SpaceX Capsule Soars With Dummy In 1st Test Of Crew Escape
Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter
CAPE CANAVERAL (CBSMiami/AP) – In another big test flight on Wednesday, a capsule was fired into the air to try out its new, super-streamlined launch escape system for astronauts.
There were no humans on board for the brief, first-of-its-kind flight and the whole thing lasted barely 1 ½ minutes. A dummy was the only passenger.
The Dragon capsule shot off a test stand, not a rocket, and flew up and then out over the Atlantic. Rocket engines on the capsule provided the thrust. Red and white parachutes popped open and lowered the capsule into the ocean, just offshore.
"This flight test unlike any seen in Florida since the days of Apollo," NASA spokesman Mike Curie, the TV commentator for the test, said after the capsule plopped into the Atlantic. Recovery boats and a barge moved in to retrieve the craft.
The California-based company led by billionaire Elon Musk aims to launch U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station as early as 2017. Boeing is designing its own crew capsule. NASA wants to make sure the commercial crew flights will be safe in an emergency, and is insisting on reliable escape systems.
There was no immediate word from SpaceX on how the test flight went, but it appeared, at least on TV, that everything operated more or less as planned. The plan was for the capsule to climb close to a mile high and come down about a mile offshore.
In the days leading up to this first major test of the escape system, SpaceX officials cautioned something might go wrong. The capsule could have been lost at sea or, worse, smashed down onto the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, from where it took off. A two-mile area was cleared of personnel before the test, just in case.
SpaceX said its revolutionary abort system, once perfected, will provide escape for astronauts throughout their climb to orbit, something even NASA's early manned spacecraft could not do. The pointy launch-escape towers atop the Mercury and Apollo capsules were good for just the initial part of liftoff; the same is true of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The two-man Gemini capsules relied on ejection seats, as did the first four space shuttle flights.
Only the Russians ever used their escape system during a real manned launch — back in 1983 — and it saved two cosmonauts' lives. The seven Challenger astronauts might have survived their 1986 launch accident with a decent escape system; that disaster, along with the 2003 loss of Columbia and seven astronauts during re-entry at flight's end, showed NASA just how valuable an abort system can be.
SpaceX plans to use the capsule again later this year, for an abort test following an actual rocket launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. That, too, will be unmanned.
Up until late last week, SpaceX was calling its flight dummy Buster. But the company noted on its web site this week that, "Buster the Dummy already works for a great show you may have heard of called MythBusters. Our dummy prefers to remain anonymous for the time being."
(TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)