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Commercialization

SpaceX Pad Abort Test Briefing

By Marc Boucher
NASA Watch
May 2, 2015
Filed under ,
SpaceX Pad Abort Test Briefing

NASA Briefing: SpaceX Commercial Crew Pad Abort Test
“A May 1 news briefing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, previewed the pad abort test of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, scheduled for no earlier than Wednesday, May 6.”

SpaceRef co-founder, entrepreneur, writer, podcaster, nature lover and deep thinker.

41 responses to “SpaceX Pad Abort Test Briefing”

  1. DTARS says:
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    Wasn’t there talk of dragonfly testing about a year ago? FAA licence for texas and landing site prepared and all? SpaceX says this will be the first time all dracos are fired at once. What factors lead to the delay? Lack of timely nasa funding? Tech issues printing super Dracos?

    NASAs Jon talks like it will be a billion years before Dragons does propulsive landings??

    SpaceX will use this same test capsule for the launch abort test. If it survives both tests, seems to me, it may be used for dragonfly landing test soon after.

    http://www.parabolicarc.com

    • mattmcc80 says:
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      FWIW, the SpaceX CCtCap Contract mentions one propulsive landing test in Attachment J-03, Appendix A, targeted for September 2015 at the moment.

    • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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      Yes but Fv1.1 returns resulted in Dragonfly becoming obsolete before the test program got underway. A case of real experience overtaking the expected test program.
      No delay on the SDs. There’s been no need to test all of them together when they can be done during the pad abort. SpaceX must be confident that they have the engines characteristics well mapped. No known tech issues with SD printing. The engine passed qual testing some months ago.
      Propulsive landings for NASA will be up to NASA not SpaceX due to the contractual terms. Bit like reusing Dragon cargo. That’ll depend on whether SpaceX can convince NASA that it’s safe enough. Seems it would be given Dragon v2 will carry parachutes in any event but I’d say that there’s lots of testing yet to be done in this area. It’s greenfield’s work and SpaceX have said that they didn’t want any hold ups in developing their crew vehicle so they ran propulsive landing and chutes in parallel.
      Dragonfly test program is dead. The next return test is proposed for a return to land and if they get the vehicle back in one piece it’s off to get analysed and probably re flown at Spaceport America IIRC. More info at NSF.
      Cheers

      • DTARS says:
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        So any propulsive Dragon capsule landing test from here on out is on NASA’s dime and nasa’s schedule? So SpaceX can’t test propulsive landings of DRAGON on there own???

        • PsiSquared says:
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          Who said they can’t test them on their own? They can do all the drop tests with attempts at propulsive landings that they want at their own facilities.

          Perhaps you should ask Musk why he hasn’t done so.

          • DTARS says:
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            Well that’s part of my question. Are you right? Can they test on their own, with Dragon or is there some contractual reason they can’t. Or is SpaceX now just waiting/delaying that tech until uncle Sam pays for it. Is SpaceX starting to act a little porky? In the interest of wise business decisions of course. It’s wise business for Boeing to milk the cost plus contracts too. Anyway I find propulsive returns being delayed a bit of a boomer.

            Hard to do on a cots milestone contract. I find it interesting that with the big contract that innovative part gets moved to the back seat?

            Good idea I’ll ask him. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a reply lol

            You know how demigods can be

          • John Thomas says:
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            They can quote it as part of their bid. However they have to include the costs in their bid and take the heat for any problems or schedule slips. This abort test is already about 18 months later than the original milestone when the contract was awarded.

          • Yale S says:
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            18 months! Must be something amiss at SpaceX. Their gold standard for missing deadlines is 26 months. I have come to rely on that and be comforted that all is right in the world. Well maybe they can compensate with an extra long delay in something else.

          • mattmcc80 says:
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            Absolutely nothing stops them from testing propulsive landings at McGregor on their own dime. They’ve got the FAA clearance, that’s all they need. But they’re also a pretty busy lot, between FH development, Raptor development, commercial customers, NASA flights, building two launch sites and refurbishing a third, and first stage recovery testing.

            More importantly, though, since NASA is the only customer for the Dragon spacecraft for the forseeable future, and NASA clearly doesn’t want propulsive landings on land soon, that makes DragonFly testing a relatively low priority.

          • Yale S says:
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            I agree except for the no non-nasa customers. Bigelow Aerospace is crawling out of its skin waiting for Crew Dragon or CST-100 to come on-line. And their traffic should very soon dwarf NASAs.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            And that helps to support my point which is that it’s just as likely that the reason that SpaceX is where it is in the Dragon V2 development because they’re very busy, not that there’s government intrigue, inefficiency, or pork involved.

          • mattmcc80 says:
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            Indeed. I also consider it a good thing that DragonFly testing, as with Grasshopper testing, will not be a NASA-coordinated activity. Just imagine how much slower Grasshopper/F9R-Dev would’ve progressed if they operated like NASA. We might’ve seen one or two tests a year instead of thirteen in two years.

        • BeanCounterFromDownUnder says:
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          My bad. Investigated further and found that the Dragonfly Program is concerned with propulsive landing for crew with Dragon 2. It seems that’s still a goer but not sure of further details or timing.
          I’m pretty sure SpaceX could test propulsive landings on their own but this is probably not a requirement for crew, ie. the contract doesn’t specify one over the other since Boeing lands on land and SpaceX have put up water landings as their initial offering.
          As to why they haven’t done so is that it’s not on their critical path for Mars as yet. They’ve got FH, Raptor and a couple of pads first.
          Cheers

      • RJ says:
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        DTARS is a Boeing Lobbyist!!! 😉

      • mattmcc80 says:
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        I think you’re confusing F9R-Dev with DragonFly. DragonFly is the testing of Dragon propulsive landings itself, not Falcon first stages. Certainly now that they’re doing so well with actual first stage landing attempts, F9R-Dev doesn’t need to progress unless they want to do some evaluation of specific entry profiles in NM that they haven’t experienced during operational flights.

        DragonFly, per the FAA application, involves dozens of both parachute, propulsive, and mixed tests at McGregor.

        http://www.faa.gov/about/of

    • Yale S says:
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      “NASAs Jon talks like it will be a billion years before Dragons does propulsive landings”
      I think he was trying to be as non-committal as he could. When SpaceX was totally gung-ho on the the plan to do those type of landings from the get-go, it appeared to both freakout and annoy NASA. SpaceX back-peddled in their plans and every one is trying to not talk about it. I would guess after the first couple of Crew Dragon flights and parallel testing at SpaceX that we will see the plan roll back in.

      • DTARS says:
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        I recall SpaceX’s Gwen Shotwell saying , “We want our capsule to land on a Helicopter pad in the back”, to the Johnson Space center crowd and the Boeing folks, to a cool reaction.

        So NASA is intentionally holding back SpaceX,

        the much less expensive winner of the manned program, to make it look like Boeing’s Deals are less of a rip off. How much more is Boeing getting for their simpler commercial capsule again?

        Will the 10 billion dollar and counting Orion capsule, ever do propulsive landings?

        Put another way, SpaceX is being less aggressive for a little pork.

        Don’t want to Piss off the dinosaurs.

        NASA, lowering expectations(good PR) and spending more money. That’s your space agency folks, delaying progress again.

        • PsiSquared says:
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          Don’t confuse your interpretation with facts. Notably, you lack facts to draw the conclusions you’ve drawn, unless you’ve been talking to NASA and have the inside story.

        • Vladislaw says:
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          Every form of transportation has been handled by the private sector, except for rockets. This is finally being turned over to the private sector but an ENORMOUS state sponsered infrastructure has been in place for over a half a century for doing government controled rocket transportation. You just have to give it a bit more time. I am sure Musk and company understand this, will jump through the proper hoops just UNTIL it is all in placea nd operational … sitback, relax and watch the show.

    • Saturn1300 says:
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      Yes, he said someday. With mortar parachutes for backup it would be safe. Well, something I suggested, half in jest, many years ago is happening. They have a dummy named Buster sitting in the pilots seat. I wonder if this is a tribute to Mythbusters Buster or is it a real Buster and Mythbusters have some involvement. Lack of timely NASA funding is why we don’t have Crew today. But that is because COTS-D was not funded. SpaceX changing to Dragon 2 might have delayed things also. The first Dragon had windows. A tower or solid rocket pack on the heatshield would have been quick, easy and cheap. Propulsive landings added a lot of time. It was not funding, but rebidding Crew that cause the delay. NASA’s fault, but Congress could have forced the issue by funding COTS-D. It was authorized in ’10. The bill said ASAP. A Rep. said that authorizing bill was not a wish list. It sure was with COTS-D.

      • DTARS says:
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        There is no good reason why. SpaceX couldn’t return cargo to pad 13/return pad one next year in a cargo Dragon V1/2!!!!

        NASA commercial crew is dragging ass

        • Zed_WEASEL says:
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          You do realize the Cargo Dragon could not be fitted with Super-Dracos.

          • DTARS says:
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            Have asked why that hasn’t been done before??

          • Anonymous says:
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            Well, not with that attitude. Have you not seen the infomercial for Mighty Putty?

          • Zed_WEASEL says:
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            It is technically impossible to add the Super-Dracos to the cargo Dragon without changing the parachute deployment system. Which also remove the CBM docking hatch feature.

            So in effect resulting in the Crewed Dragon design that can not berthed to the ISS.

        • PsiSquared says:
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          Again your assumption is that it’s NASA’s fault, and your assumption has zero evidence to support it. You don’t consider for a second that SpaceX is exactly where they are in Dragon development because of issues at SpaceX (issues like they are very busy). Your instinct is to always assume that someone else, not SpaceX, is to blame.

          • DTARS says:
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            The customer NASA doesn’t want propulsive landing sooner. That much is seems pretty clear? I would prefer my Space agency encouraging reusable innovations sooner not delaying them.

          • PsiSquared says:
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            That’s one customer. Why doesn’t SpaceX develop Dragonv2 on its own? It’s not NASA’s fault that SpaceX isn’t doing their own testing.

            Perhaps it’s time to start looking at things objectively instead of just looking for people to blame. SpaceX isn’t on your schedule: they have their own.

          • DTARS says:
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            My schedule Lolol

            I learned a good bit today Mr. PsiSquared 🙂

    • RJ says:
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      DTARS is a Boeing Lobbyist!!!! 😉

  2. DTARS says:
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    So what’s the deal SpaceX, when are you going to start flying the 30 dragonfly tests???? Soon on your dime. Or sit around and wait on NASA to write you a check??

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      DragonFly would be entirely on SpaceX’s dime. I haven’t seen an update on that program in a while now, but I would guess they are waiting on the abort tests to be completed first.

      • Jeff2Space says:
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        If the abort test vehicle survives intact, it would make sense to reuse it as the DragonFly test vehicle. Why build another test article if you’ve got one that is flight proven?

  3. Daniel Woodard says:
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    At a recent conference Dr. Riesman indicated that the initial Dragon manned landings would be offshore and use parachutes only, and that after some minimal experience had been gained, they would shift to combined parachute/propulsive landings on water and then to coming down on land. An evoultionary progression that minimizes impact ont he flight schedule. Boeing has taken the other route, testing its air bag system in air drops and (SFAIK) planning to go directly to land recovery.

  4. DTARS says:
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    Little Joe 🙂 The good old days
    http://www.americaspace.com

  5. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    I would be happy to volunteer to sit alongside the inert crash test dummy being flown on this abort test, to irrefutably prove man worthiness. Provided they let me get moderately sedated on a good single malt Scotch first. We need real world testing.

    I’ll similarly volunteer to crew the flight abort test later this year if I can have a window seat.