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SpaceX Launch Abort Test Successful
An anonymous reader writes: As we discussed yesterday, SpaceX launched a prototype this morning to test its Dragon passenger capsule in an aborted launch. The test was a success — the capsule separated cleanly, propelled itself to a safe distance, deployed its parachutes, and lowered gently down to a water landing, where it remained floating. You can watch video of the test on SpaceX's website — skip to 15:40 to get right to it. Externally, everything seems to have gone fine. I'm sure we'll hear in the coming weeks whether the downrange distance was ideal, whether they hit their splashdown target, and how the crash test dummy inside the capsule weathered the abort!
The landing was a bit closer to shore than expected, but probably due to high on-shore winds, and splashdown was 8 or 9 seconds early. Video seems to show one of the "SuperDraco" engines shutting down a bit earlier than the others. Still, very successful overall!
No, OP's remark was correct, he is not discussing the planned pitch over towards the sea after half a second, but a visible puff of smoke around the 4 second mark and some subsequent 'wobble', as if one of the 8 thrusters is switched of. See the zoomed video here. This proves the effectiveness of having 8 redundant thrusters, instead of having only 4. It is still not clear if this was a real engine failure (which might be verified via post-mortem examination of the motor), or if this was a deliberate, unannounced test of the 'engine out' capability. Credit: the discussion in the forum over at nasaspaceflight.com.
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
What I am getting from the videos is that this test was a success but that there was indeed an engine failure and the system recovered from it successfully by throttling off the opposing engine. There was less Delta-V than expected, max altitude was lower than expected, downrange was lower than expected, and that tumble after trunk jettison and during drogue deploy looked like it would have been uncomfortable for crew.
This is the second time that SpaceX has had an engine failure and recovered from it. They get points for not killing the theoretical crew either time. There will be work to do. It's to be expected, this is rocket science.
It sounds to me like the launch engineers were rattled by the short downrange and the launch director had to rein them in.
Bruce Perens.