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NASA and SpaceX officials have said little this week of the apparent explosion of a Saturday Dragon Crew capsule during a ground test at Cape Canaveral, and members of the team. A safety advisory committee announced Thursday that they would be patient while investigators were examining high-speed images and telemetry data and wreckage to determine the cause of the accident.
A group of security advisers discussed the explosion at a public meeting scheduled for Thursday and Thursday. Sandra Magnus, a former astronaut and member of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Committee, said it was too early to know how the accident would affect SpaceX's crew capsule program.
The spacecraft involved in the Saturday crash returned from a six-day test flight to the International Space Station. The unmanned mission, designated by Demo-1, was an exploratory flight before NASA placed the astronauts on the capsule during the next orbital launch, named Demo-2.
"Before the launch of Demo-1, NASA and SpaceX identified configuration changes and subsequent qualification work that should be completed before Demo-2 is possible," said Magnus. "Despite the recent incident, there is still a lot of work to be done between Demo-1 and a crewed flight. It is still too early to speculate on the evolution of this work based on recent events. As always, the committee encourages the team to be vigilant against the dangers of calendar pressure. "
Before Saturday's explosion, SpaceX was on track for the Demo-2 mission later this year, possibly as early as September. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are assigned to the first Crew Dragon-led mission, which will pave the way for regular crew rotation flights to the space station, thus ending the exclusive dependence of the NASA on the Russian ferry Soyuz for the transport of astronauts Earth orbit.
Engineers were preparing the spaceship Crew Dragon, fresh out of space, after a crash in the Atlantic Ocean, March 8, for an atmospheric test flight in July to validate the ability of the capsule to escape a failed rocket in flight. A different capsule is under construction for the mission of the Demo-2 crew.
"The event occurred during a static fire test conducted prior to the flight drop test," said Patricia Sanders, president of the ASAP. "The firing was intended to demonstrate the performance of the SuperDraco integrated system with a vibro-acoustic life twice as long as the vehicle in abandoned environments."
The accident occurred while SpaceX was testing Crew Dragon's SuperDraco abandonment engines, designed to quickly move the capsule away from its Falcon 9 launcher. Abandonment is an essential safety feature for the capsule of the aircraft. 39; crew.
The crew capsule conducted a firing test of 12 smaller Draco maneuvering thrusters earlier in the day.
"The firing of 12 Dracos service sections has been done successfully," said Sanders. "The shooting of eight SuperDracos resulted in an anomaly. The test site was completely cleared and all safety protocols were followed. The accident did not cause any injuries. "
Draco and SuperDraco propellants burn the same combination of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxine propellants, which ignite on contact. The toxic propellant was released in the air after Saturday's explosion.
A photo taken by a Florida Today photographer at a local beach showed an orange-red cloud at the Crew Dragon test site in Cape Canaveral. Such acidic clouds are typically associated with nitrogen tetroxide, the oxidant used by SuperDraco engines and a propellant commonly used in rockets and satellites.
SpaceX and NASA officials did not reveal toxic fumes in their statements after Saturday's accident, but a Brevard emergency operations center official, hit by Spaceflight Now, said Saturday evening that they were not aware of any threat to the public.
Fully loaded, the crew Dragon carries about 1.5 tons of caustic propellant mixture, which poses health risks to humans and animals.
Sanders said that NASA and SpaceX had immediately responded to the accident by executing crash plans. SpaceX is leading the investigation with the participation and support of NASA, officials said.
"NASA has a complete knowledge of the results of the accident investigation, which reviews all data collected during the test, including high speed images and telemetry data from the survey. spacecraft, and will include an analysis of the material recovered from the test, "said Josh Finch. , NASA spokeswoman, in a statement Thursday. "We have full confidence in the SpaceX team and NASA who is conducting the investigation to determine the cause of the incident and update the design if necessary. "
NASA's Space Station Program Leaders are also following the progress of the investigation to determine if the Crew Dragon crash has an impact on SpaceX's cargo replenishment missions, the next of which will be launched on Tuesday. Cape Canaveral, according to Susan Helms, former astronaut and member of the ASAP committee.
The cargo missions to the space station use a different version of the Dragon spacecraft without the Abort SuperDraco engines, and officials have not suggested delaying the launch of the mission next week.
About the accident investigation of Crew Dragon, Sanders said: "The first efforts are focused on site backup, data collection, as well as on the reduction and development of timeline anomalies."
"The investigation will take time before the root cause analysis is completed and will determine the impact on the Demo 2 and the flight abandonment test," Sanders said.
SpaceX and NASA have not specified whether the accident occurred before the SuperDraco engine was started, either when igniting the thrusters or while burning them. SpaceX also did not confirm whether the vehicle had exploded, as generally assumed, nor the condition of the spacecraft and the test site after the accident.
The company acknowledged the crash on Saturday night and SpaceX officials confirmed Sunday that it was the Demo-1 capsule, the latest public statement from the private space company about the incident.
The accident occurred in SpaceX Landing Zone 1, a site leased to the Air Force, where the company drops the Falcon 9 rockets that return to Earth after the launch of satellites. The company announced Tuesday that the next landing of the Falcon 9 rocket would likely be moved from Landing Zone 1 to an offshore drone in the Atlantic Ocean.
Wayne Monteith, deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration's aviation space transportation, told reporters Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center that rigorous ground testing would make the spacecraft safer.
Monteith, a retired general of the Air Force who led until June 45 Space Wing in Cape Canaveral, described the accident "Crew Dragon" by comparing it to an explosion of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad in 2016 that destroyed the Israeli-owned Amos 6 Communication Satellite.
"We test hardware, we test systems, we want to do it before integrating human beings, and quite frankly, you want to find out what kind of problems now and not when your life is in danger," Monteith said. . "So, what you are going to discover from this event is that no one was hurt, you had a catastrophic event on the platform, a bit like when Amos 6 had a problem in 2016, not a single accident, and that's what we all talk about, in public. security."
The slow pace of news coverage since the Saturday incident has raised concerns among some observers about the transparency of SpaceX and NASA. The SuperDraco static fire was led by SpaceX, a private company that also owns the hardware and intellectual property of Crew Dragon, a new paradigm for a NASA supported space flight program.
An editorial released Wednesday by the Orlando Sentinel called for more revelations after Saturday's crash.
"We do not know the extent of damage to the capsule or equipment involved in the test," Orlando Sentinel's editorial board wrote. "We do not know the range of possible causes that SpaceX is studying. We do not know if SpaceX has another capsule ready to continue the program. We really do not know what happened.
"There was no press conference. No opportunity to ask questions to company executives. No detailed press release. No photos or videos of the damage. The public is in the dark. "
The newspaper's editorial board wrote that the Musk companies have no public reporting obligation when they spend private money.
"It's not good that the public is funding its efforts, as is the case with SpaceX's crewed space flight program," reads the editorial.
NASA has allocated more than $ 3.1 billion to SpaceX for the development of the Crew Dragon spacecraft since the launch of the commercial crew initiative in 2010. In a similar arrangement, the space agency has signed a series of commercial crew contracts and contracts valued at more than $ 4.8. billion during the same period.
Boeing also encountered difficulties during abandoned engine ground tests of its CST-100 Starliner crew capsule.
The Starliner is scheduled to make its first unmanned demonstration flight to the space station in August, followed by a test flight with three astronauts on board before the end of the year. The Starliner's early missions were delayed to allow engineers to investigate and correct the cause of a fuel leak last year during a grounding test of the ship's stopping engines in New Mexico.
Boeing did not reveal the fuel leak, which delayed the Starliner's first flights by several months, but a few weeks later, when the problem was first reported by Ars Technica.
The Advisory Committee on Aerospace Safety was established by Congress in 1968 after the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts during a ground test. The committee's charter is to provide advice and recommendations to the NASA Administrator on security issues.
Magnus said the safety panel would be patient with the investigation, but advisers said NASA officials participating in the commercial crew program overseeing the development of Crew Dragon – and not SpaceX – have the last word about the start of astronaut flights.
"We know that the recent SpaceX disaster is attracting a lot of interest," said Magnus. "We are patient and allow teams to investigate. But at the end of the day, the support committee supports the CCP's position that crewed missions will not be done until the program gets the data needed to make sure we understand the margins we control. these margins and that we operate in the sector. environment that these margins require. And we will continue to focus on this theme as work progresses in both programs. "
"Safety is a top priority for NASA and our commercial suppliers," Finch said in a statement. "We will work with our partners to pilot our crew members when their systems are ready. We do not yet know what impact this will have on our target calendars. Additional information will be published as soon as it is available. "
SpaceX was planning to reuse the same spaceship Crew Dragon that had returned from the space station last month during the next flight drop test. The teams will likely have to prepare another vehicle for the abandonment test, a process that is almost certain to introduce delays into the Crew Dragon schedule, industry officials said.
In-flight abortion follows a 2015 runway abandonment test that demonstrated that Crew Dragon's SuperDraco engines, each producing up to 16,000 pounds of thrust, could propel the capsule in an emergency on the launching pad.
Prior to Saturday's incident, SpaceX and NASA engineers continued to examine unspecified problems related to Dragon Crew parachutes. The falls from Boeing's Starliner capsule are also causing concern.
"The two suppliers still have work ahead of them before crewed operations," said Magnus. "The CCP program has provided contractors with all the data necessary to validate the safety of the design and the provision of this information is what will determine the start of the crewed missions and not before."
Magnus said that NASA "converges toward a resolution" concerns regarding pressurized high-pressure helium vessels contained in SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. An earlier version of the COPV, a composite envelope vessel, was put on the blast of a Falcon 9 rocket on its launch pad in 2016, but SpaceX launched a new tank concept of Helium on a satellite launch last year.
As SpaceX and Boeing prepare their spacecraft for astronauts, NASA and Roscosmos – the Russian space agency – have agreed to extend the duration of several spacecraft expeditions this year and next to ensure the maintenance of astronauts Americans in the complex in orbit.
NASA announced last week that astronaut Christina Koch, who had landed on March 14 in the Soyuz capsule to Kazakhstan, will remain in office until February 2020, several months longer than expected initially. Koch will return to Earth with a different Soyuz ship than she launched on board, and her 11-month mission will be the longest space flight ever made by a woman.
NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan, who is due to take off on July 20 on a Soyuz rocket, will extend his space expedition by two months until early April 2020. Like Koch, Morgan will return to Earth with a different crew from the one with whom he starts. .
The US Space Agency also announced last week the assignment of Jessica Meir to a crew Soyuz whose launch was scheduled for September 25. NASA announced earlier this year that it would buy two additional Soyuz seats for US astronaut flights to limit additional delays for commercial crews – a delay this year, apparently filled by Meir, and another by early 2020.
NASA has also approved an extended mission for the first Starliner test flight with astronauts. Chris Ferguson, Boeing's test pilot, and NASA's astronauts, Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann, had initially planned to stay on the space station for several weeks, but the trio would now have to live and work on the station. research outpost for several months as long-term residents.
Magnus said that the steps taken to extend the duration of the mission and to buy more Soyuz seats left a little room for NASA and its subcontractors.
"In the meantime, NASA has correctly established an emergency plan to ensure continued crew access to the ISS until the end of 2020, offering a time margin as they progress towards the crew, "said Magnus.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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