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SpaceX Tries Out Its New SuperDraco Rocket Engine
cylonlover writes "SpaceX, the California company that is developing the reusable Dragon spacecraft, recently test-fired its new SuperDraco engine. Presently, the Dragon capsule is equipped with less-advanced Draco engines, which are designed for maneuvering the spacecraft while in orbit and during reentry. The SuperDraco, however, is intended to allow the astronauts to escape if an emergency occurs during the launch."
Seems like several times a year now we are hearing about SpaceX successes - and few if any failures. They are scheduled to begin testing and then delivering cargo to the Space Station within the next year. It will be able to launch cargo to the space station at about 1/10th the cost (around $50 million as opposed to nearly $500 million) as the space shuttle.
Perhaps all that talk of a moon base, trips to Mars, etc. aren't that far-fetched after all.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
My dad works at the airforce base where they are going to try to launch and land this thing, apparently the goal is to land it right back onto the launch pad it started from, or at least thats what they guys on base are saying.
Summary misses the point... yes, they need a launch-abort system to meet NASA's human-rating specs, but the real goal of the SuperDraco engines is to enable propulsive landings with pinpoint accuracy. They claim that a Dragon capsule so-equipped will be able to land on "any surface" in the solar system.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
I'm pretty sure I heard them testing the SuperDracos last night. It was loud enough to make me stop what I was doing and stare blankly in the general direction of McGregor, but not loud enough to rattle windows and set off car alarms like the falcons.
Call me a fuddy-duddy, but I'm not impressed by names like SuperDraco which sound like somebody I'd find on Twitter expounding upon their amazing Pokemon collection.
Can we go back to decent rocket names? Something like A-1 or Z-2?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's really interesting that if you look at the arguably real shot of the test firing, it seems to look almost like a rendering from a game! It probably means that fire/smoke rendering in games is getting good, or perhaps nature is just recently slacking in presenting itself to us :)
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Is that you, Hipster Cat?
If the only locomotives in the past were built by huge government programs, cost way too much to operate, and primarily carried just a few select government employees then, yeah, it would be interesting.
It's not the technology (althogh Space X *is* advancing that even if you are unable to recognize it) being reworked here so much as the business case.
If you're so bored, go get an appropriate degree and help advance things.
You'd be amazed to learn, then, that there coal-fired boilers have improved quite a bit over the last century, in terms of thermal efficiency (the percentage of heat extracted at high temperature), combustion efficiency (the less CO out the stack, the better), cost of operation (autofeed systems, diagnostics), and durability.
Now, since SpaceX is the only company that has ever made space launches so cheap, I'd hardly call it a "modern anachronism". It has never been done that affordably, ever. They are the first ones who apparently grok how to run an integrated aerospace manufacturing and launch business to control costs and schedules.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Well, if that Coal-Fired Burner is producing Power at 1/10th the price everyone else (producing it using Nuclear, or whatever they have), I would damn well be impressed. Of course we've been to the Moon already, shot stuff to Orbit a quadrillion times over.. but if we can do it again, affordable this time.. Take for example travel.. sure we could do London - New York in a single trip 50,100, 200 Years ago.. only difference is, 2hundred years ago, it took 2 weeks, cost a fortune, and was not very safe. 100 Years ago, it took four days, still cost a fortune, was safer, but still. Today it takes roughly eight hours, and I can actually pay for a return ticket with two weeks of my pay - if I wanted to, I could do that trip easily every two months and possibly survive every one of them. SpaceX is currently not doing something new - they are trying to build and improve upon what has been done in the past - namely getting stuff and people from A (Earth) to B (LEO, GEO, GSO), and at the same time build the foundation for much more ambitious missions. Like it says in the Article - if the SuperDraco system works as intended, you have a pinpoint-accurate lander that can touch down and - depending refuelling and the gravity of the body - launch again on it's own, without any expendable stages. also, Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy are only stepping stones on the way to something bigger - Falcon X, XX, XX Heavy are all on the drawing boards already. And with that much lifting power - and that at more or less affordable prices - building a structure in orbit for manufacturing larger crafts which in turn can be serviced, piloted, and left/rejoined with one and the same capsule: Dragon. As soon as you have a cheap means of getting stuff up there, you can really start looking at persistence - NASA is planning for developing "Space Tug" Systems, that can take stuff in LEO, and shuffle it to higher orbits, even GSO at little to no extra cost, since it is in all possibility a system based on VASIMR and solar power.. and if you actually have a means of getting fuel, repair crews and the crafts themselves up at a cost that actually makes making them reusable and not "one-shots" feasible, you suddenly have a complete infrastructure up there, actually gaining manufacturing capabilities after a few years of building.. Imagine if you have a Launcher like Falcon X/XX, a standardised Flottila of Crafts like Dragon..and the means to actually build ships in space instead of just one-shots that you partially drop piece by piece on your way and then throw away. Want to go to the Moon? Build a ship, fuel it, fly it, do your mission, return it, refuel it, refly it.. Of course this is all more or less science fiction right now, but it all is technically doable - the only things blocking us from actually doing them with what we have now is cost and effort, since most stuff for spaceflight is designed from the ground up for each specific mission - if you start having a reliable, high-volume and cost efficient base to bring stuff up, a lot of other stuff will follow.. and SpaceX is doing it's babysteps right now of course - hell, that Company is only a few years old and already on the edge of being the first gig that launches a 21st century man-rated Space Transportation System - hell it is a capsule, it looks retro, apollo did it, yadda yadda. But with thar Argument take your Ford Model T and your Ford Fusion 2012.. they both still look like cars no? Somewhere along the way we figured out that "four wheels and an enclosed capsule for the people inside" is a more or less optimal form for a car, so we stuck with it. I want my Spaceplanes as much as everyone else (REL, go on with Skylon, quickly!) - but for now SpaceX is doing a darn good job at what they do. I've seen their plans for powered ascent for 1st/2nd Level rocket stages - and I'm highly sceptical it will ever work. But oh boy, if they would make it work, that would be one of the sweetest feats I've ever seen launched from a Launchpad..
Coal locomotives are dead because they were supplanted by much better designs. Space Age rockets are dead because they weren't. Huge difference.
If a private company unveiled a locomotive engine whose performance-to-price ratio was an order of magnitude better than the current state of the art , everyone would be rightly excited.
Almost everyone would be excited, I mean; there's never been a shortage of idiots. I'm sure there were 19th century equivalents of this AC, demanding to know why everyone was getting so excited about putting a two-millenia-old technology like an aeolipile on wheels.
Did anyone notice more than usual? Wow. Maybe I should have tried for the more expensive Tesla instead of my more versatile Volt. Chevy makes great cars, but ain't doing much for my "want space" jones.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Is SpaceX really advancing the technology? I've gotten the impression that much of what they've done is pick up NASA research and bring it to fruition. That plus they've applied more modern management practices to bring something to market quickly, cheaply, and efficiently. None of that is to denigrate them at all, simply making space access more affordable is a tremendous achievement.
But "cheap" and developing new technologies from scratch don't generally mix well. Once they're established and have a regular revenue stream, I certainly do hope we'll see some new technology development. But that development will probably always be a mix between cost and capability, as opposed to "biggest, fastest, farthest, regardless of the cst."
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"business case"??? That's why they needed 75M$ from NASA? There is no compelling business case for private space. It's already handled by a few corporations who deal with reality. The delusion that somehow, there's this huge demand to float around in orbit is nuts. This is a hobby project by a few narcissists with lots of money, and nostalgia.
In other words, it is not Space X that is part of the steam age of space travel, but the cargo they carry to remain profitable, that is, humans. Human oriented space travel is the anachronism.
I'm not at all dismissing what Space X has achieved, it is amazing and quite encouraging to see what can be done by focusing on fit for purpose, rather than increasing the profits of middle men defence contractors. As a stack then, Space X is an achievement. I sincerely hope then, they carry it forward into a delivery system for 'flight age' cargo - robotic and other unmanned probes destined for other planetary bodies.
The difference is that those ACs would have seen progress measured in years, with early 20th century technology, and with immediate benefits and results, for everyone. This space junk is just pathetic. Does anyone get excited about cheap private access to the bottom of the ocean? No? Because it makes no sense. Neither does tossing Kraft Dinner into the air for 10 million$ instead of a 100 million$. WHooooooooooo cares....
"If a private company unveiled a locomotive engine whose performance-to-price ratio was an order of magnitude better than the current state of the art , everyone would be rightly excited."
Of course, because trains are useful.
"I'm sure there were 19th century equivalents of this AC, demanding to know why everyone was getting so excited"
There are TONS of examples from the early 20th century about ideas that DIDN'T make sense. People laughed at those too, you know. That's what I'm doing here.
But cost is what's keeping more ambitious plans on the drawing board. As Heinlein said, once you're in LEO you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system. We've known how to get to LEO for 60 years now, but we don't do it very often because it costs so damn much. If SpaceX can actually get the cost per kg as low as they plan, it's going to have more effect on human spaceflight than anything we've done since Apollo.
So sit in your basement and fume. Who cares? Meanwhile others will shoot for orbit.
No way you can win now Harry! Best hide, because SuperDraco is out to get you!
*grin*
Wow! "shoot for orbit!" How grandiose! How important! Did you make a sign of the rocket when you said that?
I didn't say that cost wasn't important - for now even of primary importance. I agree with you completely on that. I was just taking mild exception to the "technology development" comment in the post I responded to. Right now the space technology we need most is low cost.
Personally, I'd declare a tax holiday on any space-based manufacturing, mining, etc. We're not getting any tax revenue from it today, and it's so dogonned expensive that we're not moving any Earth-based manufacturing up there, unless there are very good reasons for it. I doubt there's much besides automated jewelry making that could be pushed into orbit that could otherwise be done on Earth, and even that seems sketchy to me. (I'm thinking of small, expensive things where weight is less impediment.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Side topic: How does increased combustion efficiency reduce CO2? Wouldn't it just reduce PM and other waste at the expense of converting more to CO2?
There is no compelling business case for private space. It's already handled by a few corporations who deal with reality.
LOL, yeah, the existing launch companies are "dealing with reality", but the company that's going to come along and eat their lunch with significantly lower launch costs is delusional.
I doubt you'll see fewer satellites launched once launch costs go down.
And like it or not, NASA wants rockets to go to the ISS with people in them and that's just reality. They'll probably have uses for rockets like the ones SpaceX is building (manned or not) after the ISS program ends, and this is also reality.
I don't think it's SpaceX that's delusional.
The enemies of Democracy are
Anyone else see this as bad? I mean I'm all for space innovation, but the further other companies get into ultra expensive areas the less likely we'll ever see competition or good prices. SpaceX will turn into a monopoly that will have no competition. Not only that, but our government will no longer be able to take over such a role as is with ISPs in the US. People will argue it's socialism, that it'll put people out of jobs, and it's un-american like. Essentially this is giving birth to a corporation that we will never be able to dispute.
Of course what they have is an amazingly good price, but our space program is essentially crippled. It has been for quite a long time funding wise. When you jerry-rig everything to work it intrinsically becomes very expensive to keep it up, that's why you don't hodge podge everything. NASA doesn't have the funds to do real R&D anymore or do anything other then the hodge podge mess. All they can do is dream up ideas they can never reach as congress will inevitably give them some sort of goal they can't reach, but they have to follow instead on what little funding they have.
SpaceX IS a company, their primary goal is to turn a profit. Do not believe they're riding up there on their white horse while horns play in the background signaling a new age for man kind.
Heinlein was a SCI-FI AUTHOR. He was paid to write down DAYDREAMS. Poorly, at that. He wasn't a physicist, engineer or technician. Who cares what he wrote? It was infantile nonsense then, it's still juvenille now.
Heinlein was a graduate of the naval academy and went on to be a radar technician, so he would have had plenty of engineering. In any event, the quote stands on its own: Whatever his qualifications, he was absolutely right.
Well, if that Coal-Fired Burner is producing Power at 1/10th the price everyone else (producing it using Nuclear, or whatever they have), I would damn well be impressed. Of course we've been to the Moon already, shot stuff to Orbit a quadrillion times over.. but if we can do it again, affordable this time..
Take for example travel.. sure we could do London - New York in a single trip 50,100, 200 Years ago.. only difference is, 2hundred years ago, it took 2 weeks, cost a fortune, and was not very safe. 100 Years ago, it took four days, still cost a fortune, was safer, but still. Today it takes roughly eight hours, and I can actually pay for a return ticket with two weeks of my pay - if I wanted to, I could do that trip easily every two months and possibly survive every one of them.
SpaceX is currently not doing something new - they are trying to build and improve upon what has been done in the past - namely getting stuff and people from A (Earth) to B (LEO, GEO, GSO), and at the same time build the foundation for much more ambitious missions. Like it says in the Article - if the SuperDraco system works as intended, you have a pinpoint-accurate lander that can touch down and - depending refuelling and the gravity of the body - launch again on it's own, without any expendable stages. also, Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy are only stepping stones on the way to something bigger - Falcon X, XX, XX Heavy are all on the drawing boards already. And with that much lifting power - and that at more or less affordable prices - building a structure in orbit for manufacturing larger crafts which in turn can be serviced, piloted, and left/rejoined with one and the same capsule: Dragon.
As soon as you have a cheap means of getting stuff up there, you can really start looking at persistence - NASA is planning for developing "Space Tug" Systems, that can take stuff in LEO, and shuffle it to higher orbits, even GSO at little to no extra cost, since it is in all possibility a system based on VASIMR and solar power.. and if you actually have a means of getting fuel, repair crews and the crafts themselves up at a cost that actually makes making them reusable and not "one-shots" feasible, you suddenly have a complete infrastructure up there, actually gaining manufacturing capabilities after a few years of building.. Imagine if you have a Launcher like Falcon X/XX, a standardised Flottila of Crafts like Dragon..and the means to actually build ships in space instead of just one-shots that you partially drop piece by piece on your way and then throw away. Want to go to the Moon? Build a ship, fuel it, fly it, do your mission, return it, refuel it, refly it..
Of course this is all more or less science fiction right now, but it all is technically doable - the only things blocking us from actually doing them with what we have now is cost and effort, since most stuff for spaceflight is designed from the ground up for each specific mission - if you start having a reliable, high-volume and cost efficient base to bring stuff up, a lot of other stuff will follow.. and SpaceX is doing it's babysteps right now of course - hell, that Company is only a few years old and already on the edge of being the first gig that launches a 21st century man-rated Space Transportation System - hell it is a capsule, it looks retro, apollo did it, yadda yadda. But with thar Argument take your Ford Model T and your Ford Fusion 2012.. they both still look like cars no? Somewhere along the way we figured out that "four wheels and an enclosed capsule for the people inside" is a more or less optimal form for a car, so we stuck with it. I want my Spaceplanes as much as everyone else (REL, go on with Skylon, quickly!) - but for now SpaceX is doing a darn good job at what they do. I've seen their plans for powered ascent for 1st/2nd Level rocket stages - and I'm highly sceptical it will ever work. But oh boy, if they would make it work, that would be one of the sweetest feats I've ever seen launched from a Launchpad..
I'm glad Elon Musk is such an inventive individual, but I'm worried that new promises come flying out of his mouth faster than he delivers on existing commitments. Sometimes it seems like he has ADHD.
It seems like it would be more credible if he were to slow down on the new promises, and give his organization time to fufill existing commitments.
Define advancing technology. /. car analogy, so let's use a motorbike one instead: When BMW release a new bike that has >190HP vs the competition's approx 185HP is that advancing the technology? When Honda manage to release a bike that is $100 cheaper than the competition because they've managed to improve their manufacturing through better tools and materials tech is that not advancing technology?
I hate to use a
It sounds like you'd claim that today's internal combustion engine is no better than the ones being built in 1905, which is not just wrong but comical.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I'm separating incremental advancements, which SpaceX is doing, as well as Honda and BMW, from leapfrog enhancements. SpaceX is certainly using some leapfrog enhancements, such as their fabrication techniques for the main tanks, but they didn't do the initial development.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with incremental advancements, and improving the practice of existing technology. It's all admirable. I sit on a patent review board where I work. Every inventor is in love with his own ideas, me included. They all consider "good engineering" to be an insult to their inventions. But to call something "good engineering" isn't an insult, it should be a complement. I've heard of places where patent practices are different, and sometimes "good engineering" is set aside in favor using a locally patented solution that may not be as good for the specific application.
Yes, SpaceX is advancing technology. I guess its an issue of calibration, because by some measure everything in space transportation is "advanced technology." But their advances are primarily in the area of total project cost reduction. It's not like they've come up with a new high-thrust ion engine or something.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It's not like they've come up with a new high-thrust ion engine or something.
Even if they did I suspect some people would just say "Yawn, it's just a new higher thrust ion engine, it's not like they've come up with a new drive mechanism"
or "Yawn, they're just taking all they've done with chemical engines and running it from a nuclear reactor. NERVA was in the 50s, you think we'd be doing better than that by now."
I'm sorry to labour the point but this kind of Hipster view of Engineering just really annoys me.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
I knew that it would be bigger, but not this big:
Estimated thrust of 15,000 pounds-force (67,000 N) makes this second most powerful engine developed by SpaceX, more than 200x[4] more powerful than regular Dracos. By comparison it is more than 2x more powerful than Kestrel engine, and about more than 1/9 of Merlin 1D engine.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Again, you seem to think that I'm denigrating that the primary thrust of SpaceX is changing the cost structure. I'm not at all, changing the cost structure of space access is the single most important thing needed in space technology right now. I'm not taking the hipster view, I'm taking the pragmatic view.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Not CO2, CO!
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
You still grumbling and whining like a little tool? Get back to your dark, backward thinking basement and let those with vision do their thing.