SpaceX upgrades Crew Dragon to use thrusters for an emergency landing in the ocean if the ship’s parachutes fail.
SpaceX has made major upgrades to the Crew Dragon spacecraft to improve its safety profile, according to NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager Steve Stich, and SpaceX’s Vice President, Build and Reliability Bill Gerstenmaier. The two shared details during a Crew 9 press conference earlier today, and now, the Dragon can fire its thrusters for a soft landing in case of an emergency. NASA and SpaceX are slated to launch Crew 9 tomorrow, with two crew members, accompanied by Boeing’s Starliner astronauts, when they return to Earth in February.SpaceX Cleans Soot From Crew Dragon Ahead Of Tomorrow’s Launch
Ahead of the launch, SpaceX static fired its Falcon 9 rocket and conducted last minute troubleshooting operations on the Crew Dragon. Stich shared that the Dragon troubleshooting involved «the chilled water system that’s used for Dragon, this provides cooling up into the Dragon spacecraft», which sprung a leak at the last moment that was fixed by SpaceX.
Another problem that surfaced on the Dragon resulted from strong winds in Florida. According to the NASA official, after SpaceX static fired the Falcon 9 rocket, the soot produced from the engines which typically «goes out and exhaust out to the East to the water» was blown «back over on to the Dragon spacecraft.
