Last Wednesday, Elon Musk’s space flight company, SpaceX, once again had reason to celebrate. The company successfully carried out a pad abort test of the Dragon spacecraft, which recently delivered supplies to the International Space Station. Though the test was very short, 99 seconds, and had a max altitude of just over one kilometer, it showcased some of the technology that will make suborbital space flight viable in the near future. The Dragon’s eight SuperDrago thrusters propelled the small spacecraft to its intended altitude. Splashdown was also completely successful, with the parachute opening as expected. Any human beings that would have been inside the Dragon would have been healthy upon landing.
SpaceX isn’t a suborbital space flight business, though. It needed to do this test in order to test the viability of its SuperDraco thrusters for use in a crew escape system in emergency situations. Spacex wants to be NASA’s first private carrier for astronauts on trips to and from the International Space Station. Other companies, however, are conducting tests specifically in the hope of making suborbital spaceflight a possibility in the next few years. The eventual goal for some is successful commercial spaceflight.
A company named Blue Origin had a largely successful test of its New Shepherd craft in late April. Its BE-3 engine boosted the vehicle to a much higher altitude, 93.5 kilometers, and reached speeds up to Mach 3. The separation of the crew capsule from the engine module went smoothly, and the crew capsule returned safely to Earth via parachute. The only problem during the test was that the engine module, which is meant to land vertically using thrust, failed to do so. The company has publicly stated that a new and improved hydraulic system is on the way, and will be ready for testing soon.
XCOR Aerospace is now in the final stages of the assembly of its suborbital “spaceplane,” the Lynx Mark I. The company attached the strakes to the fuselage of the spacecraft, which will allow fuel tanks, main landing gears, and reaction control thrusters to be installed. One obstacle the company is now facing is that it needs to source a set of wings, which are currently on order. They were very difficult to produce, and have delayed down any possible testing of the plane until after Fall of this year. It’s a wonderful thing to see all of these companies both competing and working together to make commercial spaceflight a reality.
