Joshua Santora: Rockets are dangerous. And before we strap our star sailors in, we need to know there is a proven escape plan. Next on the “Rocket Ranch.”
Launch Countdown Sequence: EGS Program Chief Engineer, verify no constraints to launch. 3, 2, 1, and lift-off. Welcome to space.
Joshua Santora: Both of our commercial crew program partners, Boeing and SpaceX, are busy getting ready to transport humans safely to and from the International Space Station. But I managed to get a few minutes with a couple folks who provided some insight on critical test flights that are just around the corner. But first, a few episodes back, we had Jon Cowart in the booth to talk about a NASA-owned abort test. We wanted to tap into his wealth of knowledge to provide a little bit of context.
Alright, I’m back now in the booth with Jon Cowart. Thanks for joining me again, Jon.
Jon Cowart: My pleasure to be here. Love this.
Joshua Santora: Hey, so, we’re shifting focus a little bit and looking ahead to test flights for our commercial crew partners coming up soon. So, we have two major — major tests coming up. Can you explain kind of what’s gonna be happening for those two tests?
Jon Cowart: So, the first one — We’ll just start with Boeing, and we’ll talk about their pad-abort test. And what they intend to do is set the vehicle down, and then they’re going to pretend like it’s a bad day on the ground and they will do what’s called a pad abort. They will fire the abort engines, which would carry the vehicle away in the event of an emergency that occurred on or very close to the ground. And this gives you a lot of good data. This is a test that SpaceX did back in 2015. So, SpaceX has got that one under their belt. The next test that’s coming up is by SpaceX, and that’s the in-flight abort test. That’s when SpaceX is going to launch a reused Falcon 9 vehicle with a Dragon capsule on top of it. They will get to right around what’s known as MAX-Q. That’s where the combination of just ambient air pressure, as well as the air pressure of the air hitting the vehicle as you fly through it very much faster — that pressure on the vehicle is at its greatest, they’re going to try to abort off of the rocket like there’s a bad day there and get away from the rocket at that particular time.
Joshua Santora: So, you mentioned, Jon, that Boeing — I didn’t hear you mention an in-flight abort test for Boeing. Are they gonna be doing one of those later?
Jon Cowart: Boeing is not going to do an in-flight abort test. They’re just going to do the ground one. They think that they can get enough data and then extrapolate that out, with good analytical techniques that we’ve endorsed. They will go and do it in that particular way, versus SpaceX, which is going to do both. We knew about this up front, both Boeing and SpaceX, when they proposed their contracts to us and said, “This is how we’re going to get to real flights.” We understood exactly, and we bought into it. We think, and we agree with them, that we can get all they need from a pad-abort test.
Joshua Santora: And, Jon, I want to kind of point out specifically that you’re very carefully choosing your pronouns, the “we’s” and the “they’s” and the “us-es.” And this actually creates a huge kind of complexity to the commercial crew program…
Jon Cowart: Indeed it does, yes.
Joshua Santora:…in how NASA really engages with these partners. So, how does that work, with NASA kind of not owning the work…
Jon Cowart: Exactly right.
Joshua Santora:…but are very much invested in it. How does that play out in test flights?
Jon Cowart: So, they own the flight tests. Even when they start flying up in the space station, they own the spaceship, they own the rocket. But these particular tests — they own them, which means we will consult with them, but in the end, they are the ones who own the tests and the results. Now, they’ve got to bring — so, it’s part of their certification — they’ve got to bring the data from those tests to us before they can go fly our astronauts onboard. And we’ve got to say that, “Yeah, you’ve got the right amount of data and that the data is good and that the vehicle will perform correctly.” But, yeah, this is the thing that’s kind of different from the way NASA has done business in the past. We don’t own the rocket. We don’t own the spaceship. So therefore, we are — It’s something more than consulting and something less than owning.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Jon Cowart: It is a delicate balance, and we’ve had to work real hard with both the providers on this.
Joshua Santora: And, so, thinking about kind of just the inert nature of government versus commercial, do you see a big difference in approach to test flights? Obviously, we’re still in the test-flight phase. We’re not flying operationally. That’s not for a little while still to go. So, is there a difference in just that inert approach to these for commercial companies?
Jon Cowart: I don’t think so. I think we’ve worked with them enough, and they both know what we’re interested in knowing. And we’ve helped them characterize the data that they need. So they understand what has to happen in a flight test. You got to remember, these folks, while they don’t have NASA on their front door, they’re still very, very smart people. And we’ve been working with both of them for a long time now. We know how smart they are. So, they’ve got this. I feel very confident that when they do these flight tests, they’ll get the data that they need, and we’ll be happy with it.
Joshua Santora: So, I’m gonna ask this question. I don’t think it’s gonna have a yes-or-no answer, but I want to ask anyway. Does everything have to go perfectly in order for them to get the data they need and to really achieve that certification level?
Jon Cowart: There will be some aspects of the test, which I’m sure have to go pretty well in order to characterize it. For example, let’s just say, the SpaceX in-flight abort test — they’ve got to be somewhere near MAX-Q, that maximum aerodynamic pressure, in order to get the kind of data that they’re looking for that defines the corners of the performance envelope. But otherwise, you can — Other things can go very, very differently, and you get slightly different data because what you’ve done is you’ve modeled this thing. You have a computer model of how everything should work as it goes through this flight test. Whatever the test may be, you’ve got a model. And so, if you were planning to do it at this X-Y coordinate, and you happened to be at ones that are slightly different, well, you can take your model and back it up and go, “Okay, well, if it had happened here…” And so, you can still compare your model. And so, that’s really what you’re doing with these flight tests is you’re correlating your model to the actual flight performance. So, as long as you connect the dots between what you were expecting and what you got, somehow, you can make that model work and see how reliable and predictable it is.
Joshua Santora: So, when I think about modeling, I often think about we do the modeling and then we do the test flight.
Jon Cowart: Correct.
Joshua Santora: Is it fair to say that the test flight is helping us calibrate that model for future work to do?
Jon Cowart: That is 100% correct, yes. Flying the test gives you the data that — What we call is anchoring the model. If you got real hard data, which is better than just a model, you’ve got all that you need. You have — that’s why we say it. You have anchored the model in testing, and now you can go validate everything, all of your requirements.
Joshua Santora: And as NASA, do we end up kind of wading through this data with the partners, or do they just have specific pieces that they have to bring to us for the certification process?
Jon Cowart: So, they will not have to bring all the data, but there is a subset, and, by and large, we discuss this with them up front, and they know what data we need. Some of the stuff is rather low-level. We may not need pressures and temperatures at every single point along a certain curve, but we do want to see some aspect of that, and it helps, like I said, to validate their model and their requirements that they’ve got to go do. So, yeah, we’ve worked it out with them, and I think we’re good.
Joshua Santora: And just thinking about the listeners out there and just those that will be viewing these — hopefully getting to see these test flights…
Jon Cowart: Yeah.
Joshua Santora:…what do you encourage people to look for? Like, what’s the takeaway for them as they literally see these things happen?
Jon Cowart: [ Chuckles ] Well, that’s a tough one, if you’re not used to looking at these sort of things. I know, even on the SpaceX pad-abort test, when that happened, one of the engines did not perform nominally. And just seeing there and watching it real time, I didn’t pick up on that, but when you go back and look at the video afterwards, and, clearly, when you have the data from the performance of the engine itself, it becomes obvious. So, it’s hard to see — Obviously, some things, if they go bad, that’ll be really obvious for you, especially on the SpaceX in-flight abort test, when that thing’s going up there and somewhere around MAX-Q, somewhere in the neighborhood of about a minute into the flight, you’re gonna see something you’ve never seen happen on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket before. You’re gonna see, all of a sudden, that capsule come popping off. That’ll be a really cool thing to see, depending, especially, what time of day. I’m sure we’ll want to do that in broad daylight ’cause we’re gonna have a bunch of cameras trained on it. We’re trying to get all the data that we can. And visual data is just as important. Pad-abort test for Boeing, once again, just look for good thrust coming off the vehicle and that it seems to perform and fly pretty straight. You got to remember on a pad-abort test, you’re over land. You need to get over water in order to have your best performance. So you’re hoping you watch that thing arc off in the right direction.
Joshua Santora: You said, “get over water.” That’s referring to when you’re actually flying.
Jon Cowart: Right.
Joshua Santora: ‘Cause I think they’re doing it out in the middle of the desert for the pad-abort test.
Jon Cowart: Exactly right. So, when you do that test in the middle of the desert, you want to make sure it follows the right trajectory and would have gotten you out over the water.
Joshua Santora: Gotcha. Okay, perfect.
Jon Cowart: Thanks for that. Correct. You’re right.
Joshua Santora: No, listen, I’m learning, too. This is phenomenal. So, Jon, obviously, we’re excited for commercial crew and their work. We’re excited for these test flights. So, thank you once again for joining me here in the booth.
Jon Cowart: My pleasure. And I hope everybody gets to see one of the tests. It’ll be really cool. I know you’ll be able to see it on the computer somewhere, but seeing them live is really cool.
Joshua Santora: First up for our partners is Boeing’s Alicia Evans on their pad-abort test. Alright, so, I am in the booth today, however, my guest is joining me by phone. I have Alicia Evans, who is, I believe, a Test Article Integration Lead for Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner. Alicia, thanks for joining me.
Alicia Evans: Thanks for having me, Joshua.
Joshua Santora: Did I get all that correct?
Alicia Evans: Yeah. I’m the Test Article Integration Lead for Commercial Crew Starliner for our pad-abort test article.
Joshua Santora: Which is awesome. You’re working on a spacecraft. That’s pretty cool.
Alicia Evans: Absolutely. I always enjoy getting to tell people I test spaceships for a living.
Joshua Santora: A brief update, since this interview was recorded, Alicia has actually been promoted. Her job is now Flight Director for Starliner’s Pad Abort Test.
[Sound Effect]
Joshua Santora: [ Chuckles ] And I know you were telling me a little bit earlier about your history actually working on other spacecraft. Can you give me kind of a quick overview of the kinds of things you’ve done in your career so far?
Alicia Evans: Yeah, I’ve gotten to work on two major projects for satellites. So, the very first program I got to work on is a NOAA-NASA project called GOES. It’s our geostationary operational environmental satellite. This is a satellite that monitors the Earth continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, watching our weather. And for those that are really concerned about hurricanes, this is the satellite that creates those beautiful satellite images of hurricanes. But it does far more than that. It has search-and-rescue capability on it. Gets data on how weather is developing every single day, which feeds into our model predictions for weather forecasting. And then, in addition to that, it watches our space weather. So it looks at the sun and our local environment and tells us what type of space weather Earth is gonna be impacted by.
Joshua Santora: That’s awesome. Yeah, obviously, us living in Florida on the Space Coast, and then the launching of the Starliner being here, as well, hurricanes are a big deal ’cause weather’s a huge factor for launch. But you, actually — the reason you’re coming to us by phone is because you’re not where we’re gonna launch the Starliner into space. You’re somewhere very different. Can you explain where you are and kind of what activity you’re going through right now?
Alicia Evans: Absolutely. So, today, I’m actually in New Mexico. We’re at the White Sands Missile Range. It’s an Army base in South New Mexico, where we are gonna be conducting the Starliner pad-abort test. So, essentially, we are executing our flight test of the Starliner vehicle that’s gonna demonstrate the fact that we can save our astronauts in the case of a really bad-day scenario with our rocket. So, we want to make sure that our astronauts are safe, and this is a demonstration of that capability.
Joshua Santora: So, before we get into the test some more, can you kind of talk me through? So, people have a pretty good picture of what a rocket on a launch pad looks like. So, let’s say that this bad-day scenario plays out. What are people gonna see from the launch pad on this day?
Alicia Evans: So, at the launch pad, you have the rocket standing next to its gantry. You have a launch vehicle adapter, which is structural hardware that adapts the launch vehicle to the Starliner. So that’s how we interface to it. Then you have the Starliner sitting on top of the rocket. And we have a service module as well as a crew module, which is the Starliner. So, two parts. And during an abort, if there was to be an accident with the rocket and we needed to save the crew, what would happen is we have four large launch-abort engines that fire in conjunction with several more smaller thrusters, called our orbital maneuvering and attitude control thrusters. And that combined collection of thrusters lifts the Starliner away from the rocket and outside of any debris or blast zone that might be created by a rocket.
Joshua Santora: Now, when you say “lift,” I’m assuming that if you’re talking about an exploding rocket, lift is actually at really high speeds. Is that a fair assessment?
Alicia Evans: It is. It is. I actually don’t have the speeds directly in front of me, but those four big engines, the launch-abort engines, are firing 40,000 pounds of thrust each. And then each of those smaller thrusters, and we have 12 of them, are adding an additional 1,500 pounds of thrust. So it is moving very, very quickly away from that rocket.
Joshua Santora: And so, thinking about that scenario, obviously, you’re out in New Mexico, where you don’t have a rocket. So, what’s this test look like without a rocket?
Alicia Evans: So, what we’ve done is we actually have a launch stand that represents the height of the rocket. But ULA, our Atlas Rocket provider, has provided us with flight hardware that we’re interfacing with. So we have what we call a Centaur forward adapter as well as a launch vehicle adapter, and as part of our launch vehicle adapter, we have an aero skirt, and that’s all flight hardware from ULA that’ll be part of this test. And so, it’ll adapt to our test stand, and then the Starliner will sit on top of the launch vehicle adapter, just like it would on launch day.
Joshua Santora: And so, on this — for this pad-abort test, where will you be? Obviously, you’re kind of integration, so in my mind, I picture you working more to kind of make sure things are in place come test day. Do you have a function on that day?
Alicia Evans: So, that’s a great question. I’m really hoping to be a spectator on that day, but we will see what role I might ultimately fill launch day itself. Our launch team is actually gonna be a few miles away from the launch pad, roughly about 4, 4 1/2 miles away. And we are at a facility called the WSMR Cox Range Facility. And we’ll be doing all of our operations from there.
Joshua Santora: And, so, thinking about that launch team, is that the same team that will be present for actual flights of Starliner?
Alicia Evans: Absolutely. So, we’ll have — kind of break the team down into different groups. We have a mission control team that is located in Houston. They’re participating in this flight test, just like they will for a real mission and our two other test flights — the orbital flight test as well as the crew flight test. So, they’re in Houston, and they’re gonna stay in Houston for all three of these activities. Then we have our local Starliner test team, and their job is to power the Starliner itself and get it configured for launch and ready to hand over to start the test. And that team is gonna participate in all of our flights, getting us ready for the pad-abort test, as well as the orbital flight test, the crew flight test, and all of our future missions. And their job is to make sure that the vehicle is configured and ready so that when T-zero happens, lift-off, that we — I think we actually hand over a few minutes before over to the mission ops folks. But they’ve made sure that the vehicle’s fully configured and ready to launch.
Joshua Santora: Cool. So, obviously, there’s a big difference from your work with satellites to the Starliner. The biggest difference probably being the fact that humans are onboard the craft when we fly to space, which has got to be pretty cool. Are they involved in this test? Are you gonna have astronauts present, whether it be in the spacecraft or locally nearby?
Alicia Evans: I actually haven’t closed with the crew to find out whether or not they’re gonna be here to witness. They are not gonna be in the vehicle. So, during the pad-abort test is the same as the orbital flight test. We’re gonna have an ATD — I call them a crash test dummy, but essentially…
Joshua Santora: [ Chuckles ] Anthropomorphic Test… What’s the last letter? [ Both laugh ]
Alicia Evans: That’s where I was getting hung up.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Alicia Evans: Yeah, we’ll have an anthropomorphic…it might be “test dummy”… [ Both laugh ]
Joshua Santora: Let’s go with that for now.
Alicia Evans:…participating as our pilot for both the pad-abort test and the orbital flight test. And so, we’re actually getting him integrated today.
Joshua Santora: Oh, cool.
Alicia Evans: He got all checked out this morning. And later this week, we’ll actually get him in the seat.
Joshua Santora: That’s awesome. So, is this Starliner — Is this a full-up Starliner, or is this a mock-up?
Alicia Evans: This is a full-up Starliner. It’s been built up specifically for this test. But because we were testing the integrated system, it has all of the systems required for the pad-abort test, and it’s full-up avionics capability, propulsion. There’s a handful of things that we’ve mocked up, just because we wanted to keep the flight hardware for later use. So, because our pilot is an ATD and doesn’t have any eyes, like our integrated crew panel, which is what the crew uses to keep tabs of what’s happening on the vehicle, that’s been mocked up. So that’s a mass simulator during this launch just because we want to keep the real flight hardware for use later.
Joshua Santora: So, I know that the Starliner, in general, has been designed for reuse. And, so, will this Starliner have an opportunity to fly into space later, or is this one really kind of a — It’s a full Starliner for this very specific use, and then it will be retired, so to speak?
Alicia Evans: That is a great question. We’re still debating about it. This vehicle actually has the capability to fly again later, although right now, I believe in our plan, it’s a single-use.
Joshua Santora: Okay. And, so, thinking about crews not being involved on this day, do crews actually train in some way for this kind of a scenario? Obviously, we hope we never have to use these kind of skills, but are they training for what’s it like to go through this sort of a situation?
Alicia Evans: Absolutely. The crew goes through a significant amount of training. And a lot of what they’re gonna be training for is what to do in the case of an abort test. And so, they go through and prepare themselves for the sequence of activities that are gonna happen. And then the only real difference, I think, in their training is gonna be whether or not — They don’t really get to experience the G’s that they’re gonna feel in the abort test. But so much of how we design this system represents what they’re already gonna feel for flight, that it’s not gonna be significantly different for them sitting in their seat, compared to what they’re gonna experience during a real flight. But what we do train them for is how to know that they need to trigger an abort, what to expect as soon as an abort is triggered, because aborts can be triggered both autonomously from the vehicle sensing an issue, from the Starliner sensing an issue, from the rocket sensing an issue. Both of those send signals across our interface and tell the other system, “Hey, we need to abort.” And then initiates an automated sequence. There’s also two manual capabilities. So, the crew themselves can actuate an abort. We have an “abort” handle that they have to pull to initiate an abort. Or the ground crew at the mission control center can say, “Hey, there’s something happening. We need to abort the mission and save the crew.” And they can send a command that will also initiate an abort. And so, once that happens, the crew now knows, “Okay, I’m gonna get the following sequence of events.” And they’re going through training that prepares them for what that looks like.
Joshua Santora: Great. As you think about this day approaching and you hopefully getting to be a spectator, as you’ve said, what kind of feeling do you think this is gonna have for you? Like, as you watch this thing fly, and hopefully, everything goes brilliantly well, what’s that feeling like for you?
Alicia Evans: Oh, I’m very excited about this test. This is a full demonstration of our landing sequence. We have done a lot of subsystem tests of our landing sequence to show which component works individually. And in addition to showing that our propulsion system works to save the crew away from the rocket, the second half of the abort test is that it lands on land the way it would during an actual return from flight. And so, what we’re gonna see is the service module separating from the crew module. Nominally, you don’t get to see that because that happens as the vehicle enters orbit as the service module burns up in the atmosphere and the crew module comes in safely through the atmosphere. So, this’ll be an opportunity for us to actually see that separation event. And then, the forward heat shield pulls away. We got parachutes that fire and then pull that forward heat shield away, which expose our main parachutes. And then we’ll get to actually see our parachutes deploy and billow out, as the reefers allow it to billow and see the crew module starting to float down. As we get closer to the ground, we see the base heat shield separate, which exposes our airbags, and then, as we get closer to the ground, the airbags inflate. And that entire sequence — This’ll be the first time that’s demonstrated as on-flight hardware in the air. So I’m very excited to watch all of that take place and then land under parachutes, on airbags, on land, which is the first American vehicle to do that.
Joshua Santora: Alicia, just hearing you explain that, as a spectator, it’s a fun thing to get to watch this happen successfully. And you saying all that makes me appreciate even more how involved and difficult this is. So, a huge congratulations now and for the future for you and your team. We’re excited to see this thing fly, and obviously, we’re excited for you guys to transport humans safely to and from the International Space Station sooner than later.
Alicia Evans: Thank you. Yeah, I can’t wait for this flight and our next two test flights and get into future missions.
Joshua Santora: Awesome. Alicia, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Alicia Evans: Thank you for having me.
Joshua Santora:Because Alicia got promoted to Flight Director for this test, she won’t be able to be just a spectator. But we wish her, and the entire Starliner team, good luck.
And now on the SpaceX side, here’s Benji Reed to talk their in-flight abort test. Alright, I am not actually in the booth now with Benji Reed because he is coming to us live from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. Benji, I understand you’re the Director of Crew Mission Management. Is that right?
Benji Reed: That’s right.
Joshua Santora: And can you explain kind of what exactly does that mean? I know that you work a lot with commercial crew. But what’s your function really like?
Benji Reed: So, ultimately, my job is to kind of help make sure that the contract gets executed well, that the whole mission and overall program work well, coordinating all of the great engineers that we have here at SpaceX and all the great engineers that are at NASA and make sure that they work together to ultimately get our system reviewed and certified for flight. And then, of course, doing the operations, ’cause then we have our whole operations team that works with the crew to go fly them to the station and bring them home.
Joshua Santora: Yeah, so excited. Obviously, that’s why were here today talking. You guys have your in-flight abort test coming up. And we’ll kind of explain why in a minute, but you guys lost a Crew Dragon capsule earlier this year, and throughout the course of human space exploration, we have seen a history of these kinds of, seeming like just setbacks, these difficult moments proving to make us smarter and make us better and improve our hardware. Have you really seen that happen with SpaceX over the course of the past few months?
Benji Reed: Absolutely. And I’ve seen that with SpaceX over the many years I’ve worked here. You know, Elon said the other day that if you’re not breaking things, you’re probably not testing hard enough.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Benji Reed: And so, we love to test and test and test. We don’t always like to break things. And of course, the anomaly that we had earlier this year was tough, but it has also been said a number of times it was a gift because we learned a lot. We learned a lot about our system, but we learned a lot about the nature of the materials and how these systems work in interaction. It’s actually gonna be industry-leading and help all spacecraft become safer. So, for sure, when you have problems, you jump right into them. You get a lot of data, and you get better for it.
Joshua Santora: That’s so awesome. And the reason I kind of bring that up, actually, if I understand correctly, that Crew Dragon was supposed to be the one flying on in-flight abort. Is that true? And can you kind of speak to what’s been the process in light of that, moving forward, to obviously keep charging ahead?
Benji Reed: Sure, absolutely. That was the capsule that was originally slated to be for in-flight abort. In fact, that’s why we were doing the testing was we were basically initiating the Dracos and then also the Super Draco engines on that vehicle, in a static-fire arrangement, getting ready for an in-flight abort test. And the number-one impact, of course, is, “Hey, we got to figure out what went wrong,” and we’ve done that now, and then figure out what the best way is to mitigate that anomaly and make sure it’s not gonna happen again on the future. And that’s your very first concern, of course. And then kind of a close second is, “Alright, so, what are we gonna go fly for the in-flight abort test?” The good news is that we have lots of capsules in build here all the time. And so, we had the next capsule in line, which had been originally slated for the Demo-2 test coming up soon. And then, also, other capsules beyond that. So we just shifted the whole capsule-line assignments ahead one so that what had been for Demo-2 is now gonna fly on in-flight abort. The Crew-1 operational mission will now be for Demo-2, and so on. And it was great. We were able to do that. And that’s a real testament to our production team and their ability to function.
Joshua Santora: Yeah, so cool. So, thinking about the in-flight abort test, ’cause obviously, that’s the next big one on the commercial crew path here, can you kind of talk our listeners through, like, what should they expect to see when this mission takes place? Because this is not a normal thing.
Benji Reed: Right. That’s exactly right. It is a test, number one. And it’s a test of our escape system, which we hope to never actually use.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Benji Reed: The escape system is how we, the crew away from the launch vehicle, in case something’s going wrong and we want to get them away really fast and bring them back home on parachutes safely. And, so, what you’re gonna see is it’s first gonna look a lot like a normal launch. There’s gonna be a Dragon on top of a full Falcon 9. That Falcon 9 will launch off of 39A, just like we’ve seen before, like we did on Demo-1, which just flew back here in the spring. And that launch will go off, and a little ways into flight, we’ll initiate the launch escape system. Those Super Dracos will fire. Dragon will separate from Falcon. And the dragon will move very quickly away from Falcon and then come back on parachutes. In terms of what people will be able to see, it will be probably not a lot. It depends on how clear the day is, and the weather, fundamentally.
Joshua Santora: Yeah, so, are you guys gonna be trying to return this Falcon, or are you gonna be simulating, like, a full-up, like, “Hey, we had a really bad day”?
Benji Reed: That’s a fair question. So, we’re not gonna necessarily simulate something going wrong with the Falcon, right? The goal is to say, “Well, the system has detected something’s gone wrong with Falcon, and now it’s gonna get those astronauts away safely.” That’s the simulation. So, the main thing is testing that Dragon can get away safely from the conditions that it’s in on the Falcon. However, that said, we do expect that this Falcon will break up.
Joshua Santora: Oh, wow.
Benji Reed: Falcons are designed to get us to orbit and come back home and land, but they’re not necessarily designed to, halfway through their ascent, have their payload pop off.
Joshua Santora: [ Laughs ]
Benji Reed: So we’re gonna expect to see the Falcon will probably break up at some point after Dragon initiates its escape.
Joshua Santora: And so, does this mean there’s a physical button that somebody’s gonna hit, or is this a timed activity?
Benji Reed: It is a timed activity.
Joshua Santora: Okay. And you mentioned the Dragon’s gonna come back on parachutes. Are we gonna see a recovery like we saw with Demo-1 or are we gonna see a full-on simulation of the recovery effort, as if there were people onboard?
Benji Reed: You know, that’s a great question. In fact, we’ve already had a chance to practice this. If you remember back in 2015, we did a pad-abort test, where we did the same thing, where we initiated the launch escape system on Dragon, but from the pad. And that was about four years ago. And we were able to learn a lot from that, including the recovery effort. So, that Dragon launch-escaped from the pad and then came back down into the water on parachutes, and we had our recovery team go out and pick it up. We’ll do something similar in this case, where we’ll have our recovery team and their vessels staged and ready to go. We’ll also actually have the search-and-rescue forces, who would be on call for an actual escape or an off-nominal landing, as we call it. We want to have everybody take the opportunity to practice and do a lot of what they would do kind of around this event. They won’t do the full thing. It won’t be treated as a full search-and-rescue practice mission. We’ve actually already been doing a lot of that over the last number of years. But everybody will be staged and able to exercise some of what they would do in a real situation.
Joshua Santora: That’s really cool. Will you be planning to reuse this Crew Dragon at some point?
Benji Reed: Yeah, certainly. We’ll bring it back, and the first and most important part is we’ll get all the data off of it from the test. We’ll inspect it, understand how the whole vehicle looks, and then eventually, I imagine, we’ll probably refurbish it and decide to figure out what we’d use it for.
Joshua Santora: Yeah, I’m just envisioning, like, this whole thing happening. It’s gonna be pretty awesome. I understand that the abort simulation is supposed to happen around the time of MAX-Q, or maximum dynamic pressure. Is there a reason that you guys chose that moment, and are you expecting that there’s gonna be any sort of negative impacts to the Crew Dragon as a result of that?
Benji Reed: Good question. So, no, we don’t. Part of the point of this test is to validate the Crew Dragon will withstand this test and withstand this event and, again, bring the crew home safely. In terms of the timing of it, that’s actually a really interesting point. So, it happens just a little bit after MAX-Q, and what we’ve done is we’ve looked at all of the different places where you really care about the intense forces, the intense aerodynamic forces that are going on in the vehicle. You know, there’s these different places where you could look — right at the initiation of the shutdown of the primary engines. You can look at where your parachutes are gonna deploy. Kind of, there’s this whole range of, “Well, I could test here, I could test there.” And what we’ve done is we’ve tried to optimize for the maximum opportunity across all of these different areas. So we’ve chosen a point in the timeline that kind of gives us the best representation of a tough scenario for all of those different things that can be stressed in this system. And that’s optimized so that we kind of get the biggest bang for our buck out of this test.
Joshua Santora: So, it sounds like you’re kind of saying, “This is, like, the worst-case scenario of the worst-case scenarios.” Is that a fair assessment?
Benji Reed: We try to. I don’t know if I’d quite classify it that way ’cause that often drives you to what we call the corner of a box. It’s like you take this most extreme case and you go test there, and the reality is, is that in a timeline like this, there’s a lot of corners of the box. [ Both laugh ] And instead of testing one of those corners for this test, we want to make sure that we actually get a good representation across as many areas as we can. So we’ve optimized in that way.
Joshua Santora: Okay. And you mentioned that this Crew Dragon was originally planned for Demo-2. Obviously, plans changed a little bit. So, will this Crew Dragon be fully built out? Or will it be more of, like, an essential package to test these critical systems for a launch-abort scenario?
Benji Reed: Sure. So, the vehicle is complete as far as is needed for the test. There are a few elements that aren’t installed because they’re completely unrelated to the test. For example, the docking system. As you recall, that really cool docking system that we developed and that was tested on the Demo-1 flight back in March, there’s no need to have a docking system on this particular test vehicle, right? So we’ve removed that system and have in place a mass simulator. So we get all the same forces, all the same effects of having that mass there on top, but it doesn’t need to be an actual mechanism that works. So that’s one example of something that we’ve taken off of that vehicle. But otherwise, it’s a complete Dragon.
Joshua Santora: That’s great. So, for launch day, for in-flight abort test, where will you be? Are you gonna be out here at the Kennedy Space Center, or are you gonna be on console somewhere? What’s your role that day?
Benji Reed: Oh, absolutely. I plan to be at Kennedy in Fire Room 4, where we will be running the mission. This is a launch.
Joshua Santora: Sure.
Benji Reed: And we’ve asked all of our teams to view this as a full-on mission. It doesn’t quite make it to orbit, and it’s not a long-duration Dragon mission, but it is a mission. We are launching a rocket. And something very exciting is happening with the payload halfway through that ascent. So, we’re treating this as a full-on launch. We’ll be in the firing room, and I’ll be out there at Kennedy, just as I was when we did that pad-abort test back in 2015, and as were there for Demo-1. And in fact, I’ll be out at Kennedy next week. We get to come out there a lot, and we have a strong team that’s resident there, and a lot of my folks get to go there a lot. Right now, in fact, down at Kennedy, our teams — our integration teams are just going gangbusters working on the Dragon, both, of course, the in-flight abort Dragon. They’re getting ready for that to move into our static fire test. And they’re also getting ready for upcoming CRS Dragon missions — Cargo Dragon missions. So, our work, both at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as well as at Kennedy, is constantly ongoing.
Joshua Santora: Yeah, it never seems to stop. Obviously, you guys have a high rate of launch here. That’s great. I know for Demo-1, I believe you guys had a — And you’ll have to forgive me. I’m blanking on the technical term. You had a dummy onboard that’s quite smart — Ripley, I believe? Are you doing anything like that for in-flight abort?
Benji Reed: That’s right. We did. We did. We had Ripley onboard for Demo-1, which allowed us to gather a lot of data. And we’re doing similar data gathering for the in-flight abort test. We have a lot of sensors in place. We have a lot of sensors of what the crew would see and feel. So we’re doing a similar process where we gather data.
Joshua Santora: And I know this whole test is definitely a part of getting to that point where we have that confidence in sending crew aboard Crew Dragon. So, what are some of the things, kind of the highlights, of the challenges of going from Demo-1 to Demo-2, other than, obviously, this test?
Benji Reed: Absolutely. the biggest thing, of course, is building out the vehicle as a first step. I’d say that of equal priority and importance is having the crew ready to go and our ground teams ready to go in terms of training. We need to make sure that all of our qualification testing has been complete. And then finally, make sure that all of our certification is complete. So you kind of have to build the whole system that’s gonna launch us there. There’s the Falcon and the Dragon and the ground systems. And then there’s having all of that tested and complete. There’s having all of the operations teams ready to go, the crew themselves ready to go, all of that operations, procedures, and practice and training in place. And then there’s the certification of the whole thing — the hardware, the software, and all of that operations ready to go. So it’s been a lot of work to complete that process, but the good news is that we had a ton of it done leading up to Demo-1.
Joshua Santora: Obviously, you guys have a series of missions that you’re on contract for as part of a commercial crew for missions to the space station, but what’s life for Crew Dragon beyond that? I’m assuming that there’s more to it than that with SpaceX’s goals and missions.
Benji Reed: Absolutely. The point of the commercial crew program from NASA, itself, is to help foster commercialization of low-Earth orbit, and that’s part of this program. And, so, the ultimate goal is that we can take all of these great assets that we’ve developed and start to put together a commercial access to space for private passengers and commercial passengers and whatnot. And we are already having conversations along those lines to look for those kinds of missions.
Joshua Santora: Awesome. Yeah, so, thinking about our listeners, Benji, is there anything else you want to kind of leave them with? Obviously, an exciting year ahead of us, but I’ll kind of let you have the last word here.
Benji Reed: Great! First of all, I appreciate the time and I appreciate the opportunity to be on your podcast. And just keep your eyes wide open. It’s gonna be an exciting next few months coming up.
Joshua Santora: Cool. Benji Reed, Director of Crew Mission Management for SpaceX. Thanks so much, Benji.
Benji Reed: Thank you.
Joshua Santora: I’m Joshua Santora, and that’s our show. Thanks for stopping by the “Rocket Ranch.” Special thanks to our guests Jon Cowart, Alicia Evans, and Benji Reed. To learn more about the commercial crew program, visit nasa.gov/commercialcrew. And to learn more about everything going on at the Kennedy Space Center, go to nasa.gov/kennedy. Check out NASA’s other podcasts to learn more about what’s happening at all of our centers at nasa.gov/podcasts. A special shout-out to our producer, John Sackman, our sound engineers, Michelle Stone and Lorne Mathre, editor, Michelle Stone, and special thanks to Stephanie Martin, Tori McLendon, Marie Lewis, Jen Wolfinger, Jessica Landa, and Eva Behrend.
And remember, on the “Rocket Ranch,” even the sky isn’t the limit.