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SpaceX completed the latest Dragon crew capsule parachute drop test on Friday before the first astronaut launch on the human-rated spacecraft on May 27, while technicians at Cape Canaveral attached the crew module. of the spacecraft with its trunk section without pressure.
The crash test of a C-130 cargo plane on Friday was the 27th and final test of the “Mark 3” parachute design that SpaceX will use for the Crew Dragon spacecraft. Drogue’s parachute and then four main slides deployed from a test vehicle designed to mimic the weight of the Crew Dragon during return to Earth.
SpaceX said in a tweet that the parachute test moves the Dragon of the Crew “one step closer” from NASA flying astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station, “and safely returns them to Earth. .
Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Dragon processing team at Cape Canaveral has connected the spacecraft’s pressurized crew module to the spacecraft’s rear trunk, which generates electricity through body-mounted solar panels and houses radiators for thermal control in orbit.
The parachute and spacecraft processing milestones kick off a busy month of preparations ahead of the launch of the Crew Dragon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket set for May 27 from Platform 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The test flight will head to the International Space Station, where Behnken and Hurley will live and work for one to four months before returning to Earth for a dip in the Atlantic Ocean near the east coast of Florida.
The launch later this month will mark the first time astronauts have flown into Earth orbit from a U.S. spaceport since the space shuttle’s withdrawal in July 2011.
“My heart is sitting here (pointing to my throat), and I think it will stay there until we safely retrieve Bob and Doug from the International Space Station,” said Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, in a press. conference Friday. “But between now and then, there is still work to be done.”
NASA has awarded SpaceX more than $ 3.1 billion since 2011 to develop, test, and fly the Crew Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX has put up its own funds, but Shotwell was unable to provide a figure on Friday for the level of internal funds SpaceX has spent on developing the crew capsule.
The public-private partnership is a hallmark of NASA’s strategy since the end of the space shuttle program to commercialize transportation to and from low Earth orbit, beginning with cargo services for the space station started by the Dragon capsule. from SpaceX and the Cyropus supply ship owned by Northrop Grumman, formerly known as Orbital ATK.
“This is a new generation, a new era in human space flight,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “And when I say it’s new, what I mean is that NASA always had the idea that we need to buy, own and operate hardware to get to space.” That was true in the past, but now, in this new era … NASA has the ability to be a customer, one of many customers in a very strong commercial market in low Earth orbit. “
NASA selected Boeing in conjunction with SpaceX in 2014 to design and build new commercial spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from the space station. Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is unlikely to fly with astronauts until early 2021 after a non-pilot test flight in December found software problems, preventing the capsule from docking with the space station.
Bridenstine said NASA and SpaceX continue preparations for the demo-2-designated Crew Dragon test flight amid the coronavirus pandemic while introducing new physical distancing guidelines for astronauts and support teams.
“We will do it in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic,” Bridenstine said. “I will tell you that this is a high priority mission for the United States of America. We, as a nation, have not had our own access to the International Space Station for nine years.”
In the time since the shuttle’s last flight, all astronauts traveling to the space station have flown aboard Russian Soyuz capsules. In the latest deal with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, NASA paid the Russian government more than $ 80 million per round-trip seat on the Soyuz spacecraft.
NASA’s inspector general reported last year that the agency is paying SpaceX approximately $ 55 million per Crew Dragon seat.
Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said Friday that NASA and SpaceX engineers are “making sure all Is are dotted and Ts are crossed” in preparation for the launch of the Crew Dragon.
Parallel to the hardware preparations at the Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX and NASA engineers are completing pre-flight data analyzes, safety assessments, and readiness reviews.
The work in the coming weeks will ensure that SpaceX and NASA “are ready for this important mission of safely flying Bob and Doug to the International Space Station, serving as a lifeboat and returning them to their families,” Lueders said.
“This is a humiliating job,” he said. “I think we are up to it.”
Behnken, 49, will serve as joint operations commander for the Demo-2 mission, responsible for rendezvous, docking, decoupling, and other activities on the International Space Station. Hurley, 53, will be the spacecraft commander, responsible for launch, landing and recovery, according to NASA.
Both astronauts joined the NASA astronaut corps in 2000, and each has flown twice on space shuttle missions. Behnken and Hurley are also married to other astronauts.
“I think we have a different perspective on the importance of coming to Florida, to launch a US rocket again from the Florida coast,” Behnken said. “And generations of people who may not have had a chance to see a space shuttle launch, get a chance to see human space flights in our own backyard again, if you want, it’s quite exciting to be a part of it.”
“I think that’s the most exciting thing for me, and on my first flight, I didn’t have a young son,” he said. “He did not have a son, so I am very excited to share the mission with him and have the opportunity to be old enough at six to see him and share him with me when I get home and while in orbit.”
Hurley piloted the shuttle Atlantis on the last space shuttle mission in July 2011.
“It is time to launch a US rocket from the Florida coast to the International Space Station, and I am certainly honored to be a part of it,” said Hurley.
“We would be asked questions along the lines of, well, the space program has ended because the shuttle is not flying,” Hurley said. “And that was certainly not the case. We have had people on board the International Space Station since the fall of 2000. And we continue to fly to the space station in Soyuz vehicles. So part of this was just a lack of understanding on the part of the public as to what we continued to do as an agency, but it was also the time it took to develop new vehicles to take their place, take the place of the shuttle, to take people from and to the International Space Station from the United States. “
Once Behnken and Hurley return to Earth, NASA will formally certify the Crew Dragon for regular crew rotation flights to the space station, each with four astronauts. Another Crew Dragon is slated for launch later this year with three NASA astronauts and a Japanese space aviator.
The Dragon’s crew has been essentially in quarantine since March, when the coronavirus threat disrupted the daily lives of millions of Americans. Behnken and Hurley will begin a formal quarantine protocol next week, then spend a few days inside a controlled facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston before flying to Kennedy on a NASA plane on May 20.
Astronauts will participate in a final integrated simulation with ground controllers and mission managers from NASA and SpaceX on Monday.
“Then we started a quarantine process that intensifies as we get closer to launch,” said Hurley. “And we also have some free time to have everything in our lives as something square since we’ve been busy preparing for this flight, and we’re likely to be in space for a few months.”
“We have some more sims with SpaceX, we will have some competition sims later, before going to Kennedy,” said Hurley. “And then we’ll go to Kennedy about six or seven days before launch, and then we’ll spend the rest of the time (in Florida) preparing from that location in the astronaut crew quarters.”
SpaceX plans a flight test readiness review on May 8, followed by a test readiness review conducted by NASA on May 11.
Lueders said Friday that NASA has reviewed SpaceX’s investigation into an engine failure that occurred in a Falcon 9 launch in March. One of the rocket’s nine Merlin engines went out prematurely during a launch with 60 Starlink Internet satellites, but the rocket overcame the malfunction and still delivered the payloads to its intended orbit.
“We are completing testing on some other components of the launch vehicle,” said Lueders. “We have reviewed the resolution of the Starlink launch anomaly and have in fact cleaned our vehicle’s engines for that failure, so it is actually behind us right now.
“But as everyone knows, the spacecraft is still being processed, the launch vehicle is still being processed, and as the vehicles are being processed, there are small problems that we have to solve,” Lueders said. “Most of our human certification activities are being completed with this mission, so the team is going through about 95 percent of the human qualification certification on this mission.”
In mid-May, the Dragon spacecraft is expected to be transferred from a processing facility at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to nearby Kennedy Space Center, where the crew capsule will connect to its Falcon 9 launcher within a hangar near the southern perimeter of platform 39A.
Behnken and Hurley are scheduled to fly to the Florida space coast on May 20.
A test launch of the Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for May 22, followed the day after by a “dry dress” test when astronauts don their black and white SpaceX flight suits and strap on inside the Crew Dragon spaceship on the launch pad. .
A release readiness review is scheduled for May 25.
On May 27, Behnken and Hurley will put their flight suits back on inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building in Kennedy, the same facility where Apollo and the astronauts prepared for launch. They will travel inside a Tesla Model X from the O&C Building to Platform 39A, passing the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building and the Press Site on the way to the seaside launch complex.
They will begin boarding the Crew Dragon spacecraft about three hours before takeoff. SpaceX’s ground crew will close the Dragon’s side hatch and evacuate the platform before feeding the Falcon 9 rocket with super-refrigerated kerosene and liquid oxygen boosters.
The sleek SpaceX crew access arm, installed on the 39A platform in 2018, will retract about 42 minutes before takeoff. The Dragon’s powerful abort engines will be armed 37 minutes before launch, giving astronauts the ability to escape an explosion or other emergency while fueling the Falcon 9 rocket.
Kerosene and liquid oxygen will begin to flow to the two-stage launcher 35 minutes before takeoff, which is scheduled for 4:32 p.m. EDT (2032 GMT) on May 27.
Assuming the takeoff occurs on May 27, Crew Dragon is slated for an autonomous dock with the International Space Station on May 28 at approximately 11:29 a.m. EDT (1529 GMT).
Hurley and Behnken will take manual control of the spacecraft at various points during the Dragon’s journey to the space station, testing its ability to fly the capsule using the new touchscreen controls in the cockpit.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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