of Apollo history involved in today's Crew Dragon splashdown: It came nearly 50 years to the day after the Apollo 9 spacecraft returned to Earth in the same area on March 13, 1969.
NASA is currently dependent on Russian Soyuz rockets and spacecraft to ferry its astronauts to and from the ISS. And this service isn't cheap; each seat on the three-person Soyuz currently sells for about $80 million.
So, in 2014, NASA signed commercial-crew contracts with SpaceX and Boeing — worth $2.6 billion and $4.2 billion, respectively — to foster the development of homegrown American spaceships. Like SpaceX, Boeing is building a capsule, called CST-100 Starliner.
Back when the contracts were signed, NASA officials said they hoped these private spaceships would be up and running by the end of 2017. That didn't happen, of course. But both companies are now getting pretty close, as Demo-1 shows.
The mission began Saturday morning (March 2) with a liftoff atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Crew Dragon carried Ripley and about 450 lbs. (200 kilograms) of supplies for the ISS crew. Also aboard was the adorable "Little Earth" Celestial Buddies plush toy as a "zero-g" indicator. That toy will remain aboard the station — it will be retrieved by SpaceX's first astroanut crew later this year — but Crew Dragon did return about 330 lbs. (150 kg) of experiment results and other gear to Earth on this flight, NASA officials said.
The main goal of Demo-1 was to test the capsule's many systems in flight, to make sure Crew Dragon is ready to carry astronauts. And the private spacecraft seems to have hit all its marks.
Crew Dragon docked autonomously at the ISS Sunday morning (March 3) and then stayed attached to the orbiting lab for five days. The capsule departed at 2:32 a.m. EST (0732 GMT) today, survived the fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere, deployed its parachutes and splashed down gently into the Atlantic's rolling waves, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) off the Florida coast.
None of this was routine. Crew Dragon is based on SpaceX's robotic Dragon freighter, which has been flying resupply missions to the ISS under a separate NASA contract since 2012. But the two capsules are very different, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said.
"Dragon 2, or Crew Dragon, is a fundamental redesign," Musk said during a postlaunch news conference Saturday. There's "hardly a part in common with Dragon 1," he added.
For example, Crew Dragon has seats, windows, a life-support system, touch-screen controls, emergency-escape thrusters and other astronaut-related accoutrements that the cargo version lacks. Crew Dragon also docks directly with the ISS, whereas its older cousin must be grappled by the orbiting lab's huge robotic arm.
In addition, the crew-carrying capsule has a different parachute system and back-shell shape, neither of which had shown its mettle during an orbital mission. So, a successful return to Earth today was far from guaranteed.
"I see hypersonic re-entry as probably my greatest concern," Musk said during Saturday's news conference.
Crewed flight coming
The coming months will be packed with big milestones for both SpaceX and Boeing, if all goes according to plan.
Up next for SpaceX is a test of Crew Dragon's emergency-escape system, which is designed to get the capsule to safety if a serious problem were to occur during launch. This uncrewed flight, which is currently targeted for June, will employ the same capsule that just came back to Earth.
After that — possibly as early as July — will come Demo-2, Crew Dragon's astronaut-carrying debut. This landmark test flight will tote NASA's Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to and from the ISS. Operational, contracted missions, each of which will ferry four astronauts, will commence sometime thereafter.
Meanwhile, Starliner's first uncrewed test mission to the ISS could launch as soon as next month. The Boeing capsule's emergency-escape test and first crewed demonstration flight to the orbiting lab will occur no earlier than May and August, respectively.
"It won't be long before our astronaut colleagues are aboard Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner vehicles," McClain said. "And we can't wait."
Test space capsule returns to Earth
The SpaceX Dragon capsule completes its demonstration flight with a splashdown in the Atlantic.
www.bbc.co.uk
America's new commercial astronaut capsule has completed its demonstration flight with a successful splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
The SpaceX Dragon vehicle left the International Space Station after being docked there for the past week, and re-entered Earth's atmosphere.
It had a heat-shield to protect it from the high temperatures of re-entry.
Four parachutes brought it into "soft contact" with water about 450km from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The mission - which had no humans aboard, only a dummy covered in sensors - went according to plan.
The Dragon has set the stage for the US space agency Nasa to approve the vehicle for crewed flights.
Not since the end of the Space Shuttle programme has the US been able to send its own astronauts into orbit. It has had to rely instead on Russia and its Soyuz spacecraft, launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Nasa hopes to bring this near-eight year gap in capability to an end with the introduction of two new commercial transportation systems - the Dragon and another vehicle being developed by aircraft manufacturer Boeing.
The first crewed flight could occur as soon as July, although this target date may slip into the summer as engineers work through the post-flight analysis.
Splashdown occurred at about 08:45 EST (13:45 GMT). A boat, called GO Searcher, was waiting to recover the capsule. There were cheers at mission control as the capsule landed in the Atlantic.
The Dragon's owner, SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk, had previously expressed some anxiety about how the capsule would cope with re-entry, given that the vehicle's backshell, or heatshield, has a somewhat irregular shape that could lead to a roll instability at hypersonic speeds.
The director of crew mission management at Space X, Benjamin Reed, spoke to Nasa TV moments after the capsule splashed down.
"It was an incredible journey to get to this moment," he said. "The teams have just done an amazing job - both the Space X and the Nasa teams jointly.
"I can't believe how well the whole mission has gone. Pretty much everything at every point everything's been nailed all the way."
Nasa has seed-funded Boeing to produce a capsule of its own called the Starliner.
This vehicle is scheduled to have its uncrewed demonstration flight in April or soon after.
Ultimately, Nasa will be purchasing seats in both systems to take its astronauts to the ISS. But the commercial nature of the relationship means the companies will be free to sell rides to secondary customers.
These will no doubt include the space agencies of other nations, but perhaps some private space companies and individuals too.
Nasa has already selected its first astronauts to fly aboard a crewed Dragon.
Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley have been busy training with the SpaceX team, learning all about the capsule's operation and what to do if there is an emergency.
One problem that could occur is a failure of the Dragon's carrier rocket during the ascent to orbit.
The demonstration capsule's lift-off last Saturday was picture perfect, but some kind of booster anomaly can never be discounted.
In such a scenario, a Dragon's powerful thrusters would push it away from the launcher to safety.
SpaceX will practise this very procedure shortly.
The team plans to take the current Dragon after its return and put it on another rocket and launch it out of the Kennedy Space Center. A minute into this flight, a deliberate abort will be commanded.
The timing is significant because it's when the vehicle is experiencing maximum aerodynamic pressure.
If the Dragon can stably depart in such circumstances, it ought be able to handle an escape at any stage in a flight.
As with the present demo, no-one will be aboard for this hazardous test.
