![\"Z3132\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Z3132.jpg\")
However, the company is also pushing forward with their aspirations to provide crew transportation to the orbital outpost via a crewed version of their Dragon spacecraft.<\/p>\nNASA confirmed on Friday that SpaceX\u2019s Commercial Crew Dragon program successfully conducted a parachute test \u2013 as part of the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) contract with NASA \u2013 in December. The test evaluated how the Dragon parachute system would function in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent.<\/p>\n
\nDragon Parachute Test:<\/p>\n
SpaceX is currently preparing for their fourth Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the third under their Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with NASA.<\/p>\n
However, the company is also pushing forward with their aspirations to provide crew transportation to the orbital outpost via a crewed version of their Dragon spacecraft.<\/p>\n
That effort is currently being conducted under the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) contract with NASA.<\/p>\n
SpaceX\u2019s Dragon is in competition with Sierra Nevada Corporation\u2019s Dream Chaser and Boeing\u2019s CST-100 spacecraft.<\/p>\n
SpaceX\u2019s latest milestone \u2013 conducted in December, but only released to the media on Friday \u2013 continues to pace the company toward the completion of all 15 of its CCiCap milestones in 2014.<\/p>\n
Dragon has already successfully used its parachute system when returning from its space missions to restock the ISS with much-needed supplies.<\/p>\n
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However, the crewed Dragon\u2019s parachute system requirements stretch out into the realm of ensuring crew safety \u2013 even before the Falcon 9 launches off the pad.<\/p>\n
![\"Z6\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Z64.jpg\")
The test of the parachute system was conducted at Morro Bay, in California, demonstrating how the parachute system would function in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, a crewed rocket in serious trouble at the pad would hold the option of triggering its Launch Abort System (LAS), pulling the capsule and crew safely away from the vehicle. Per tradition, the LAS have appeared as towers, pointing out on top of the vehicle stack.<\/p>\n
These LAS towers were sported on even the early crewed launch vehicles, having first been tested in 1960 \u2013 when the \u201cBeach Abort\u201d practised the abort technique on the first production Mercury capsule at NASA\u2019s test facility at Wallops Island.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Z32.jpg\")
The live use of the LAS during a pad abort event can be observed via footage on youtube \u2013 as the crew of Soyuz T-10-1 underwent a pad abort, just seconds before their failing vehicle exploded on the launch pad.<\/p>\n
The video shows a line of the Soviet top brass witnessing the dramatic abort, acknowledged only by one General calmly adjusting his collar.<\/p>\n
It was reported that the crew landed safely, just four miles away.<\/p>\n
The tradition will continue with NASA\u2019s new Orion spacecraft, with a tower LAS set to provide the escape system should the Space Launch System (SLS) suffer a serious issue late in the countdown or during the early ascent uphill.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Z14.jpg\" "\\"Z14\\"")
However, SpaceX won\u2019t be using a tower system, instead they\u2019ll be using an escape system that is not only fully integrated into the body of the spacecraft, but one that also holds future uses, through to those that aren\u2019t even related to launch abort.<\/p>\n
The first major difference relates to the traditional use of solid propellant, mainly because of the speed it can ignite and reach full thrust \u2013 something highly desirable when moving human lives away from a failing rocket.<\/p>\n
Instead, Dragon sports a series of eight liquid SuperDraco engines, built into the side walls of the Dragon spacecraft, capable of producing up to 120,000 pounds of axial thrust to drive the Dragon away from its failing launch vehicle.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Z13.jpg\" "\\"Z13\\"")
Referencing back to the benefit of solid motor abort systems, SpaceX\u2019s SuperDraco produced full thrust within approximately 100 milliseconds of the ignition command. It also fired for five seconds, which is the same amount of time the engines would burn during an emergency abort.<\/p>\n
Advantages of the SuperDraco liquid thruster include how the engine can be put through a series of throttling ranges, in turn allowing for redundancy, with SpaceX claiming they could lose one of the eight abort engines and still recover the vehicle and crew successfully. The engines can also be restarted multiple times.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Z15.jpg\" "\\"Z15\\"")
Another advantage is the fact it\u2019s not a tower. The LAS tower normally requires jettison shortly after first stage flight. Any failure of this key sequence of ascent would end the mission, given the flight profile wouldn\u2019t be designed for carrying the LAS along for the ride.<\/p>\n
Because the system is integrated into the Dragon itself \u2013 as opposed to departing the spacecraft during jettison \u2013 the spacecraft can technically abort within much longer periods than the tower version. With Dragon returning with the engines on board, they can also be reused on future launches.<\/p>\n
![\"Z66\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Z66.jpg\")
There is also a large amount of commonality between the 18 maneuvering engines built into Dragon and the SuperDraco LAS engines \u2013 bar the fact the SuperDraco engines would burn through propellant 200 times faster.<\/p>\n
The biggest long-term advantage of this system is related to the potential use of the engines to land Dragon back on land propulsively, as seen via SpaceX\u2019s Reusable Falcon 9 concept, which returns all of the launch vehicle and spacecraft hardware to the ground for reuse.<\/p>\n
Parachutes will still be onboard the Dragon, for a contingency event resulting in problems with the SuperDracos, allowing the spacecraft to land on water, as it is currently designed to do.<\/p>\n
![\"Z11\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Z111.jpg\")
Testing the parachute system \u2013 as carried out in December \u2013 is a key part of the CCiCAP requirements.<\/p>\n
The test involved a 12,000-pound \u201cDragon Crew parachute drop test article\u201d \u2013 a refurbished cargo parachute test vehicle -that was lifted 8,000 feet above sea level by an Erickson Sky Crane helicopter and flown over the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe parachute test is essential for the commercial crew effort because it helps us better understand how SpaceX\u2019s system performs as it safely returns crew,\u201d noted Jon Cowart, NASA Partner Integration deputy manager working with SpaceX.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike all of our partners, SpaceX continues to provide innovative solutions based on NASA\u2019s lessons learned that could make spaceflight safer.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Z9\"](\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Z91.jpg\")
Following Dragon\u2019s release during the test, two drogue parachutes were released from the top of the spacecraft to slow its descent, before the three main parachutes deployed.<\/p>\n
The craft splashed down and was quickly recovered by the Sky Crane and carried back to shore.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpaceX is working diligently to make the Dragon spacecraft the safest vehicle ever flown,\u201d claimed Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe parachute system is an integral part of Dragon\u2019s ability to provide a safe landing for nominal and abort conditions \u2013 with this successful test we are well-positioned to execute a full end-to-end test of the launch escape system later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pad abort test article Dragon is already being processed at SpaceX\u2019s Californian base, ahead of its short flight in the latter half of this year.<\/p>\n
(Images: via NASA, SpaceX and L2\u2019s SpaceX Special Section, which also includes over 1,000 unreleased hi res images from Dragon\u2019s three flights to the ISS.)<\/p>\n
(Click here: http:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/l2\/ \u2013 to view how you can access the best space flight content on the entire internet and directly support NASASpaceflight.com\u2019s running costs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASA confirmed on Friday that SpaceX\u2019s Commercial Crew Dragon program successfully conducted a parachute test \u2013 as part of the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) contract with NASA \u2013 in December. The test evaluated how the Dragon parachute system would function in the event of an emergency on the launch pad or during ascent. Dragon Parachute Test: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4055,1395,8473,316],"class_list":["post-39664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ccicap","tag-dragon","tag-las","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}