SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft had an anomaly in Saturday's practice

After a successful demonstration mission of its spaceship Crew Dragon in March, SpaceX has prepared this vehicle for a critical launch abandonment test this summer. During this test flight, after taking off from Florida on a Falcon 9 propeller, the Dragon will use its powerful SuperDraco engines to show that the spacecraft can move away from the rocket safely in case problem with the thruster.

On Saturday, as part of the preparations for this abandonment trial, the company experienced a kind of anomaly. According to a spokesman for the company: "Earlier in the day, SpaceX performed a series of engine tests on a test vehicle Crew Dragon on our test bench located in the area. Landing 1 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The initial tests were successful, but the final test resulted in an anomaly on the test bench. The main reasons we perform tests are to ensure that our systems meet stringent safety standards and to detect such anomalies prior to flight. Our teams study and work closely with our NASA partners. "

It is unclear to what extent this incident will affect SpaceX as it prepares for the first Dragon crew mission, which will allow astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to travel to the International Space Station. Earlier, sources said the flight could take place around October under ideal conditions. If the problems were serious, Saturday's crash could significantly delay this schedule, even though in the past, SpaceX had shown a propensity to quickly diagnose failures and resume flying quickly, with only 4.5 months to go. Stop after a rocket failure in September 2016.

SpaceX has been developing SuperDraco thrusters for much of the decade to allow human flights aboard the Dragon. There are four "pods" of two engines each located around the Dragon capsule, and each SuperDraco engine has a thrust of 16,000 pounds. The SuperDracos trials began in early 2012, using various thrust cycles on a test bench at SpaceX's Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas.

Engines burn hypergolic propellants – monomethylhydrazine as a fuel and nitrogen tetroxide as an oxidizer. These are quite toxic compounds, but unlike other "cleaner" rocket fuels, they are easier to store on the ground and in space.

These exhaust systems are one of the most difficult aspects of spacecraft development because they have to operate during the most dynamic moments of space flight. NASA will no doubt examine this failure before allowing its astronauts to fly in Dragon. Evacuation systems have been a problem in NASA's Commercial Crew program, which has provided funding to private companies to access low Earth orbit. In June 2018, while Boeing was preparing its Starliner spacecraft for a test of its emergency evacuation system, a fuel leak was observed near the end of the engine test firing and seriously damaged the service module. Boeing had plans to complete testing of its abandonment system last summer, but has not yet postponed the flight 10 months later, apparently because of the complications of this accident .

Although these evacuation systems are rarely used, they are the last line of defense in the event of an emergency. In the event of rocket failure, such as last October with a Russian Soyuz vehicle when launching a crew on the International Space Station, they really make the difference between life and death.

Announcement image by NASA TV