Space X Crew Dragon Explodes

[Nicnac]

Quote

On April 20th SpaceX was performing an engine test on its recovered Dragon 2 capsule when an anomaly occured. Large clouds of orange tinted smoke were seen for miles around the test site and sources have reported that the capsule can been destroyed. There's not much information to go on at this time, but it's likely that this will result in the commercial crew program being further delayed.

Elon hasn't commented yet which he is usually quick to do after such events which doesn't seem to be a good sign.

 

A good video by Scott Manley:

 

Orange smoke means a bunch of Dinitrogen Tetroxide probably along with some Hydrazine... Nasty stuff.

We don't even know what state the capsule is in currently. Rumours say it's in pieces but this has not been confirmed.

The Draco Thrusters -one of which was probably causing this- are in a separate, armored compartment within the capsule to protect occupants.

 

Source

 

How far is this gonna push back the possibility of US astronauts to launch on US rockets again?

Boeing has also had issues with their launch abort systems recently.

 

UPDATE:

 

some unofficial footage of the test firing:

 

 

[Arika]

1 minute ago, Nicnac said:

Elon hasn't commented yet which he is usually quick to do after such events which doesn't seem to be a good sign.

 

maybe he's finally learnt his lesson and not posting anything until it's been reviewed by a few people to make sure it doesn't land him in hot water

[Nicnac]

Just now, Arika S said:

maybe he's finally learnt his lesson and not posting anything until it's been reviewed by a few people to make sure it doesn't land him in hot water

funny, cause the water landing probably caused this failure

[Nicnac]

4 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Dont worry, according to Elon Musk everything is going as planned

Rapid, Planned and Scheduled Disassembly.

[ravenshrike]

1 hour ago, Nicnac said:

How far is this gonna push back the possibility of US astronauts to launch on US rockets again?

It depends on whether it was the refurbished unit and if the refurbishment can be linked to the problem.

[Nicnac]

3 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

It depends on whether it was the refurbished unit and if the refurbishment can be linked to the problem.

It was the unit that was supposed to be refurbished later and send up again. They will probably not be able to do it now but They do have a backup vehicle. Just would have been smooth af to reuse the first Dragon right away to show the technical superiority over ovther systems. Scott Manley estimates this might push back the next Dragon Launch a whole year..

[Nicnac]

Updated with first close-up footage

 

[Taf the Ghost]

58 minutes ago, Arika S said:

maybe he's finally learnt his lesson and not posting anything until it's been reviewed by a few people to make sure it doesn't land him in hot water

Was only 750k fine per word last time.

[S w a t s o n]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

maybe he's finally learnt his lesson and not posting anything until it's been reviewed by a few people to make sure it doesn't land him in hot water

he definitely hasn't and i doubt he needs to have anything reviewed. thankfully spacex is not public so the SEC can go fuck themselves.

[Tieox]

This will continue to happen till they find a way to include a BBQ on the capsule. 

[yian88]

Well first reused capsule explodes, why am i not surprised? second one will work perfectly.

[Billy Pilgrim]

And this is why they have tests for these things

[Bananasplit_00]

33 minutes ago, Kierax said:

This will continue to happen till they find a way to include a BBQ on the capsule. 

Mmm yes, I do love me some hydrozine infused steak! One of those feed you for the rest of your life even!

[Tieox]

47 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Mmm yes, I do love me some hydrozine infused steak! One of those feed you for the rest of your life even!

The space BBQ must exist  

[Sparviero]

A lot better to learn hard lessons at this stage. I want us on the moon, mars and grabbing asteroids before I die. So best to make the most of the opportunity to learn from this now. 

[Tech_Dreamer]

good thing that this happened during test.

[dalekphalm]

Curious - it exploded around the 8 second mark during the final countdown, which means it exploded prior to proper ignition.

 

That will no doubt help the engineers figure out what the cause was.

 

I hope it was something limited to the re-useable nature of it, and not an inherent design flaw.

 

They'll now need to test a fresh capsule in the abort launch system. I hope it doesn't delay things overly.