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SpaceX Pressure Hammers Stuck Valves; Dragon's ISS Mission Back On Track
SpaceX's Dragon launch to the ISS earlier today went off smoothly, but the mission encountered trouble shortly after: three sets (of four) of the craft's maneuvering thrusters didn't work. CNET quotes SpaceX founder Elon Musk: "It looks like there was potentially some blockage in the oxidizer pressurization (system). It looks like we've been able to free that blockage, or maybe a stuck valve. We've been able to free that up by cycling the valves, essentially pressure hammering the valves, to get that to loosen. It looks like that's been effective.
All the oxidizer tanks are now holding the target pressure on all four (thruster) pods. I'm optimistic we'll be able to bring all four of them up and then we'll work closely with NASA to figure out what the next step is for rendezvousing with space station," and follows up with the good news that
"Shortly after the briefing concluded, engineers reported all four sets of thrusters were back on line and that testing was underway to verify the health of the system." Barring further problems, Dragon could reach the ISS as soon as Sunday.
A spacecraft will now be attempting to do an automated docking with the ISS when its thrusters have previously failed and the problem was only corrected by pressure hammering the system (which I hope I don't have to point out is something you never want to do to a mechanical system). What would happen if the pressure hammer created other failures in the system up to and including the valves? Could the spacecraft ram into the ISS?
I think it is time to put this spacecraft into the ocean. We don't need to kill people over Elon Musk's pride.
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