CLOSE

Inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft is seen in this video released by the company.
Florida today

SpaceX's SpaceX Dragon spacecraft arrives at Cape Canaveral after thermal and acoustic vacuum tests in Ohio (Photo: SpaceX) [19659006] After Years of Development and Testing Teams are now tasked to further prepare and test the spacecraft before its first disjointed demonstration flight under a $ 6.8 billion contract from the NASA awarded to NASA. at SpaceX and Boeing, the latest of which is being developed His Starliner capsule takes the crews to the ISS. The contract was designed to fill gaps in US-based crew launches, which have not occurred since the last launch of the Space Shuttle program seven years ago.

Crew Dragon arrived in Cape Town – an important step for SpaceX. NASA's Plum Brook station in Ohio, home to the world's largest thermal vacuum chamber.

"She undergoes thermal vacuum tests to ensure that Dragon can withstand the extreme thermal environments and vacuum environments that she will see in the space," said Jessica Jensen, director of SpaceX Dragon Mission Management, during a briefing at the Kennedy Space Center last month.Before that in June, SpaceX conducted the 16th test of the Crew Dragon parachute system at Naval Air Facility El Centro in California

[ SpaceX Targeted Next Weekend for the Launch of Cape Canaveral]

Jensen Confirmed That SpaceX Still Targeted August for the First Demo Flight not captured on a Falcon 9 rocket, but neither the company nor NASA provided specific dates.If the first demonstration flight takes place in August, SpaceX aims at the end of the year or at the beginning of next year a crew test flight to ISS

Kirk Shireman, ISS Program Manager at NASA They have not been put on SpaceX and Boeing yet, but they will be available soon.

"We are badessing exactly when opportunities will come up and when they will be ready, but we are not ready to set a date," he said, noting that launch dates must also match the station, company schedules and NASA requirements. "We have not yet agreed on these dates."

After crewed demonstration flights, NASA will still have to badyze SpaceX's missions and Boeing and certify the vehicles before they can make regular trips to the outpost in orbit.On earlier this week, however, an badysis of the US Government Accountability Office indicated that it is not necessary to There was no chance that either of the subcontractors would reach the certification stage proposed in December 2019 for Boeing and January 2020 for SpaceX. "

GAO report concluded that additional delays have created a gap in US access to the ISS since NASA has not secured a contract for the Russian Soyuz satellite beyond November 2019.

Contact Emre Kelly at [email protected] or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook on @EmreKelly.

Read or share this story: https://on.flatoday.com/2uvTczn

[ad_2]
Source link