SpaceX Dragon Cleared For Launch

Aviation Week: SpaceX Dragon Cleared For Launch

CAPE CANAVERAL — Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) is awaiting an FAA license to fly its Dragon capsule through the atmosphere, following launch on a Falcon 9 rocket targeted for Nov. 18 from Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.

The launch license was granted Oct. 15. The pending re-entry license will be the first ever issued by FAA, according to George Nield, FAA’s associate administrator for Commercial Space Transportation.

“As we go forward [with NASA Commercial Crew Development and other programs] we expect to see a lot more of those,” Nield tells AVIATION WEEK.

Building on the Falcon 9’s successful June 4 debut (Aerospace DAILY, June 7), SpaceX plans to put Dragon into a 34.5-deg.-inclination, 300-km. (190-mi.) orbit, where it will remain for less than 4 hr. before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Southern California.

Demo flight

The mission is a demonstration flight for NASA under its Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. have contracts to develop and demonstrate launch vehicles and to fly cargo to the International Space Station.

“While we had an incredibly successful first launch of the Falcon 9, this second launch is still very much a demonstration mission and will be our first attempt to bring a spacecraft from orbit back to Earth,” SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost says.

“We would like to do more integrated system testing, including another in-depth round of hardware-in-the loop mission simulations to see if we can uncover any corner-case problems. So far, it looks good, but we want to triple-check.”

Test points

Following Dragon’s release from the Falcon’s second-stage engine, the capsule will be used to test operational communications, navigation, maneuvering and re-entry.

“They have a pretty aggressive flight,” says Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations.

“They’ll do, I think, two orbits and then do a re-entry of their capsule. I think that will be a good test to see how things are going in their systems,” he adds.

“It seems simple to just describe two orbits and then the re-entry. That’s still a pretty sophisticated test for them. They have their whole attitude-control system on orbit, which hasn’t been checked out yet. They’ll do some maneuvers on that. They have their entry systems with their parachute system, the heat shield, all that performance to come back, as well as a water recovery off the coast of California.

“They’re taking their time, working through the issues that they’ve got with their vehicle,” Gerstenmaier notes. “They had some software things they wanted to spend a little more time working with. They have hardware integration tests where they check out their hardware with their software; they wanted some additional time to do that, so that’s why they moved from the 8th to the 18th.

“They’re doing all the right things. They’ve got the right attitude of how to get ready for flight. I think it will be interesting to see how this flight goes ... and then they have potentially two more demonstration flights. The third one will actually come to the space station,” Gerstenmaier says.