In a July 26 statement, SpaceX has announced that they plan to move Dragon capsule splashdowns from off the Gulf or East coasts of Florida to the west coast of the US starting in 2025. The move is intended to reduce risks from reentering debris from the spacecraft’s trunk section, as in the incident I covered at the end of May.
In that May incident, there were reports coming in saying junk from a Dragon capsule ended up on a hiking trail in North Carolina. This left me confused because "everyone knows" that Dragons are reusable and the same handful of Cargo and Crew dragons have been flying for years, with refurbishment between missions. Then I remembered that they have the equivalent of the Service Modules that Apollo and earlier capsules had, renamed as the trunk, and that those were jettisoned before reentry.
Since the introduction of the Crew Dragon spacecraft and its cargo variant, the trunk section has been released before the deorbit burn, reentering passively weeks to months later. SpaceX said it chose this option after the company, working with NASA, used “industry-standard models” that predicted that the trunk would break up completely on reentry, with no debris surviving.
That has not been the case. On several occasions sizable pieces of debris from Dragon trunks have survived reentry and landed in Australia, Saskatchewan and North Carolina, among other places. The debris falls caused no damage or injuries but illustrated the risk they posed.
The piece of debris found in North Carolina near Canton, just outside of the city of Asheville at the head of the trail on which it was found. It was later verified to be part of a Dragon trunk. Image credit: Future/Brett Tingley
Earlier this year, Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said the agency was working with SpaceX on ways to better control the debris created by reentering trunks. One option being studied, he said then, would be to jettison the trunk after Dragon performs its deorbit burn, which would allow the trunk to reenter around the same time along the reentry corridor for the capsule.
SpaceX said that is the approach that the company is taking. “SpaceX will implement a software change that will have Dragon execute its deorbit burn before jettisoning the trunk, similar to our first 21 Dragon recoveries,” it stated. It ruled out alternatives that included a complete redesign of the trunk or addition of a propulsion system to it for a controlled reentry.
Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission management at SpaceX, said in the
July 26 statement that SpaceX would have to move a recovery vessel currently
based in Florida out to the Port of Long Beach in California and that the
changes would likely be first seen on the Crew 9 mission currently set for
launch NET Sunday August 18 at 5:39 AM EDT. Return of Crew rotation missions
is typically six months after launch, so around the second half of February of
2025.
While the change will mitigate the debris risk, it does pose new problems for Dragon recovery operations. “NASA gave us new requirements, starting with CRS-21, for even tighter return timelines and enhanced science capability,” she said, which was factored into plans for Dragon recovery operations in Florida.
“That’s the new challenge ahead of us now and what we’ve been working through here this year, is how do we come back to the West Coast but still maintain all of what we’ve learned and stood up to support crews, not just cargo,” she said, in terms of quick handover of science payloads after splashdown. “We’re working through all of the details of that, but it will be a better capability than we had with Dragon 1 by design.”
Walker adds that one positive out of the changes is that the weather tends to be better off California than off the East coast splashdown locations they've been using. That adds flexibility in mission planning.
IIRC, SpaceX has leased the former Sea Launch site in Long Beach. The Payload Processing Facility has been designed to fuel/defuel spacecraft, and could easily be repurposed to do a check on the Dragon before shipping it back to where ever.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. You'd think they'd make the trunk to where it would disassemble properly to allow it all to burn up. Weird.
ReplyDeleteAs to splashing down on the West Coast, weather overall may be more stable but the Gulf is far smoother than waters off the aforementioned west coast.
Welp, we'll see how this works out.
Bonus: With any luck, they can drop a sizeable piece of module junk on Gov. Gabbin' Nuisance.
ReplyDeleteMusk could become a national hero.
The Communists in this country would soundly disagree!
DeleteI wonder what the cost increases are, shipping back to the launch site and doing business in California.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, operating out of Los Angeles County. LA County is hard-nose, adopts a decidedly dictatorial stance in doing business.
DeleteThat's from my limited personal experience plus that of others doing business in that county.
While we like to say it's all one game but with different levels (concerning business), I think Space X as an economic powerhouse and having sway in fedgov might be able to push down on the county. Still, what the county has been able to do, (see LA/LB harbor) is a force of reckoning.
It will be interesting what the county tries to pull.
Add to that the reports from last week (some time in July?) that Elon said, "that's it! I'm shutting down Hawethorne and moving it all to Texas!"
DeleteKeeping an operation going in El Lay County doesn't seem to fit. It might be his way of saying, "you'll never catch me in California again" and handing it off to Gwynne Shotwell or someone else to figure out how to "make it so."
That does cause me to wonder. I also have concerns, but mostly about marine traffic.
DeleteWhy LA, not San Diego? Both have well established ports and a major airport in close proximity to the shoreline.
It could be that San Diego doesn't have room for Space X dock space and facilities. Then again, Long Beach is already, um, has been congested. The 'has been' is a nod to the deleterious effects of LA County bureaucrats upon Long Beach harbor. LA County has seemed hellbent to throttle LA/LB with severe restrictions on port facilities including rail and trucking transportation.
My concern is about shipping and pleasure craft. Just where is Space X going to land their rockets? Major shipping lanes converge on that part of the west coast. Plus, a large amount of ocean crossing recreational sailing originates or arrives there. Is the Space X landing zone so close to the coast that the distance between SD, LB and Hueneme significant? That's prime real estate for marine traffic. The distance between SD and LA/LB is not great. All I can think of is LA is closer to VAFB.
But Port Hueneme is even closer. And Hueneme has the infrastructure as LA and SD.
So far not mentioned is air traffic. NOTAMs are for that purpose. But the launch cadence of Space X may make that problematic.
I do wonder if Elon et al struck a very favorable negotiation with LA/LB. Given the aforementioned deleterious effects, is LB that much more welcoming to Space X? Having chased a lot of business out of LB, the County now wants to attract business.
Never discount the local politicians' ability to cut off their heads to spite your face. Yeah, do business in California...
DeleteI think Elon might do better landing them at Kwajalein and air-freighting everything to Texas and Florida.
Or fixing the trunk so it breaks up into little pieces and burns up better.
I'm still holding out hope that one day I'll see Gabbin's pants and shoes sticking out from under a big hunk of booster like the one pictured above, a la the Wizard Of Oz.
ReplyDeleteThat possibility negates and justifies any additional disadvantages of operating from the West Coast.
Besides, Port Hueneme is a lot closer to Vandenberg, and the Ventura authorities love to stick it to the morons in LA any chance they get.