According to Florida Today, beachgoers across from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station could see the huge plume of smoke that emanated from the area, a possible indication something had gone wrong. But officials with the 45th Space Wing based at the Air Force station said there were no injuries resulting from the anomaly and everything was under control.
There were very few details available, however, SpaceX did release a statement to Space News. In the statement, SpaceX said an “anomaly” occurred during static fire tests of its abort engines on the Crew Dragon spacecraft.
“Earlier today, SpaceX conducted a series of engine tests on a Crew Dragon test vehicle on our test stand at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral, Florida,” the spokesperson said in a statement to SpaceNews. “The initial tests completed successfully but the final test resulted in an anomaly on the test stand.”
“Ensuring that our systems meet rigorous safety standards and detecting anomalies like this prior to flight are the main reasons why we test,” the spokesperson added. “Our teams are investigating and working closely with our NASA partners.”
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement posted to Twitter: “The NASA and SpaceX teams are assessing the anomaly that occurred today during a part of the Dragon Super Draco Static Fire Test at SpaceX Landing Zone 1 in Florida.” He added, “This is why we test. We will learn, make the necessary adjustments and safely move forward with our Commercial Crew Program.”
SuperDraco Rocket Engine
SuperDraco is a hypergolic propellant liquid rocket engine designed and built by SpaceX. A hypergolic propellant combination is one whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. SpaceX’s SuperDraco engines use a storable non-cryogenic propellant which allows the engines to be fired many months after fueling and launch.
The storable propellant mixture consists of monomethylhydrazine fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide – an oxidizer. They are capable of being restarted many times and have the capability to deeply reduce their thrust providing precise control during propulsive landing of the Dragon capsule.
SuperDraco is designed to be highly throttleable, from 100 to 20 percent of full thrust. This is used for precision controllable propulsive landings of the Dragon V2 spacecraft. April 20, 2019, was to be the next test of the SuperDraco engines at Landing Zone 1. it is very possible the Crew Dragon capsule was destroyed in that test that went wrong.
Needless to say, this is a setback for SpaceX and NASA in that it could derail plans to fly astronauts aboard the capsule later this year. Crew Dragon was scheduled to perform a test of its emergency abort system in June. The first crewed mission was scheduled for July this year.
