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Commercialization

Another SpaceX Test Success

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
December 10, 2008

SpaceX Draco Thruster Performs Long-Duration Firing and Restart (with video)

“Just days after the successful full mission-length test firing of the nine-engine first stage of Falcon 9, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) marked another significant advance with the performance of its smallest rocket engine, Draco. Known as a “thruster,” the new engine fired continuously for ten minutes in a specially constructed vacuum test chamber that simulates the space environment. After a ten-minute thermal soak period, Draco was restarted for an additional minute, simulating its typical use in space. Performed at the SpaceX Texas Test Facility outside McGregor, this marks the longest firing of the Draco thruster, as well as the longest test on the new vacuum test stand, built by SpaceX and first put into operation in March 2008.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.