After the inspection fails, SpaceX will repair the heat shield of the Crew Dragon spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station, although NASA says there is no possibility of a similar problem with the station’s spacecraft.
NASA told reporters on May 24 that the heat shield structure built by SpaceX for the Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station, which was scheduled to fly in early September, failed an acceptance test earlier this month and will not be used on the ship. .
“To ensure safety and reliability, SpaceX has a rigorous testing process that puts every component and system through the motions,” the agency said in a statement. “Tests were successful in detecting manufacturing defects.”
These tests included X-rays of the structure as well as applying physical loads to it to simulate the forces it would face on re-entry and upon collapse, Steve Stitch, director of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said during a May 25 briefing after Boeing’s return. CST-100 on unmanned test flight.
NASA says SpaceX will use a different heat shield on the spacecraft, the Endurance, which will undergo the same tests. The agency said in a statement that it still plans to launch the mission in September.
“What happened to Crew-5 was when we put a heat shield on the landing payload, it didn’t go in,” he said. “We knew there was some damage in the heat shield from that test, so we knew we couldn’t go ahead and fly the heat shield.”
The defect does not affect the heat shield on the Crew-4 Crew Dragon spacecraft, Freedom, which is currently aboard the International Space Station. “It doesn’t have the same manufacturing problems we saw for the Crew-5,” Stich said. “It has gone through a test sequence where we applied all the load to it and it has gone through all these loading states, so we have no concerns about the heat shield on the Crew-4.”
NASA’s statement came in response to a report on May 23 that claimed there was a leak of hyperactive thrusters on the Crew Dragon that caused significant heat shield damage at the end of Axiom Space Ax-1’s special astronaut mission to the station, which erupted in April. 25. . This posed a potential problem with the Crew-4 spacecraft, which launched less than two days later.
NASA has denied any leaks or heat shield issues with the mission. The agency stated that “the data related to the recent re-entry of the Dragon crew is normal – the system works as designed without any conflicts.” “There was no excessive ghoul leakage during the return of the manned Dragon mission or contamination of the heat shield causing excessive wear.” NASA added that there was a “complete engineering review” of the Crew Dragon thermal protection system after the Ax-1 machine gun and before the launch of the Crew-4. While the heat shield composite hull has been reused for the Crew-4, the material for the heat shield system itself is new, and for all manned missions.
News summary:
- After the test failed, SpaceX replaced the heat shield for the next Dragon Crew mission
- Check all the latest news and articles space news update.
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