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."

Comments

Impressive

[Covalent]

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.

Re:Impressive

[EdZ]

Best thing about the Canadarm: the manipulator is attached with a series of frangible nuts ('explosive bolts' to the rest of us), so in the event of an uncontrolled swing while holding an object the manipulator can be jettisoned to prevent it crashing into the station.

Yes, the ISS can rocket-punch.

Close to home

[Moheeheeko]

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.

Propulsive landings...

[taiwanjohn]

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.

Real life and renders collide

[tibit]

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 :)

Re:Amazing

[tibit]

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.