Crew Dragon: In-Flight Abort test flight

[Skiver Veteran]

Has their been any offiicial feedback on if/how successful the test was? I assume a true official post on this might be days away?

 

 

[Beittil]

No

[Jim K Global Moderator]

2 hours ago, Skiver said:

Has their been any offiicial feedback on if/how successful the test was? I assume a true official post on this might be days away?

yea, I'm not sure of any more "scheduled" updates regarding the test aside from the post-launch briefing held yesterday.  During that briefing Elon said crewed flight will likely take place in the second quarter of this year.  I would assume if everything went as expected during the test then crew will be going up in Apr-Jun.

 

 

Thought this video was pretty neat ...

 

 

[DocM]

 

[sc302 Veteran]

That thing looked like it dropped quite a bit before the chutes filled up fully with air, and the capsule was very violent, 30-~50sec mark in the post 1 video flipping on its head and back, until the chutes started to get air in them.  That doesn't look very good for the passengers.    

[Jim K Global Moderator]

14 minutes ago, sc302 said:

That thing looked like it dropped quite a bit before the chutes filled up fully with air, and the capsule was very violent, 30-~50sec mark in the post 1 video flipping on its head and back, until the chutes started to get air in them.  That doesn't look very good for the passengers.    

It had two "passengers" all wired up so they'll know how much force was exerted on "them".  Obviously it is more about survivability than comfort.  

[Astra.Xtreme]

They purposely induce a slow opening of the chutes to minimize forces exerted on the chutes and capsule.  The speed and duration of the free fall won't harm anything, but the forces during decel can.  Slow and controlled is key.

[sc302 Veteran]

45 minutes ago, Jim K said:

It had two "passengers" all wired up so they'll know how much force was exerted on "them".  Obviously it is more about survivability than comfort.  

And I kind of question the survival of the occupant returning to normal quality of life or being incapacitated on some front by being jostled around like that.  Just because your head has padding, doesn't mean your brain does.  Brain getting slammed against your own skull isn't exactly good and why concussions are taken very seriously.  Could this lead to more than a concussion?  It would be interesting to see the data or explanation of the abrupt tilting/jostling to know that it is within "normal" limits.  Hard to tell gforces from here.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

7 minutes ago, sc302 said:

And I kind of question the survival of the occupant returning to normal quality of life or being incapacitated on some front by being jostled around like that.  Just because your head has padding, doesn't mean your brain does.  Brain getting slammed against your own skull isn't exactly good and why concussions are taken very seriously.  Could this lead to more than a concussion?  It would be interesting to see the data or explanation of the abrupt tilting/jostling to know that it is within "normal" limits.  Hard to tell gforces from here.

Yea...the data will provide the answers. Forgot the astronauts name...Hague I think...described the Soyuz abort (in '18) like a roller coaster and being tossed around. I personally (as a certified armchair astronaut) didn't really see anything unusual/alarming.

[+rdlenk Subscriber²]

11 minutes ago, Jim K said:

Yea...the data will provide the answers. Forgot the astronauts name...Hague I think...described the Soyuz abort (in '18) like a roller coaster and being tossed around. I personally (as a certified armchair astronaut) didn't really see anything unusual/alarming.

@sc302is referring to the video Doc posted in the OP. That was the pad abort test from 2015. That test is indeed a far more violent experience and would be quite uncomfortable for the occupants, especially since there would be little to no warning that it was going to happen. The large amount of thrashing the capsule does is due to that fact that it is still very much in the atmosphere and can't use its thrusters to stabilize. The idea here though is living is better than not living when trying to escape an explosion on the pad.

 

The In-Flight abort test from Sunday is a much smoother experience. The occupants are already experiencing a lot of acceleration so when the escape system activates it is just a bit more in the same direction. They will certainly feel it but will already be braced since they were already in flight. Some data was reveled at the press conference showing forces never exceeded 3.5g throughout the test with the NASA director even commenting that it was "impressive" to achieve that low of a number in a launch escape. The Soyuz capsule will reach over 6g during its escape which saved two lives in 2018 as Jim points out.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

5 minutes ago, rdlenk said:

@sc302is referring to the video Doc posted in the OP. That was the pad abort test from 2015. That test is indeed a far more violent experience and would be quite uncomfortable for the occupants, especially since there would be little to no warning that it was going to happen. The large amount of thrashing the capsule does is due to that fact that it is still very much in the atmosphere and can't use its thrusters to stabilize. The idea here though is living is better than not living when trying to escape an explosion on the pad.

 

The In-Flight abort test from Sunday is a much smoother experience. The occupants are already experiencing a lot of acceleration so when the escape system activates it is just a bit more in the same direction. They will certainly feel it but will already be braced since they were already in flight. Some data was reveled at the press conference showing forces never exceeded 3.5g throughout the test with the NASA director even commenting that it was "impressive" to achieve that low of a number in a launch escape. The Soyuz capsule will reach over 6g during its escape which saved two lives in 2018 as Jim points out.

aaaah.  Yea, that one did look a little rough. 

 

[DocM]

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