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SpaceX Pad Abort Test (Update with video)

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 6, 2015
Filed under
SpaceX Pad Abort Test (Update with video)

Dragon Abort Test Successful (Photos and Video)
5 Things to Know About SpaceX’s Pad Abort Test
“This will be the first flight test of SpaceX’s revolutionary new launch abort system, and the odds of encountering delays or issues are high. Fortunately the test doesn’t need to be perfect to be valuable–our primary objective is to capture as much data as possible as the data captured here will be key in preparing Crew Dragon for its first human missions in 2017.”

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

100 responses to “SpaceX Pad Abort Test (Update with video)”

  1. richard_schumacher says:
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    Woo hoo! But what was the “Hang tight, everyone” call at T+00:48? My GF suggests it was a caution against celebrating too soon, which is a happy explanation.

    Little sucker floats like a cork, dun’nt.

  2. DTARS says:
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    That didn’t look like a mile off shore to me. Seems they turned off the webcam before it went surfing. Was there a strong on shore wind? Or was that an optical allusion? How far did it land off shore?

    With the chutes hooked to the side it got whipped around a lot. Wild ride. Seems propulsive landings might be softer.

    Just heard the test was 8 seconds shorter than planned too???

    • Yale S says:
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      If I were floating in that capsule I would have gone thru a case of barf bags.

      • Robert van de Walle says:
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        It really wanted to travel blunt end first, didn’t it? Just as soon as the aerodynamic pressure form the trunk is removed, that thing swung right around. The CG has got to be close to the aft end. Judging by how it rolls after the ‘chutes have stopped pulling on it, it’s much further aft than I would have thought possible.

        • Yale S says:
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          You made me watch again and get queasy again!

        • Jeff2Space says:
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          Which is exactly what you want when it reenters the atmosphere at the end of its flight. You want the blunt end to hit the atmosphere first and you want it to stay that way.

      • fmonahan says:
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        If you were conscious…that was some pretty violent snapping of the capsule during the drogue and main chute deploy.

        • Yale S says:
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          Its a trip recommended only for those either escaping disaster or are monoamine oxidase deficient.

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      As far as I’ve been able to work out, one motor cluster failed about half-way through the burn and the opposing pair was throttled back to compensate. The consequence was lower velocity and apogee and splashdown a lot less far down-range.

      Apparently Mr Musk will be offering comment at 11:15 EDT. We’ll see what he has to say.

  3. Jeff2Space says:
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    The test looked good to me (watched it on NASA TV website). The views were from very “long” tracking cameras, so the “depth” might be deceiving for anyone looking at the video or screen captures.

  4. AstroInMI says:
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    Nice work! That looks like it would be a nasty ride, though.

  5. SpaceMunkie says:
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    what is so revolutionary about the abort system? rockets, parachutes, haven’t we been doing this since the 50’s?

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      All of those systems are tested separately, even now.

      An abort is a complex sequence of events that have to happen rapidly, and it’s incredibly helpful to test that to make sure you’ve got everything right.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        It helps a lot if you can test the thing unmanned. The Space Shuttle never tested any of its abort modes in flight. None were ever used in flight, except for ATO (abort to orbit). The RTLS (return to launch site) or TAL (trans-Atlantic landing) were never used in flight. Even with those launch abort modes, the shuttle’s abort capability was still very limited. Any significant failure that involved the solids was essentially unsurvivable.

    • Marc Boucher says:
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      You need to watch the briefing. They talked about all the innovations & first on this test. This was no 50’s repeat test. http://spaceref.biz/nasa/na… Oh, and the superdraco’s are 3d printed as well

  6. John Thomas says:
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    Fantastic! SpaceX accomplished one of the major hurdles required for manned flight. The inflight abort test should be the next major test. Looking forward to that!

    • Yale S says:
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      The inflight abort test will be towards the end of the year.
      Boeing plans a pad abort in 2016.
      What I find concerning is that both the Crew Dragon and the Orion will have in-flight abort tests.
      Boeing originally had an in-flight test of the CST-100 scheduled, but has since cancelled it as unnecessary. really??

  7. Granit says:
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    Looks like the same system NASA tested a few years ago. Hope the crew compartment was well instrumented – looks like the crew would be pulling some high g’s around drogue chute release. All in all a very good test.

    Edit: Test was in 2009. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/wat

    • Yale S says:
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      Which test was that?
      I am aware that Blue Origin tested a full scale pusher abort back in 2012, but which NASA test?
      B.O. does not get sufficient credit for its advances. maybe they are too secretive.
      http://www.space.com/18167-

      The Russian combine a tower and pusher system

      • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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        That was the MLAS, or Max LAS.

        https://www.nasa.gov/conten

        • DTARS says:
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          So why is Orion not using this pusher type tech we paid to test?

          I recall watching that test and wondering about it? That was 6 years ago? Long time ago.

          • Yale S says:
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            Very consevative design

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            I would guess it wound up being too heavy for the Ares I. It was also a much less mature system than the tower one (that is currently being used on Orion). Further development of MLAS was likely ended at the same time Constellation was.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            Interesting side note – the same company that did the parachutes for MLAS is also doing the parachutes for the Crew Dragon.

            http://www.airborne-sys.com

            http://www.airborne-sys.com

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            Airborne also makes GPS-guided parasail cargo delivery systems that would be handy for landing a spacecraft exactly where you want it.

          • rktsci says:
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            The problem with an integral pusher system is that you have to carry it with you all the way to the Moon and Mars on Orion. That’s a big mass penalty. For LEO ops it makes sense, as you can use it to cushion a land landing – as long as you have water to land in for an ascent abort. (There were trades done on some pusher designs for Orion.)

          • DTARS says:
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            Can’t this pusher system be used instead of service module? Don’t you just put fuel in the trunk and pipe it to the dracos? Have to design it to leave service module tanks with boosters I guess?

          • DTARS says:
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            Well that leads to the question how much junk can you put in the trunk of a Dragon 2 and still do a safe abort?????
            Seems the 8 super dracos had trouble with an empty trunk. What if the trunk was filled to the MAX with ???? Pounds? They said they had weights to simulate people. Did they have weight to simulate full trunk as well???

            SpaceX uses the trunk weight and Fins to stabilise their abort bird, but is it possible to abort without the trunk??? Can the Dracos keep just the capsule stable?? Wonder if they will test for that possibility/ capability with dragonfly

            Maybe the fins only should abort with the capsule and leave the rest of truck behind??

          • PsiSquared says:
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            Where exactly is the evidence they had “trouble” with an empty trunk? The issue was with a SuperDraco, not the trunk.

          • DTARS says:
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            I’m asking if the trunk was loaded to the MAX and they had an issue similar to this. 1 Draco not working up to par could they have made a safe escape?? Seems to me carrying all your luggage on an abort might not be so smart????

          • Yale S says:
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            I would imagine if you did not wish to carry it, then it could either be, like in the HL-20, built in as part of the mounting adapter and be separated after orbit,
            or do the same as Dragon – make it part of your main propulsion system.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            I agree. The Apollo and Soyuz and Apollo LAS were designed to be jettisoned after the boosters are dropped but before the vehicle even achieves orbit, saving considerable mass.

          • DTARS says:
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            Of course the more important question is why are you putting a service module on giant rocket and throwing it away in the first place?

            Answer because you fail to convince some government clown that an expendable rocket is a bad idea.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            Or perhaps SpaceX found that recovering the service module wasn’t cost effective. That or other reasons might not fit your narrative, however.

          • DTARS says:
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            SpaceX doesn’t have a service module. SLS does like Apollo . Rktsci said that SLS couldn’t use pusher abort because that hardware weight,would have to be carried to the moon.

            You always seem to want to work with the current hopeless situation, facts as you call them, when in fact to have any hope at all of doing much productive we need to some how change the narrative.
            At least I’m willing to float ideas regardless of being ridiculed

          • PsiSquared says:
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            SpaceX has a trunk which performs some of the same functions as a service module. You weren’t clear in your comments, except for your retort about “clowns”, something which is substantiated.

            SpaceX will need something more than what’s carried on Dragon if they intend to go beyond LEO. Perhaps you should be talking to SpaceX engineers.

          • DTARS says:
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            Agree hopefully it will be something that stays in space and be used over and over.

          • fmonahan says:
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            Orion LAS was designed to get off of an Ares -1 that could hit max-q’s of 1,000 psf. Also, the solid booster could not be shut off before Orion punched off, so you had to get away much faster.

          • hikingmike says:
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            That thing did seem like a beast when it took off in the test. Hard to tell with the different camera angles and distances though.

      • Shaw_Bob says:
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        No. Just a tower. It works!

        • Yale S says:
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          The tower is just for the first 2 minutes. It pushes itself away for any other problem for the rest of the way up (and it works!) Low powered and no protection from the worst disasters but a proven lifesaver nonetheless.

    • Yale S says:
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      Very cool test. Interesting how they have a chute on the lower segment.
      So there are at least 3 similar systems. MLAS, New Shepard, and Crew Dragon.
      Anybody know of others?. Any video on the Russian system? They had a Mercury-style tower for launch abort and a pusher system for ascent aborts.

      • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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        CST-100 will have the abort system in its service module.

        Some other systems would have had pusher abort systems if they had been built, the X-20 Dyna-soar (the “Emergency Rocket”)

        http://www.orbiterwiki.org/

        and the HL-20/42.

        http://www.astronautix.com/

      • numbers_guy101 says:
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        MLAS-
        https://www.youtube.com/wat

        Orion-
        https://www.youtube.com/wat

        Blue-
        https://www.youtube.com/wat

        Dragon-
        https://www.youtube.com/wat

        Boeing’s CST 100 launch abort test is scheduled for 2017.

      • Shaw_Bob says:
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        The Russian Soyuz abort system is a tractor system. Vostok had a questionable ejection seat, Voskhod had none.

        • Yale S says:
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          The soyuz only uses the “tractor” tower for the 1st 2 minutes, then it switches to other modes with the separation springs pushing the spacecraft away with either the whole soyuz or in part doing a separation from the booster and landing.

          • Shaw_Bob says:
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            That’s silly. It’s like saying that Apollo had a pusher escape system because after a certain point the SPS would fire up (Mode 4 etc on the Saturn V). The Soyuz ‘other modes’ simply involve the rocket’s upper stage firing. Neither of these are adequate answers to a launch vehicle going bang.

          • Yale S says:
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            The system worked. Soyuz 39 in 1975 had a booster anomaly after the tower was gone. The Soyuz was sprung away and the Soyuz service module 700 pound thrust engine fired to provide the separation push. The cosmonauts survived the abort. While only a tiny fraction of the thrust of 8 superdracos, and yes, if the booster exploded it would have been the end, but that secondary pusher system was what they had after tower jettison, with all its limitations.
            It was most comparable to mode 2, not 4 on the Apollo/saturn v.

  8. rktsci says:
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    As of 10:11 CDT, the link above went to the photo only version. The version with video is at http://spaceref.com/commerc

    The launch is at about 16 min into the video.

  9. rktsci says:
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    It’s pretty slow off the pad. I wonder how fast it will separate at max-Q.

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      Max acceleration is 4.5g apparently. Remember that, in the event of an abort, the booster’s engines will already be powering down when the Super-Dracos fire, so they will mostly only need to fight against aerodynamic forces, not the acceleration of the launch vehicle itself.

      • rktsci says:
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        High acceleration is needed for two reasons. First, to get you off a failing bird ASAP and out of the blast effects (heat, shrapnel, shock wave). Second, to get far enough away that the parachutes are not destroyed by flash heat from the booster detonation and aren’t shredded/burned by debris hitting them. There were serious concerns that an Ares I blowing up would create a debris field of burning propellant about a mile across. Bad news if you end up under it.

        • richard_schumacher says:
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          Another good reason not use parachutes at all in the abort system.

          • Daniel Woodard says:
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            A significant advantage for all-liquid propulsion, which ULA will also be able to offer as soon as they get Mr. Spock man-rated. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Live long and prosper, ULA.

          • Yale S says:
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            and avoid solids in your first stage

    • Todd Austin says:
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      Max acceleration ended up being 6G. Chris Hadfield did a live commentary on the test and seemed to think it hustled off the pad pretty quickly. I’m thinking he knows what a quick launch is. 😉

      https://www.youtube.com/wat

  10. DTARS says:
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    Under performance do to fuel mixture as reported by @SteveClark1

  11. DTARS says:
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    NEWS FLASH Orion Will be getting less expensive Windows 🙂

  12. SJG_2010 says:
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    Stupid question but: WHY is there a requirement for crew escape systems? How many people have died from Spaceflight in > 50 years of flying? Answer: LESS than ONE jetliner crash.
    Jetliners dont have Passenger OR crew escape systems yet we accept our fate in case of an accident.
    I would fly on a dragon with no escape systems. (after ~10 successful flights that is).
    Couldnt the cost of all the crew escape system hardware have paid for a LOT more powered flight tests?

    • richard_schumacher says:
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      In the past, yes. But the Dragon escape system is essentially a secondary function of the normal landing system, so it imposes no additional cost.

    • Daniel Woodard says:
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      SpaceX was able to use the propulsive landing system as an abort system as well, so is was sort of a freebe.

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      Imagine if you were a passenger flying on Orb-3

      Probably wish your spacecraft had a LAS.

      SpaceX will have a Falcon 9 rocket fail at some point.

      This is like asking why cars have seat belts or airbags.

    • pathfinder_01 says:
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      Because unlike an jet liner the problem of escape is simpler. An jet liner could be carrying hundreds of people of all sorts of weights/heights/age, hard to design an system able to safety handle that. The other reason is because spaceflight is far riskier that an jet flight and it would be like designing an fighter without ejection seats.

    • disqus_wjUQ81ZDum says:
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      If you ever have nothing to do, look up NASA’s “Probabilistic Risk Assessment Procedures Guide for NASA Managers and Practitioners” . Section 14 “Launch Abort Models” is what you are looking for.

    • Yale S says:
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      The shuttle killed its crew about every 50 flights. Space travel is not a particularly safe form of travel.

      • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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        That should read ‘Shuttle wasn’t a particularly safe form of space travel.
        Cheers

  13. Daniel Woodard says:
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    I wonder if they planned to come down that close to the beach?

    • PsiSquared says:
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      The plan was to land about 2.5 miles out to sea. However, due to issues with one of the Super Dracos, they didn’t achieve the designed velocity or altitude.

      • Daniel Woodard says:
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        That would be consistent with the call that they were short of planned altitude during the flight. However they still had plenty of altitude to get the chutes open, so they could flatten the trajectory a little if they needed. Wonder what the problem was with the thruster. Also I assume the entire fuel load was consumed? If not wouldn’t the remaining thrusters have burned longer to compensate?

      • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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        IIRC, the total lateral distance they were planning to travel was about 2.2km (1.4mi). Taking into consideration the distance from pad 40 to the coast, that made for about 1.5km offshore.

        Yes, they landed a lot closer than that and I’m thinking that this may have been mostly due to a strong onshore wind that was flirting with Weather = NO GO for a while there.

  14. Yale S says:
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    The crew dragon was carried 1.2 km sideways. The target distance was 2.5 km. The problems with the thrusters was an excellent test of automatic compensation control between clusters. You learn more from problems than from absolute successes. The inflight abort will be the next test.

  15. Mike says:
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    I’m certainly an advocate of the additional cost/performance impact of a crew escape system. You can’t completely remove the risk to the crew when you’re balancing schedule and cost.

    The Russians used the launch escape system in 1983 when there was a pad fire just before a Soyuz launch. Someone should ask Titov and Strekalov if it was worth having the escape system!

    https://www.youtube.com/wat

  16. Shaw_Bob says:
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    So, SpaceX has flown Dragon V1 numerous times on a rocket with an excellent launch cadence, has completed a pad abort test, and will shortly attempt an in-flight abort test with a refurbished DV2 capsule. And Boeing has not done any of these things, nor will they have anything like the flight experience before they fly. My simple question is, why are Boeing not being held to the same sort of rigorous, 1960s-style build-a-little, fly-a-little methodology as their competitor? Before anyone says that Boeing ate all the companies which, as much as 50-odd years ago, had a lot of experience building capsules, and has sufficient institutional experience to not require to go down the SpaceX path, then I say rubbish. Perhaps Boeing has indeed forgotten more than SpaceX has ever learned, but that means that they’ve, er, forgotten. So why are Boeing not being told to do some abort demonstrations, and get a decent number of unmanned flights under their belt?

    • Yale S says:
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      Why should Boeing only do a pad abort and not an inflight abort like Crew Dragon or Orion?

    • RocketScientist327 says:
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      Boeing spends millions in lobbying congress. That is why.

    • Yale S says:
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      They are doing a pad abort next year. Thats all. Not sufficient

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      To be fair, both SpaceX and Boeing will be doing an unmanned flight and a crewed test flight. The Cargo Dragon and the Crew dragon have a very similar pressure vessel and heatshield on the bottom, but the commonality between the two capsules largely ends there. Nearly every other system is different or is laid out differently.

      • Shaw_Bob says:
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        Block 1 Apollo Vs Block 2? The overall abort issues were the same.

        Obviously, DV2 is a different beast to DV1, but the management procedures, the launch environment, the flight environment and procedures and the (current) landing are all the same. The Super Draco rockets, the ability to dock rather than be berthed, the on-board control and the crew (and their needs) are certainly new

        There’s still an enormous disparity. SpaceX seems to put more skin in the game at every turn.

  17. richard_schumacher says:
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    How loud is it inside Dragon 2 during a normal launch and during an abort?