SpaceX confirms destruction of Crew Dragon spacecraft during testing

SpaceX confirmed the suspicions of experts that during ground tests of the Crew Dragon capsule, which took place on April 20, an explosion occurred, leading to the destruction of the spacecraft.

“This is what we can confirm ... shortly before we were about to launch SuperDraco, an anomaly occurred and the spacecraft was destroyed,” Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of flight safety, said at a briefing Thursday. 

Koenigsmann emphasized that the testing was generally successful. The Crew Dragon spacecraft launched "as expected" with the Draco engines firing for 5 seconds each. According to Koenigsmann, the anomaly occurred just before the SuperDraco engine started up. Both SpaceX and NASA are reviewing telemetry data and other information collected during the test to determine what exactly went wrong.

“We have no reason to believe that there is a problem with SuperDraco themselves,” Koenigsmann said. SuperDraco engines have undergone extensive testing, including more than 600 factory tests at SpaceX's Texas facility, he said. “We remain confident in this particular engine,” said the aerospace company’s vice president.

For SpaceX, the loss of the spacecraft is small but significant. The Crew Dragon destroyed during testing was the same one that successfully docked with the International Space Station in March as part of SpaceX's Demo-1 mission. During the demonstration flight, there were no astronauts on board the test version of the spacecraft. After five days in orbit, Crew Dragon splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean.

Source: 3dnews.ru