Crew Dragon C204 was part of

Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...

flight vehicle SN 2-1 (sometimes incorrectly called C201) manufactured and operated by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

and used by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Commercial Crew Program The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides Private spaceflight, commercially operated human spaceflight, crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between t ...

. Used in the uncrewed Demo-1 mission, it was launched atop a

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...

rocket on 2 March 2019, arriving at the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

on 3 March 2019. It was the first orbital test flight of the Dragon 2 spacecraft. The spacecraft was unexpectedly destroyed on 20 April 2019 during a separate test when firing the SuperDraco engines at

Landing Zone 1 Landing Zone 1 and Landing Zone 2, also known as LZ-1 and LZ-2 respectively, are landing facilities at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station used by SpaceX. They allow the company to land the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket or the two side boost ...

History

was contracted by

to fly Demo-1 mission as part of the

. Initial plans had hoped to see flights as early as 2015. Demo-1 was eventually slated for no earlier than December 2016, and then delayed several times throughout 2017. The first exact date was published by NASA in November 2018 to be 17 January 2019, but this got pushed into February 2019. The static fire took place on 24 January 2019 and the launch date was set to 23 February 2019. By the end of January 2019, the launch was delayed to no earlier than 2 March 2019 according to a

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains ju ...

filing by SpaceX for Dragon 2 capsule telemetry, tracking, and command. Crew Dragon C204 was successfully launched uncrewed on top of a

rocket on 2 March 2019 from the historic LC 39A from the

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. The flight was intended to certify the Crew Dragon to carry humans, demonstrating on-orbit operation of avionics, communications, telemetry, life support, electrical, and propulsion systems, as well as the guidance, navigation, control (GNC) systems. It docked to the

the next day on 3 March 2019. It spent a total of five days docked to the ISS before it undocked from the ISS on 8 March 2019. The spacecraft performed entry into the

Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weathe ...

and splashed down in the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

about off Florida's east coast. The capsule was recovered using SpaceX's recovery ship, '' GO Searcher'', and was returned to shore, where it was examined and the data collected by the on board sensors was analyzed. Instead of carrying astronauts to the ISS, the spacecraft carried "Ripley," a mannequin wearing SpaceX's custom flight suit. Ripley is a named after Sigourney Weaver's character in the ''Alien'' movies franchise. The capsule was weighted similarly to missions with astronauts onboard and carried approximately of supplies and equipment, including "Little Earth," a plush toy serving as zero-g indicator. On 20 April 2019, Crew Dragon C204 was destroyed in an explosion during static fire testing at the

facility. On the day of the explosion, the initial testing of the Crew Dragon's Draco thrusters was successful, with the accident occurring during the test of the SuperDraco abort system. Telemetry, high-speed camera footage, and analysis of recovered debris indicate the problem occurred when a small amount of

dinitrogen tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russian rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

leaked into a

helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...

line used to pressurize the propellant tanks. The leakage apparently occurred during pre-test processing. As a result, the pressurization of the system 100 ms before firing damaged a check valve and resulted in the explosion. Since the destroyed capsule had been slated for use in the upcoming in-flight abort test, the explosion and investigation delayed that test and the subsequent crewed orbital test.

Flights

References

External links

* {{SpaceX SpaceX Dragon 2 Individual space vehicles NASA spacecraft

History

Flights

See also

References

External links