SpaceX’s Crew Dragon suffered more damage than expected on recent mission

By Trevor Mogg Published April 28, 2022

SpaceX has revealed that it found more damage than it expected on the heat shield of its Crew Dragon spacecraft following a recent mission that saw the first astronaut use of the vehicle.

Speaking at a press conference this week about plans for the first operational launch of the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station (ISS) at the end of October, Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX, said his team found “a little bit more erosion than we wanted to see” on one of the spacecraft’s tiles.

Recommended Videos

The spacecraft underwent an inspection after its return in early August 2020 following the successful completion of SpaceX’s historic Demo-2 mission that transported NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the ISS.

The damage to the Crew Dragon occurred during its homecoming journey as it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. As expected, the colossal speed of entry caused the temperature of the underside of the spacecraft to rise dramatically. Specially designed heat-resistant tiles protect the integrity of the spacecraft and any crew inside, but damage beyond a certain level could prove disastrous.

“We saw some flow phenomenon that we really didn’t expect, and we saw erosion to be deeper than we anticipated,” Koenigsmann said in comments reported by SpaceNews.

But Koenigsmann was keen to note that the Crew Dragon damage was limited to a very small part of the heat shield, and at no point were Hurley and Behnken in any danger.

He added that the issue can be resolved by using a more erosion-resistant material for the tiles located around the bolts that connect the Crew Dragon to a trunk section that’s jettisoned shortly before the spacecraft re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere.

The team is also working on resolving an issue with the spacecraft’s parachute deployment to ensure they open at precisely the right moment as the spacecraft comes closer to the Earth’s surface. While the parachutes opened at an acceptable altitude in the final stages of the Demo-2 mission, SpaceX said the deployment was a little lower than expected. To fix the problem, a new instrument will be fitted that will measure the altitude more accurately.

Once all of the outstanding issues have been satisfactorily addressed, NASA is expected to certify the spacecraft, clearing the way for the highly anticipated Crew-1 mission on October 31.

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Tech News

Space

NASA built the Roman Space Telescope to study dark matter, but it can also help protect Earth from killer asteroids

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope wasn't built to hunt asteroids, but it turns out to be great at it.

Nancy Grace Roman space telescope.

NASA is about to launch a telescope built to unlock some of the universe's biggest mysteries, and it turns out that same design could help protect Earth along the way.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 2026, with a primary mission focused on studying dark matter and dark energy - the invisible forces shaping galaxies and cosmic expansion. Researchers now say its unique design also makes it unexpectedly effective at spotting dangerous asteroids headed our way (via MIT Technology Review).

Space

Space is becoming Bezos and Musk’s next data center site, and we have every reason to worry

The AI boom is coming for the night sky

How Vast's space station will look in orbit.

AI data centers already consume vast amounts of electricity and water on Earth, so Silicon Valley has begun looking somewhere considerably more spacious... literally.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, along with several other companies, have proposed enormous constellations of satellites designed to operate as orbital data centers. However, environmental groups and former space officials are now warning that putting them into orbit at the proposed scale could have severe consequences for Earth's atmosphere and the night sky.

Space

The first possible exomoon is here, and it makes our Moon look hilariously tiny

Scientists may have found the first exomoon, except this one is the size of Jupiter

This artist’s concept depicts a potential volcanic moon between the exoplanet WASP-49 b, left, and its parent star. New evidence indicating that a massive sodium cloud observed near WASP-49 b is produced by neither the planet nor the star has prompted researchers to ask if its origin could be an exomoon.

We have already discovered more than 6,000 planets outside of our immediate neighborhood. Yet, finding a moon orbiting one of those distant worlds has proved considerably harder. Astronomers may finally have something close to the real deal, but this particular object stretches the word “moon” almost beyond recognition.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, researchers detected strong evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Further observations are still necessary to confirm the discovery, but it could become the first confidently detected natural satellite outside our solar system. There is still one tiny complication though. This moon is apparently massive.