Crew Dragon launch escape demonstration

eps | 721 points

Being able to watch regular (SpaceX) rocket launches live - including deployment of satellites in orbit and landing of boosters - free, for entertainment purposes, is in my opinion one of the most amazing things going at present. As a demonstration of how far technology has progressed to make this all possible it blows my mind.

growlist | 4 years ago

Congratulations to the SpaceX and the whole team! That moment of truth when the thrust was lost and the module separated was actually way faster than I had expected. I could barely notice the exhaust plume was smaller and the dragon had already left.

I think it's incredibly satisfying to note that SpaceX is so good at the launch sequence with the Falcon 9 that there were zero delays except weather. With any new rocket system test, I completely expect there to be multiple delays with the countdown.

Again, congrats to everyone and their hard work.

irjustin | 4 years ago

There will be a press conference at 11:30 AM (ET) on https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive by the way.

One thing that is clear is that the phrase of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil will be used. Multiple times. That's as sure as SpaceX livestream hosts using the formulation 'Historic' Launch Complex 39A ;)

_Microft | 4 years ago

This was pretty impressive. It was super awesome that everything worked exactly as it should and it clears the way for SpaceX to launch people to the space station.

What is more relevant for me, is that if NASA follows their own rules, it also means that SpaceX will beat Boeing to having a manned spacecraft capability.

The "rules" in play here is that Boeing had a requirement of doing a successful unmanned flight. In government contracts this is known as a 'threshold requirement' meaning that it has to be done before the contract can be completed. Boeing also had a parachute deployment failure during their drop test. As NASA (and some members in Congress) have been emphasizing on how important safety is and relentlessly hammering SpaceX over their refueling techniques and their "history", if they do not want to be seen as hypocritical they should require Boeing to at least achieve a successful unmanned flight to the space station and they could piggy back the parachute deployment test on that flight (and get a twofer, both the parachute test and the end to end flight test.) Requiring that however, will cost Boeing money (they have to pay the expenses for the retest out of their pocket) and more importantly time (they need another launch vehicle from ULA and a launch window). Versus SpaceX which only needs the results of today's test audited and signed off before they can launch their test crew. So perhaps 60 days, 90 at the most before they are cleared to fly people.

So I think it is highly likely that SpaceX gets people up into orbit first. And that is a pretty amazing milestone and it slaughters a couple of sacred cows in the aerospace industry.

The most impressive one for me is that an aerospace company can be started from scratch and beat all established players in capability, cost, and launch cadence. It is both a huge endorsement of SpaceX's approach and a huge black eye for the existing players. Given that the existing companies actually want to survive it heralds some really exciting times ahead for space.

The other thing is that a company has this capability at all. I was talking with some friends about how do you "value" that in the market? How does it affect the geopolitics of space? What happens when Bigelow aerospace or another "space industry" partner starts selling access to orbital facilities that aren't government owned and operated?

As far as I'm concerned I wish this had started 40 years ago rather than a bit less than 20, but I'm glad I have had a chance to watch it unfold. Exciting times.

ChuckMcM | 4 years ago

It was somewhat eerie to hear the “stage 1 throttle up” then abort just after that.. reminded me of the “go for throttle up”.. some of you may know what I’m taking about.. I’m glad these guys will have an abort system available and testing in flight like this was awesome.. good job spaceX

xt00 | 4 years ago

That was great!

The guys said at the beginning that they are expecting Falcon to blow up because aerodynamics change significantly once the nose separates.

Stupid question, couldn't they just give Falcon it's own nose so that it doesn't blow up after dragon separates? Dragon could have been mounted on that nose.

rohan1024 | 4 years ago

Nailed it!

Can't wait for the crewed launch. Historic moment for the United States space program.

davedx | 4 years ago

Looks like a total success. Great job.

code4tee | 4 years ago

I hope, this is the last time when we see the abort/escape system activated. Good luck and godspeed, Spacex!

milansuk | 4 years ago

While the tried and true method of splashing down in the ocean seems like a reasonable first effort for landing the dragon spacecraft, watching the difficulty the boats have in reaching the spacecraft (the hosts of the stream mentioned it takes them 2 hours!), and the difficulty the SpaceX team had in getting reasonable weather conditions for this test, it seems to me that a propulsive land-based landing would still be a reasonable future improvement to pursue.

whoisthemachine | 4 years ago

In the post test presentation, it was so endearing to watch the NASA Admin talk about Elon as a friend. Elon has earned so much of NASA's trust, it's phenomenal. But again, I am an Elon Fanboy.

sidcool | 4 years ago

It was really interesting how they setup the main chutes to open slowly to minimize the shock from breaking.

beached_whale | 4 years ago

Photos are coming in on Twitter. Thanks to all photographers for the amazing pictures! If you're a photographer and don't want your photos to be linked to from here, please say so.

Official (SpaceX) close-up video of the separation event / IFA:

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1218976479150858241

Great shots of the fireball:

https://twitter.com/GregScott_photo/status/12189514406910730...

https://twitter.com/BrandonHSlam/status/1218923590260645889

https://twitter.com/Mimikry_/status/1218937739590230016

https://twitter.com/_flsportsguy/status/1218930068887613441

https://twitter.com/thelanjampod/status/1218949597231489024 (multiple frames)

Falling booster or second stage (the ratio of black to white hull area is the same on both stages, so I can not tell which one of both it is):

https://twitter.com/mike_deep/status/1218926880381902849/pho...

Impact of said part on the surface of the sea:

https://twitter.com/johnpisaniphoto/status/12189461666389401...

Infrared images:

https://twitter.com/turndownformars/status/12189257207366000...

https://twitter.com/turndownformars/status/12189415996080783...

In-flight abort test appearing on the weather radar:

https://twitter.com/NWSSpaceflight/status/121892435399747584...

https://twitter.com/wxmeddler/status/1218925147861790720 (animation)

Lift-off and others:

https://twitter.com/TrevorMahlmann/status/121896406755938713...

https://twitter.com/RDAnglePhoto/status/1218968896885215235 (viewing angle and height suggests it was taken from the roof of the VAB (vertical assembly building))

Splash-down of the capsule:

https://twitter.com/FutureJurvetson/status/12189766841347153... (strange that Mr. Innsprucker called the parachutes white-orange. That looks rather like red?)

_Microft | 4 years ago

Congrats SpaceX team! I hope they post the view from the Crew Dragon vehicle of the Falcon 9 breaking up. That seems to be the one view that was missed (in addition to splashdown from the aircraft angle)

thisisastopsign | 4 years ago

Why did the booster explode? No thrust causing it to lose direction?

vsareto | 4 years ago

Podcast recommendation for all german speakers here. Tim Pritlove recently interviewed Hans Koenigsmann (Engineer and Vice President of Mission Assurance at SpaceX since 2011). The episode was released two days ago. They talk about the history of Space X and the future planes (Mars mission and Starlink). Its part of the Podcast "Raumzeit".

https://raumzeit-podcast.de/2020/01/17/rz083-spacex/

lhoff | 4 years ago

It would be cool if this was how SpaceX decommissioned Falcon 9 boosters from now on. Testing different failure modes and making crew flight safer. Random tests of stuff like engines exploding and maybe an induced COPV failure mid flight. Especially since they don't plan on re-using Crew Dragon Capsules.

Then again I don't blame them for not wanting to spend the $50-100M each on additional tests. But if I were NASA I would commission them since they are so cheap.

foxyv | 4 years ago

Seems all went well! Kudos SpaceX

sidcool | 4 years ago

SpaceX above and beyond with its successful voluntary in-flight abort test. I wonder if Boeing will be doing a similar test?

astannard | 4 years ago

It's exciting, Space technology development and achievement has been taking place by a commercial company or organization step by step, It can be freer and have more possible than NASA days before. Live stream today, and maybe more can happen next time, it's cool, same as the astronautical tech itself.

lqs469 | 4 years ago

Was there mention of why they did not do a launch escape while the F5 was at full throttle? I understand this reduces the risk and was probably deemed to be good enough of a test, but I was expecting the test to be "worst case scenario" or in other words, F5 on full power at MaxQ.

saberdancer | 4 years ago

4 chutes are currently out and just waiting for splashdown now.

Looks like the test went well.

Edit: Splashdown

mechhacker | 4 years ago

I watched the Chris Hadfield Masterclass on being an astronaut. It is wonderful and he is a fantastic speaker and lecturer. He talked about the actual launch, how nothing is left for chance, and how every second is accounted for. The astronauts need to fight the effects of the incredible acceleration and have a plan for literally every second until they reach space on 7-8 mins. The MasterClass itself is great, totally worth it and Chris Hadfield is a delight.

remote_phone | 4 years ago

It's impressive how long they've been doing broadcasts like this. I have probably watched every one live, starting with the first (failed?) Falcon 1 ones that were shown.

pugworthy | 4 years ago

The post-test press conference is starting on nasa tv for those interested (11:50EST).

rrmm | 4 years ago

I know there's a lot of space fanbois here, but the ISS should be de-orbited ASAP to save money for real space science.

There's no scientific reason for manned spaceflight at this time, and virtually no science is performed on the ISS.

Go watch NASCAR if you want entertainment thrills.

redis_mlc | 4 years ago

That was awesome! Good job SpaceX!

busymom0 | 4 years ago

is it just me or was the water deludge system late at liftoff?

chasd00 | 4 years ago

My jaw drops every time I hear about SpaceX and Tesla. How could Elon grasp two extremely different and difficult technologies and build such amazing companies within a decade. I have difficulty learning new things. Some pointers will help. Thank you.

hi41 | 4 years ago

History in the making.

pier25 | 4 years ago

Saturday morning < Sunday morning

hectorology | 4 years ago

Great result. One thing stood out, in the commentary they sometimes used feet and sometimes meters. Better just to stick to metric to avoid the mess. Reminds me various stories, when mix up between metric and imperial made space missions fail. So SpaceX teams should have stronger focus on avoiding this.

shmerl | 4 years ago

Anybody suspect this impacts Tesla stock? Not that it should, but as a herd reaction.

ianai | 4 years ago

The explosion was unexpected so either they will have to fix what went wrong there, which in turn will possibly effect the design which would then most likely need another flight test if you want to be safe enough or they will let it be as is which would be unsafe?

They expected the splashdown to happen several seconds later than it did. This could mean the capsule was going faster than it should have before its parachute deploy or it didn't slow down enough when hitting the water which would be worse.

Finally the main parachutes where touching each other pretty aggressively it wouldn't seem than unfathomable that two or more of them get tangled up, I don't think there is a backup solution for if that happens.

soheil | 4 years ago