Science! By Graham Templeton May. 30, 2014 7:27 am
Last night, Elon Musk unveiled the next manned spacecraft from SpaceX: the Dragon 2.0. It impressed with a more futuristic looking chassis, sleek inlaid thrusters, and a cool new door, but it was ultimately what lies under the hood that grabbed our attention.
Dragon 2.0 has a bevvy of new features that should ensure SpaceX a place as the coolest aerospace contractor in town. Even leaving aside any Apple-like feeling to this press conference, Elon Musk clearly wants the public to buzz about thruster power the way it has about screen size in the past.
At the heart of Dragon Version Two (as Musk insisted on calling it) are three new features: soft vertical landing, autonomous docking, and crew capacity. Almost all the other technical upgrades serve to support one of these three goals, and if all three do indeed work as advertized SpaceX will have a very powerful product on their hands.
First, Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL): It’s not just for children’s spaceship drawings. As Musk says himself early in the announcement, we will simply never move into space in any major way while every launch means throwing away huge and expensive components.
Where Dragon 1 descended traditionally with parachutes and an ocean landing, Dragon 2 can do a soft, propulsive landing anywhere on Earth, with the accuracy of a helicopter. This means that the time between launches can be dramatically reduced, but also that NASA need not discard amazing space-tech to burn up in the atmosphere or incur damage on impact. In case of an emergency it can land with 2 engines gone and still retains the parachutes as a last resort. Its landing struts act as shock absorbers for an even softer return to Earth.
Still, you can’t take off or land at all without engines, and Dragon 2 boasts a huge upgrade in this area. Where its predecessor sported an array of Draco engines, each capable of producing about 100 pounds of thrust, Dragon 2 will feature the Super-Draco engine, each of which can produce up 16,000 pounds of force. More impressive is the fact that these Super-Draco engines are 100% printed with a high-strength metal, which will make it the first printed rocket engine to go to space. Dragon 2 will have regular Draco engines for maneuvering, but the printed Super-Draco is where the real power resides.
Check out the video below to watch a Super-Draco test-fire at full power.
Docking will also be a point of pride for SpaceX for the next little while, as Dragon 2 can perform autonomous docking without help from the Canada arm formerly needed for guidance. China successfully tested an autonomous docking mechanism prior to this so it’s not totally unprecedented, but it shows that SpaceX is willing and able to push forward in every area of design and engineering. The capsule can also be piloted into dock, and it will be interesting to see which is preferred. I imagine some pretty cliche fighter-jock-vs-command-control arguments — awesome.
Then, Musk took us inside, with a cool gull door leading to an interior that can hold a full seven astronauts for up to several days. I’m hoping the “several days” part is only in case of emergency, as Musk himself looked cramped just climbing into a seat for the audience. Still, this increased crew capacity will mean a lot to the crews serving on ISS, and hopefully to people on future space stations as well.
Dragon 2 can dock autonomously or under human control.
An extended animation showed off all of these launch, docking, reentry, and landing procedures, and it was remarkably like NASA’s Seven Minutes of Terror video. This isn’t that surprising given how popular that video was, and SpaceX has clearly been watching as NASA recently rediscovered the importance of public relations. (This SpaceX video even sported some inappropriately moody techno music, since everybody knows that space music is the sole jurisdiction of Trent Reznor and disciples.)
“I call top bunk!”
Dragon 2 is important for a number of reasons, but the most important is waste. Dragon 2 will reduce waste, and thus mission budgets, letting our cash-strapped science agencies stretch their funding further. The optimistic view would be that this technique will spark a wave of efficiency improvements, giving us to wonder why aeronautic parts-suppliers have so far been “failing” to make more reusable parts. At the very least, this should reduce the costs of launch enough to bring civilian space flight within reach of a whole new economic strata.
View the entire press conference video below. It’s short, and cool even if you know all the info.
More...
Dragon 2.0 has a bevvy of new features that should ensure SpaceX a place as the coolest aerospace contractor in town. Even leaving aside any Apple-like feeling to this press conference, Elon Musk clearly wants the public to buzz about thruster power the way it has about screen size in the past.
At the heart of Dragon Version Two (as Musk insisted on calling it) are three new features: soft vertical landing, autonomous docking, and crew capacity. Almost all the other technical upgrades serve to support one of these three goals, and if all three do indeed work as advertized SpaceX will have a very powerful product on their hands.
First, Vertical Takeoff Vertical Landing (VTVL): It’s not just for children’s spaceship drawings. As Musk says himself early in the announcement, we will simply never move into space in any major way while every launch means throwing away huge and expensive components.
Where Dragon 1 descended traditionally with parachutes and an ocean landing, Dragon 2 can do a soft, propulsive landing anywhere on Earth, with the accuracy of a helicopter. This means that the time between launches can be dramatically reduced, but also that NASA need not discard amazing space-tech to burn up in the atmosphere or incur damage on impact. In case of an emergency it can land with 2 engines gone and still retains the parachutes as a last resort. Its landing struts act as shock absorbers for an even softer return to Earth.
Still, you can’t take off or land at all without engines, and Dragon 2 boasts a huge upgrade in this area. Where its predecessor sported an array of Draco engines, each capable of producing about 100 pounds of thrust, Dragon 2 will feature the Super-Draco engine, each of which can produce up 16,000 pounds of force. More impressive is the fact that these Super-Draco engines are 100% printed with a high-strength metal, which will make it the first printed rocket engine to go to space. Dragon 2 will have regular Draco engines for maneuvering, but the printed Super-Draco is where the real power resides.
Check out the video below to watch a Super-Draco test-fire at full power.
Docking will also be a point of pride for SpaceX for the next little while, as Dragon 2 can perform autonomous docking without help from the Canada arm formerly needed for guidance. China successfully tested an autonomous docking mechanism prior to this so it’s not totally unprecedented, but it shows that SpaceX is willing and able to push forward in every area of design and engineering. The capsule can also be piloted into dock, and it will be interesting to see which is preferred. I imagine some pretty cliche fighter-jock-vs-command-control arguments — awesome.
Then, Musk took us inside, with a cool gull door leading to an interior that can hold a full seven astronauts for up to several days. I’m hoping the “several days” part is only in case of emergency, as Musk himself looked cramped just climbing into a seat for the audience. Still, this increased crew capacity will mean a lot to the crews serving on ISS, and hopefully to people on future space stations as well.
Dragon 2 can dock autonomously or under human control.An extended animation showed off all of these launch, docking, reentry, and landing procedures, and it was remarkably like NASA’s Seven Minutes of Terror video. This isn’t that surprising given how popular that video was, and SpaceX has clearly been watching as NASA recently rediscovered the importance of public relations. (This SpaceX video even sported some inappropriately moody techno music, since everybody knows that space music is the sole jurisdiction of Trent Reznor and disciples.)
“I call top bunk!”Dragon 2 is important for a number of reasons, but the most important is waste. Dragon 2 will reduce waste, and thus mission budgets, letting our cash-strapped science agencies stretch their funding further. The optimistic view would be that this technique will spark a wave of efficiency improvements, giving us to wonder why aeronautic parts-suppliers have so far been “failing” to make more reusable parts. At the very least, this should reduce the costs of launch enough to bring civilian space flight within reach of a whole new economic strata.
View the entire press conference video below. It’s short, and cool even if you know all the info.
More...
