SpaceX tests crew escape as spaceship has test run
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A Space Exploration Technologies’ passenger spaceship made a quick debut test flight yesterday, shooting itself off a Florida launch pad to demonstrate a key emergency escape system.
The 6-meter tall Dragon capsule, a modified version of the spacecraft that flies cargo to the International Space Station, fired up its eight, side-mounted thruster engines at 9am EDT to catapult itself nearly 1.6km up and over the Atlantic Ocean.
The flight ended less than two minutes later with the capsule’s parachute splash-down about 2.6km east of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station launch site.
The purpose of the test was to demonstrate an escape system to carry the capsule to safety in case of a fire or accident during launch. SpaceX plans to refly the capsule later this year aboard a Falcon 9 rocket to test an abort maneuver at supersonic speed and high altitude.
“Essentially, it’s kind of like an ejection seat in an airplane. You have the ability to leave the pad sitting in the capsule and the capsule would come off and land,” NASA astronaut Eric Boe said on NASA TV.
“It’s one of the things the shuttle didn’t have,” added Boe, who twice flew as a space shuttle pilot.
NASA retired the shuttles in 2011 and invested in commercial firms’ designs for a new generation of space taxis. The US space agency is investing US$6.8 billion in privately owned SpaceX and Boeing.
NASA hopes to be flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station by December 2017, breaking Russia’s monopoly on crew ferry flights. NASA currently pays Russia about US$63 million per person to fly aboard Soyuz capsules.
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