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

[taiwanjohn]

Actually their first ISS rendezvous mission was scheduled for this month, but it recently got postponed to March. On this first mission they will only "berth" with ISS, rather than docking. (They'll fly up close enough so that the ISS manipulator arm can grapple the Dragon capsule and haul it in.) If that goes well, they'll be allowed to actually dock with ISS on the next flight.

And you're right, they are already underselling every other vendor on the launch market. Even the Chinese say they can't possibly beat SpaceX's price-per-pound to orbit.

Re:Impressive

[Mercano]

No, berthing is to be standard operating procedure for cargo flights; Common Berthing Mechanism connectors, such as the one found on the nose of the Dragon, don't have any of the shock absorbers required for docking. As it also requires the Canada arm to unberth, CBM isn't well suited for manned flights, as in an evacuation scenario, there'd be no one left on the station to operate the arm, so crewed version of the Dragon will probably feature either APAS or NDS/LIDS docking connectors. CBM is preferred for cargo transfer, however, because it has a larger hatch, big enough to move fully assembled equipment racks through them. Japan's HTV cargo vehicles are also berthed via Canada Arm.

Re:Impressive

[hackertourist]

That would be Skylon, they've been at it for years on minuscule amounts of funding, trying to develop a revolutionary engine that can use atmospheric oxygen for the first part of the ascent. They can trace their roots back to HOTOL. What they need is a billionaire investor.

Re:Impressive

[v1]

Usually they do this by adding a small module for docking. IIRC the space shuttle specifically had to carry along a docking module in the front of the cargo bay if they wanted to dock the shuttle. In that case the module was on the craft not the station. I suppose they could just make a little extension module for it.

But remember the current setup is an international standard that everyone is designing around. So your idea may just plain be suggested too late. Imagine the amount of testing that goes into such a critical system as a docking apparatus? It's probably one of the most difficult and critical things up there. Not only does a failure risk BOTH vessels and all the crew aboard both, but it has to be able to handle mechanical stress between two very large masses. So I bet they're not too enthusiastic about redesigning it once they've got something they're satisfied with.

Re:Impressive

[Chris Burke]

Canadarm! Canadarm! One word!

Lovely post, thank you for the info, but just gotta correct the name because "Canadarm" is an awesome name for an awesome piece of equipment.

Side note to anyone from DARPA listening: When you build your first orbital weapon, please call it the "Americannon". You don't have to give me anything for the name! It's yours! A Distinguished Service award or somesuch would be nice though...

Re:Impressive

[demachina]

SpaceX is specifically avoiding patenting any of their innovations because they are well aware the Chinese would just use the patents as a guide to copy and steal their technology. Assuming they can keep their networks secure and they don't have any rogue employees selling their secrets they have a reasonable chance of keeping their less obvious, more technical, innovations from the Chinese at least for a time. SpaceX's fairly compact operations and work force along with avoidance of third party suppliers also reduces somewhat the potential for secrets being stolen.

Never really understood why clueless western politicians let China in to the WTO when it was so obvious that IP theft was at the core of their plan to bury the west.

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.

Re:Impressive

[manoweb]

Only two words: Falcon Heavy. It's being assembled and will hopefully launch by the end of the year. Twice the payload of the Shuttle.

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.

Re:Close to home

[Moheeheeko]

Specificly this launch pad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_AFB_Space_Launch_Complex_4

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.

Re:Names...

[FatLittleMonkey]

Oh don't be stupid. ZX-32 is a boys name, she'll be teased.

Re:Amazing

[tsotha]

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.