NASA Dragon final exam, now ready for test flight on March 2

On Friday, key NASA officials gathered in a large meeting room at the Kennedy Space Center. For decades, NASA officials have been reviewing analyzes of the Space Shuttle's next mission and, more often than not, allowing the launch of the vehicle. But after 2011, there were no more crew vehicles to examine.

That changed this week when NASA convened a "flight readiness review" of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft for its initial test flight, with no one on board. Friday night, the meeting was over and, among the NASA and SpaceX officials, the verdict was pronounced – Dragon was ready for his demonstration mission as part of the March 2 commercial crew program. The launch of the Falcon 9 rocket is at 2:48 pm (07:48 UTC) from the Kennedy Space Center. "I'm ready to fly," Kathy Lueders, NASA's commercial program manager, said succinctly.

The atmosphere was keen among NASA executives as well as the top SpaceX executive on the scene, Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of the company for reliability of construction and flights. He, too, had participated in the flight readiness review in the floor room where many shuttle meetings had taken place. "It was really a big problem for SpaceX, and for me personally," he said.

Space flights with crew a almost returned to the United States. This Demo-1 mission must be successfully launched, docked at the International Space Station approximately 24 hours later, and returned to Earth a few days later under a lighted parachute. As long as this test goes well, and after SpaceX has completed a flight test of the capsule evacuation system, the first crewed Florida mission could take place later this summer from Florida.

NASA has long waited for this moment, since July 2011, when the space shuttle made its last flight and the agency removed the venerable vehicles.

A real test

It will not be a pro forma test. Although Lueders and other NASA officials are comfortable with the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon ship for this test flight, they still want to solve some of the problems before astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken launch into the space with an identical rocket and capsule.

NASA is still collecting data on COPVs, rocket-wrapped composite tanks and spacecraft, which are essentially cylinders that store rocket fuels at extremely high pressures. Engineers also want to make sure the Dragon's parachutes have enough margin for a safe landing in various conditions. They are also studying some concerns about the propellant supply system of the Dragon spacecraft. Finally, a manikin will fly inside the vehicle during the test flight to determine the stress suffered by humans during the flight.

"The vehicle is not fully qualified for crewed flight, but we know that the equipment is good enough for this flight," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's manned space flight manager. "We expect to learn some things, we want to maximize our learning."

An outstanding question

With regard to the launch date of March 2, Gerstenmaier mentioned only one outstanding problem regarding software related to the vehicle approach to the International Space Station. Normally, a stand-alone vehicle will have a main computer system to control its flight and a separate and isolated box to handle this function if the main computers fail. The Dragon crew does not have this feature.

Russia, NASA's main partner on the station, has expressed concerns that, if this system disappears, the spacecraft could drift and crush on the station. Gerstenmaier said that he thought NASA had a "sufficient justification" for the Dragon's computer system as is, and that he hoped to sort out the problem with the Russian authorities this week, before launching.

The station has a busy schedule in March and April, so there is a narrow enough margin to take off this flight. The next launch of the Russian crew Soyuz is scheduled for March 14. Three spacewalks and two cargo missions will take place at the end of March and April. Anticipating potential weather or technical problems, SpaceX should have three launch opportunities between March 2 and 9, but if this window is missed, it's hard to know when the company will try again.