Towards the end of last year, SpaceX wasn’t having a great time. 

NASA had been running a program dedicated to creating reusable rockets for a while now. Altogether, the program, which has at least two reusable planes, has logged 2 865 days in space over the course of five missions. The fifth mission launched on September 7, 2017, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Then SpaceX’s full-size Mk1 prototype of its next-generation reusable transportation system literally blew its lid during a ground test.

Look, there’s a reason that astronauts sign some heavy indemnity forms. Sending anything into space is risky business.

Which is why the latest Falcon 9 test by SpaceX was the space rocket-launch equivalent of a fire drill.

Spaceflight Now explains:

SpaceX performed a dramatic high-altitude test flight Sunday of the company’s Crew Dragon capsule over Florida’s Space Coast, testing the human-rated ship’s ability to escape a rocket failure and save its crew before two NASA astronauts strap in for a flight to the International Space Station as soon as this spring.

The unusual test flight included an intentional failure of the Crew Dragon’s Falcon 9 rocket about a minute-and-a-half after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center. The rocket, with a recycled first stage booster flown three previous times, disintegrated in a fireball high over the Atlantic Ocean as the crew capsule sped away from the top of the launcher with a powerful boost from eight SuperDraco engines.

Watch the entire thing from lift-off to the Crew Dragon’s successful escape from the blast here, with views from inside and outside Falcon 9:

No astronauts were on board, so there wasn’t any risk to human life. Hopefully, this test will save lives in the future. No one wants a repeat of that time the Crew Dragon exploded.

Here’s more on why they blew it up:

Elon Musk was there and very happy with the outcome.

“I’m super fired up,” Musk said. “This is great … We’re looking forward to the next step.”

…Musk said after Sunday’s in-flight abort test that the Demo-2 mission would likely launch in the second quarter of this year — between the beginning of April and the end of June — although rocket and spacecraft hardware for the Demo-2 flight could be in place at the Kennedy Space Center by the end of February or early March.

“The hardware necessary for first crewed launch, we believe, will be ready by the end of February,” Musk said. “However, there’s still a lot of work once the hardware is ready to cross-check everything, triple-check, quadruple-check, go over everything again so that every stone has been turned over three or four times.

He also pointed out that with all of the “things” going to the “space station”, there might be some scheduling conflicts that need to be resolved.

In the meantime, SpaceX will collect all the data from the Crew Dragon abort test and analyze the results for any potential problem areas. NASA is also reviewing numerous Crew Dragon data packages provided by SpaceX before agreeing to fly Hurley and Behnken on SpaceX’s next crew capsule launch.

That’s veteran NASA shuttle fliers Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, in case you’re wondering.

I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing great things from SpaceX this year – provided they can keep their rockets from exploding.

[source:spaceflightnow]