24 thoughts on “Pad Abort Test”

    1. I heard the announcer say shortly before the flight that the wind speed was just over 20 MPH. I don’t know the wind direction but it’s possible that might have been a factor.

    2. A serious failure??? Really?

      Apparently the speed at engine cut off was ~150m/s, on the low end of the 150-180 m/s range. The test still worked as needed, still made the ocean despite a performance shortfall caused by the apparent early shut down of an SD engine. (not optimal mixture ratio one of the reasons, according to Musk)

    3. Both NASA and SpaceX are calling the test a success.

      NASA:
      A loud whoosh, faint smoke trail and billowing parachutes marked a successful demonstration Wednesday by SpaceX of its Crew Dragon spacecraft abort system – an important step in NASA’s endeavor to rebuild America’s ability to launch crews to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. The successful test of the spacecraft’s launch escape capabilities proved the spacecraft’s ability to carry astronauts to safety in the unlikely event of a life-threatening situation on the launch pad.

      SpaceX:
      During today’s test, Crew Dragon carried a test dummy equipped with sensors in order to gather all the data necessary to help ensure a safe environment for future crew. Had humans been on board today, they would have been in great shape.

      I heard Hans Koenigsmann say during Friday’s press conference that the main purpose of the test was to gather data, and it wasn’t necessary that it be 100% successful.

  3. Does anyone know why the trunk section is included in the abort? Does it contain propellant tanks for the SuperDracos? Or something else?

    1. It is needed for passive stability after SD cutoff – like a shuttlecock. Note how the capsule immediately pitches over once separated from the trunk. (The capsule is balanced for re-entry, and wants to travel tail first)

      1. Thanks!

        Just trying to be polite like my parents taught me, but it seems that short expressions of gratitude aren’t acceptible to the commenting system, so I had to pad out the word count.

  4. Looks like it would have been an “exciting” ride had a test pilot been on board. The capsule first rolls one way after release of the trunk, then jerks to a stop as parachutes deploy, before several less violent turns before settling down before touchdown.

    1. Yeah it also seemed a bit violent to me. But still this is supposed to be an emergency escape system so some roughness can be tolerated.

      1. On the other hand, somebody at NSF.com linked the video of the Orion pad abort test and noted that it accelerated at 16g, compared to 6g for Dragon (according to Elon).

          1. Well, astronauts would be strapped into their seats, not bouncing around loose in the cabin.

            It’s an emergency escape system. If the rocket blows up, a rough ride is preferable to incineration.

  5. Wondering about that cloud that obscured the launch pad from about -7 seconds to launch …

    Saw some comments that it was water suppression but why would they need it for little thrusters like these? Not like they’re going to hang around once they lit off!

    1. Why not use it to avoid extra clean-up? The toxicity danger of the propellant is sometimes exaggerated, but if you can do something trivial to make cleanup easier, why not?

      1. Maybe that’s it, I just saw the new video and it’s pretty clearly a water spray. The original long shot wasn’t clear enough – it kind of looked like smoke.

    2. “Little” is a relative term. Each of the Super Draco thrusters was designed to generate 16,000 pounds of thrust. There were 8 of them. That’s a fair amount of thrust.

  6. It was odd for me so to see a launch with ships in the background, but there was no threat to them.

  7. Since yesterday I’ve had in mind all the things that could go wrong. They made it look easy, when it was anything but.

    6 G’s sounds about perfect to me…fast enough to escape, but tolerable for crew.

    What a great team they have!

  8. Not the right post, but the most recent SpaceX post, so –
    Question for information: how are launch dates determined? I see a whole lot of Future Missions on SpaceX’s launch manifest (with no dates anymore, just alphabetical order). They surely want to up the number of flights every year. And they just launched 13 days apart, so I know they can go very fast if they need to. But the next SpaceX launch on spaceflightnow is scheduled for June 19. So how do these things work? I see zillions of flight delays on spaceflightnow, from every space company, but never anything moved earlier. What are the limiting factors?

    1. Lots of things, readiness of payload, range conflicts, technical issues with launch vehicle, weather. For ISS, it has to do with traffic to and from by other visiting vehicles.

      1. Well, if all of these issues that you’ve listed are _outside_ problems, then SpaceX ought to be building a stockpile of completed stages, right? Are they able to store them effectively, or is there a “decay” process if they are ready too soon?
        I note that their launch manifest shows many (half) of their flights as scheduled to take off from Vandenberg. But their past launch manifest shows only one flight from there ever. What’s with that? [I’m guessing that it’s almost always better to launch east instead of west?] Would their launch rate suddenly double if they had two places to launch from regularly?

        1. I didn’t say they were all “outside” problems. Vandenberg isn’t about launching “west.” It’s about launching south, for higher inclinations.

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