Preliminary Design Review Completed For Dragon Launch Abort
System
Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has successfully
completed the preliminary design review of its revolutionary launch
abort system, a system designed for manned missions using its
Dragon spacecraft. This represents a major step toward creating an
American-made successor to the Space Shuttle.
Image Courtesy SpaceX
NASA’s approval of the latest design review marks the
fourth successfully completed milestone under the agency’s
Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program and demonstrates the
innovation that’s possible when NASA partners with the
private sector.
“Each milestone we complete brings the United States one
step closer to once again having domestic human spaceflight
capability,” said former astronaut Garrett Reisman in a news
release Thursday. Reisman is one of the two program leads of
SpaceX’s DragonRider, which is adding capabilities to the
Dragon spacecraft for astronaut carriage. Now that the Space
Shuttle program has ended, the United States relies on the Russian
Soyuz spacecraft for astronaut transport, costing American
taxpayers as much as $62 million a seat. By comparison, SpaceX says
Dragon is designed to carry seven astronauts at a time for an
unparalleled $20 million per seat.
As with all SpaceX designs, increased safety and reliability are
paramount. “Dragon’s integrated launch abort system
provides astronauts with the ability to safely escape from the
beginning of the launch until the rocket reaches orbit,”
explained David Giger, co-lead of the DragonRider program.
“This level of protection is unprecedented in manned
spaceflight history.”
With the latest design review approved by NASA, SpaceX can now
start building the hardware at the heart of its innovative launch
abort system. The SpaceX design incorporates the escape engines
into the side walls of Dragon, eliminating a failure mode of more
traditional rocket escape towers, which must be successfully
jettisoned during every launch. The integrated abort system also
returns with the spacecraft, allowing for easy reuse and radical
reductions in the cost of space transport. Over time, the same
escape thrusters will also provide Dragon with the ability to land
with pinpoint accuracy on Earth or another planet.
Falcon 9 Launch June 4 2010
In its first flights, on June 4 and December 8, 2010, SpaceX's
Falcon 9 launch vehicle achieved consecutive mission successes. The
December mission, which was the first demonstration flight under
NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS)
program, marked Dragon’s historic debut and established
SpaceX as the first private company to launch and recover a
spacecraft from orbit. As a result, many Falcon 9 and Dragon
components required for transporting humans to Earth orbit have
already been demonstrated in flight.