SpaceX – Page 62 – Commercial Crew Program

SpaceX Conducts Successful Crew Dragon Parachute System Test

A Crew Dragon test article successfully deployed its four main parachutes as planned during a test that saw the SpaceX-made test article dropped from a C-130 aircraft 26,000 feet above Delamar Dry Lake, Nevada. The Crew Dragon, designed to fly astronauts to the International Space Station, will use four parachutes when returning to Earth. SpaceX plans to land the initial flight tests and missions in the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX is working on a propulsive landing system the company intends to use in the future missions to propulsively land on land using its SuperDraco engines.

The parachute test is just one of an evaluation regimen that is expected to include many additional parachute drops of increasing complexity. SpaceX and NASA engineers will use the results throughout the test program to confirm the system and get it certified for use first on flight tests and then for operational missions. Photos by SpaceX.

Spacewalk Begins With Astronauts Focusing on IDA

Astronauts Jeff Williams and Kate Rubins floated outside the Quest airlock on the International Space Station at 8:04 a.m. EDT to begin a 6 1/2-hour EVA. The spacewalkers will connect the International Docking Adapter to the station so that visiting vehicles including those in development for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program can connect to the station in the near future. The IDA itself, built by Boeing, has been pulled from the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft and positioned next to the port it will be connected to. The video below shows the IDA’s extraction, and you can watch NASA TV’s spacewalk coverage this morning in the window to the right, on Web streaming or on NASA TV. The coverage will include conversations with spacewalk officers, astronauts and Commercial Crew Program officials.

Also, you can tweet questions to astronaut Doug Wheelock – @Astro_Wheels – throughout the morning. Just use #AskNASA.

Start Back to School With Commercial Crew In Your Backpack!

When you crack open your books for school, keep your place with Commercial Crew Program bookmarks. Download and print them out today!

Combined: http://go.nasa.gov/2bj0goZ
Boeing: http://go.nasa.gov/2bj2fd1
SpaceX: http://go.nasa.gov/2bj1Wz7

NASA Orders Second Operational Mission for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program placed an order for the second operational mission to carry astronauts to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. The order means that eight vehicles are now in different levels of planning for Commercial Crew flight tests and operational missions by SpaceX and by Boeing, which also is developing the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft for human-rated missions to the space station. The eight missions in process are:

2 uncrewed flight tests, one for each company,
2 crewed flight tests, one each,
4 operational missions ordered to date.

The order was placed now because of the long lead time to build a spacecraft, test it and process it for launch.

“The order of a second crew rotation mission from SpaceX, paired with the two ordered from Boeing will help ensure reliable access to the station on American spacecraft and rockets,” said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “These systems will ensure reliable U.S. crew rotation services to the station, and will serve as a lifeboat for the space station for up to seven months.”

This is the fourth and final guaranteed order NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts. Boeing received its two orders in May and December of 2015, and SpaceX received its first order in November 2015. Both companies have started planning for, building and testing the necessary hardware and assets to carry out their first flight tests, and ultimately missions for the agency. NASA will identify at a later time which company will fly the first post-certification mission to the space station.

I Will Launch America: Jon Cowart

Jon Cowart is part of a team helping to lead the nation’s effort to facilitate the development and certification of commercial spacecraft to enable the safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation of humans to and from the International Space Station.

In his key role as a mission manager in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, he will guide the agency’s mission-related activities at Kennedy Space Center in Florida when astronauts are ready to fly to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Learn more about how Cowart will help Launch America’s new generation of human-rated spacecraft at http://go.nasa.gov/2amjD2V.

Five Years After Shuttle, Missions Near for Commercial Crew

A new era of human spaceflight in America is approaching on the horizon five years after the space shuttle era ended with the touch down of Atlantis on the runway at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Built from the best of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program’s expertise plus the innovation of top American aerospace companies, spacecraft and rockets designed and built using a new approach to development are taking shape inside factories across the nation. Intensive test programs are underway on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon transportation systems, both built to take astronauts to the International Space Station from the United States. A lot has happened during the past five years, and the pace is picking up: http://go.nasa.gov/24QDPuA

Dragon Arrives at Station with Docking Adapter

The Dragon spacecraft that SpaceX launched early Monday morning from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida arrived at the International Space Station today carrying a docking adapter that is crucial to future spacecraft including those in development with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The International Docking Adapter-2 will be pulled from the trunk of the Dragon by the station’s robotic arm Aug. 16. Then astronauts will make a spacewalk two days later to permanently connect the adapter to the end of the station’s Harmony node.

The adapter – a 1,020-pound metal ring big enough for astronauts to move through – has been built with a host of sensors that visiting spacecraft will use to help them dock to the station autonomously. Another docking adapter currently in assembly at Kennedy Space Center will be flown to the station on a future flight and connected to give the orbiting laboratory a second updated docking location. Currently, supply craft such as the Dragon have to be captured by the robotic arm and placed at a hatch. That process requires extensive work by the astronauts aboard the station. With the adapter in place however, automated systems on the spacecraft can steer towards the station and make a safe connection.

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon are designed with computerized guidance and navigation systems that will conduct the flight plan by themselves even when astronauts are aboard. Of course, the both spacecraft also include the ability for astronauts to take over if needed.

I Will Launch America: Steve Payne

When he’s not building model rockets, Payne is hard at work performing launch integration for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Both Boeing and SpaceX are developing spacecraft and launch systems to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Read what Payne is doing to help Launch America’s new generation of human-rated spacecraft at http://go.nasa.gov/29W32UN

Crew Dragon Pressure Vessel Put to the Test

Pressure vessels built by SpaceX to test its Crew Dragon designs are going through structural testing so engineers can analyze the spacecraft’s ability to withstand the harsh conditions of launch and spaceflight. A pressure vessel is the area of the spacecraft where astronauts will sit during their ride into orbit. It makes up the majority of the Crew Dragon’s structure but does not include the outer shell, heat shield, thrusters or other systems.

Even without those systems in place, however, the company and NASA can learn enormous amounts about the design’s strength by placing the pressure vessel in special fixtures that stress the structure. SpaceX completed two pressure vessels that will be used for ground tests and two more are in manufacturing right now to fly in space during demonstration missions for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

After the ground testing, the pressure vessels will be outfitted with all the systems they would need to be fully functional spacecraft. Photo credit: SpaceX

Modifications Transforming Pad A for Falcon Launches

Removing hundreds of thousands of pounds of steel and adding robust, new fixtures, SpaceX is steadily transforming Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for use as a launch pad for its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. The launchers will lift numerous payloads into orbit, including the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts aboard bound for the International Space Station.

A horizontal integration facility was built at the base of the pad and rails installed running up the incline to the flame trench. Instead of arriving to the pad on the back of the crawler-transporters, SpaceX rockets will roll on a custom-built transporter-erector that will carry them up the hill and then stand the rocket up for liftoff. The fixed service structure at the pad deck will remain, although more than 500,000 pounds of steel has already been removed from it. SpaceX has already started removing the rotating service structure, which is attached to the fixed structure. Built for the need to load a shuttle’s cargo bay at the pad, it does not serve a purpose for Falcon launchers whose payloads are mounted on the top of the rocket.

SpaceX leased the historic launch pad from NASA in April 2014 and has been steadily remaking it from a space shuttle launch facility into one suited for the needs of the Falcon rockets and their payloads. It is the same launch pad where Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins lifted off on July 16, 1969, to begin their Apollo 11 flight that would make history as the first to land people on the moon. Almost all signs of Apollo-era hardware were removed from the launch pad when it was rebuilt for the shuttle. Photos by NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis