Dragon Tales (In Space)
A tale of science, space, and Dragons
It may come as a surprise to the general public that not only are the terrestrial airborne creatures popularized in folklore, known as dragons, indeed real but that they are transitioning their habitat to the expanses of space. Well, there are some subtle differences between the folk laden dragons and their modern-day counterparts.
Instead of reptilian scales, they have PICA-X heat shield tiles. The fire breathing mouth is actually eight SuperDraco thrusters. Finally, instead of wings, they have launch escape fins. If you haven’t figured it out yet I’m referring to a spaceship. More specifically, SpaceX’s Dragon 2, a free-flying spacecraft that is set to take NASA astronauts to the ISS in the coming year.
“It’s been 17 years — we still haven’t launched anyone yet — but hopefully we will later this year. That would definitely be the culmination of a long dream for me and a lot of other people at SpaceX.” — Elon Musk
The commercial ferrying of astronauts to the ISS has been a long time coming and a culmination of years of coordination and hard work with NASA. SpaceX signed the manned mission contract with NASA 5 years ago in 2014 but had been working on the Dragon spacecraft since 2012.
The engineering teams at SpaceX have made a multitude of breakthroughs that not only make space travel more affordable but also safer. To compare, it costs $76 million per seat to launch an astronaut on the Russian Soyuz capsule whereas with SpaceX it costs $20 million per seat. Dragons’ practical bells and whistles include a state of the art parachute system, top of the line abort systems capable of firing in 100ms, and not to mention a sleek new interior that resembles that of a Tesla Model 3. Seriously. Check it out.
In December, SpaceX will attempt the in-flight abort test. Basically, after being launched the Dragon capsule will need to demonstrate that it can successfully fire up all of its SuperDraco thrusters in the Troposphere which will then separate the capsule from the booster in a disaster scenario. This would, in a manned mission, potentially save the lives of the astronauts aboard the Dragon. This is a crucial test in order to move forward with the manned mission. Success here pushes SpaceX much closer to putting astronauts into space.
To illustrate how much work has been put into this project, here are the major tests that Dragon has already been through.
May 6th, 2015 — The Pad Abort Test
This was somewhat the first time that Dragon 2 was put to the test in front of NASA. The goal here is to make sure that the capsule could quickly and efficiently escape from the launch pad without any sort of anomalies or disaster (kind of goes without saying). They even had a test dummy strapped into the seat affixed with all sorts of sensors to ensure that the force put on the dummy would be something a human could handle. Much like they would do with a new rollercoaster ride just with rocket engines and higher stakes. The test was a success and Dragon pushed forward.
November 24th, 2015 — The Hover Test
Just a few short months later Dragon was put to the test again but this time at the SpaceX facility in Mcgregor, Tx. Basically, the capsule was suspended by a heavy-duty cable so that the capsule could display that all of its’ SuperDraco thrusters firing in perfect sync with one another, balancing the craft. As you can see below, the capsule passed the test.
March 2nd, 2019 — The Orbital Flight Test
Four years after the previous test, Dragon was tasked with demoing a series of crucial technical abilities. This mission was uncrewed and meant to prove that SpaceX could launch the capsule successfully, approach the ISS successfully, autonomously dock with the ISS successfully, hang around the ISS for a week and then finally return to Earth with a successful splashdown and recovery. This was most definitely a make or break point for the crewed Dragon 2 missions. Any significant error or failure could have led to serious delays or even the overall deprecation of crewed missions with NASA. But, hard work and serious engineering paid off as all went as planned. A test dummy named Ripley and her compatriot, a stuffed Earth plush doll rode Dragon 2 to the ISS for a photo-op. To top it off NASA even won an Emmy for their role in covering the mission live for the public to see.
April 20th, 2019 — Static Fire Test
A month after returning to Earth, SpaceX was preparing Dragon 2 for the in-flight abort test by firing its SuperDraco thrusters as well as the abort system. Unfortunately, during the thruster abort test, the capsule suddenly exploded. Not an ideal scenario when it comes to testing a spacecraft that will take astronauts to space. But that is what testing is for and since the incident, SpaceX and NASA have identified the issue that caused the explosion and implemented new structural changes to prevent it from reoccurring.
“The team mobilized incredibly, both on the NASA side and the SpaceX side, to come up with why this happened, what can we do to fix it, how can we rebuild the capsule and make it safer for crews in the future. And that’s exactly what they’ve done.” — Doug Hurley
There’s still lots of work to be done by SpaceX and NASA but success in December will bring us one step closer to launching astronauts from American soil for the first time since the space shuttle Atlantis in 2011.
