The Crew Dragon Pad Abort Test (officially known as the SpaceX Pad Abort Test) was a spacecraft test conducted 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 ...

on 6 May 2015 from the Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at

Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) is an installation of the United States Space Force's Space Launch Delta 45, located on Cape Canaveral in Brevard County, Florida. Headquartered at the nearby Patrick Space Force Base, the sta ...

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 ...

. As part of the

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...

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 ...

, the test demonstrated the spacecraft's abort system capability, verifying the capsule's eight side-mounted

SuperDraco SuperDraco is a hypergolic propellant rocket engine designed and built by SpaceX. It is part of the SpaceX Draco family of rocket engines. A redundant array of eight SuperDraco engines provides fault-tolerant propulsion for use as a launch escap ...

thrusters' capability to quickly power itself away from a failing rocket while it is still on the ground. It was one of the two tests conducted by SpaceX on the abort system of spacecraft, the other one being the

Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test The Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test (also known as Crew Dragon Launch Escape Demonstration) was a successful test of the SpaceX Dragon 2 abort system, conducted on 19 January 2020. It was the final assessment for the Crew Dragon capsule and F ...

conducted on 19 January 2020.

History

The flight was the one of four tests for the

(CCiCap) award given to SpaceX in 2012. The capsule had 270 sensors as well as a dummy and had weights to simulate a crewed launch. The vehicle lifted off at 13:00

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

on 6 May 2015. After reaching a maximum height of about , slightly lower than expected; Dragon jettisoned its trunk about 21 seconds after the liftoff. The Dragon then deployed both the drogue and three main parachutes as expected. The vehicle splashed down safely in the ocean to the east of the launchpad 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 ...

99 seconds after the liftoff about 8 seconds earlier then planned. The landing site was expected to be about away from the launchpad but landed closer to shore then expected. The slight underperformances were linked to a fuel mixture ratio issue was detected after the flight in one of the eight SuperDraco engines, but did not materially affect the flight. The C201 capsule, dubbed ''

DragonFly A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threat ...

'' was originally planned to be used for the in-flight abort test expected to fly after this mission. However, SpaceX and NASA decided later to use the capsule used for Demo-1 for the in-flight abort test as there were design changes after construction of ''DragonFly''. However, as that capsule was destroyed SpaceX used the one planned to be used for Demo-2.

Gallery

References

{{SpaceX Test spaceflights SpaceX Dragon 2 2015 in spaceflight May 2015 in the United States Flight abort

History

Gallery

See also

References