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By Joey Roulette
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – While Elon Musk's SpaceX is approaching the possible cause of a violent explosion in April having destroyed one of his astronaut capsules, a company official announced Monday his intention to launch humans into the space "more and more difficult."
One of the Space Company's Crew Dragon capsules exploded on a test bench located in a Florida Air Force station a few moments before launching eight emergency stunt engines. intended to propel a crew on board safely in the event of a breakdown.
The Dragon crew was to transport American astronauts to the International Space Station on its first test mission in July, although that date slipped to November following the explosion and some other problems in the design of the vehicle.
Monday's comments were a new sign that the schedule could slide to 2020.
"I'm pretty optimistic for now, because we have a good way forward," said Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of Build & Flight Reliability, SpaceX, to reporters during a conference call while the company provided new details of the investigation.
"But as I said, I still have not finished, I really want it to be safe, and by the end of this year I do not think it's impossible, but it's getting more in more difficult. "
SpaceX said its investigation into the accident indicated a leaky valve as the probable cause of the April explosion.
NASA donates $ 2.6 billion to SpaceX and $ 4.2 billion to Boeing Co for the construction of rocket and capsule launch systems that allow astronauts to bring American astronauts back to the International Space Station for the first time. first time since the closure of the US Space Shuttle program in 2011.
Koenigsmann, who sits on an investigative committee convened by SpaceX just after the April blast, said the probe was about to be completed and that the space company would have to bring some modifications to the plane of Crew Dragon before being able to send humans in the space.
According to SpaceX, evidence shows that a leaking check valve allowed nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) to enter the high-pressure helium tubes during the April tests. "The failure of the titanium component in a high pressure NTO environment was sufficient to cause the check valve to ignite and resulted in an explosion," SpaceX said on its website.
Steps have been taken to reduce these risks within the launching exhaust system, the company said. This includes the replacement of check valves, which generally allow the liquid to flow in one direction, with so-called rupture discs that seal until they are open to high pressure.
(Report by Joey Roulette in Orlando, Florida, edited by Eric M. Johnson and Tom Brown)
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