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While SpaceX tested the engines of a Crew Dragon capsule something went wrong. A lot of smoke was released, no one was harmed. Unfortunately that is the end of official statements already.
It was planned to do an in-flight abort test of Crew Dragon in June or July and a crewed flight (first crewed US spaceflight since the retirement of the Space Shuttle) not earlier than August, but this timeline is now obsolete.
What else do we know from unofficial sources:
News articles:
nasaspaceflight.com
spaceflightnow.com
SpaceX and NASA will investigate what caused the accident. In the best case it was damage from the (salt-water) landing - NASA crew flights will always be new capsules, so this wouldn't be an issue for them. But even then we will get delays from the investigation and potentially from the time to build a replacement capsule. If the accident was caused by something that can affect new capsules, too, then SpaceX will have to fix it and NASA will have to sign off the change. It will likely take some time until we'll see a new schedule.
We don't know if the engines were involved in the accident at all but it is at least plausible. This is an interesting pattern. Historically launch escape systems were typically built with solid rockets. Starliner (Boeing's approach to launch crew to space) and Crew Dragon both use liquid propellants. Their thrust can be controlled better but the systems are much more complex. We know that Starliner had issues with their engines, now SpaceX might have that, too.
It was planned to do an in-flight abort test of Crew Dragon in June or July and a crewed flight (first crewed US spaceflight since the retirement of the Space Shuttle) not earlier than August, but this timeline is now obsolete.
What else do we know from unofficial sources:
- This was almost certainly the capsule that performed the uncrewed flight to the ISS earlier this year. It was planned to use this for the in-flight abort test.
We have a video from the accidentdeleted on Twitter- There are rumors that the capsule is a total loss.
- Some knowledgeable people said it doesn't look like an engine failure based on the video.
- A lot of smoke was released, looks like NO2, this can form from N2O4, one component of the engine fuel. Damage to the capsule could have lead to the release of it.
News articles:
nasaspaceflight.com
spaceflightnow.com
SpaceX and NASA will investigate what caused the accident. In the best case it was damage from the (salt-water) landing - NASA crew flights will always be new capsules, so this wouldn't be an issue for them. But even then we will get delays from the investigation and potentially from the time to build a replacement capsule. If the accident was caused by something that can affect new capsules, too, then SpaceX will have to fix it and NASA will have to sign off the change. It will likely take some time until we'll see a new schedule.
We don't know if the engines were involved in the accident at all but it is at least plausible. This is an interesting pattern. Historically launch escape systems were typically built with solid rockets. Starliner (Boeing's approach to launch crew to space) and Crew Dragon both use liquid propellants. Their thrust can be controlled better but the systems are much more complex. We know that Starliner had issues with their engines, now SpaceX might have that, too.
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