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Dragon can now use SuperDracos if parachutes fail (www.youtube.com)

submitted 1 month ago by ptfrd@sh.itjust.works to c/spacex@sh.itjust.works

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Steve Stich states at today's Crew-9 news conference that Dragon has a new contingency capability if all 4 parachutes fail; the SuperDracos will ignite prior to splashdown.

The Crew-8 return to Earth will also have this capability.

(He said this about 20 minutes after the start of the stream.)

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[–] ptfrd@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

At 52:05, Stephen Clark asked about this. The start of Gerst's answer is:

We've actually flown it on several other dragon flights before this. This is the first time it flies on a NASA mission.

So, perhaps Inspiration 4? Presumably Polaris Dawn? And I guess the Axiom missions are being counted as non-NASA in this context, so some of those?

Before doing something like this I think you should ensure that it reduces the overall risk to the crew. So you'd need to have an estimate of how likely it is that all the parachutes fail, and how likely it is that the SuperDracos could save lives in that situation, but also an estimate of how likely this capability is to go wrong. For example, could there be a bug in the software or in some sensor(s), that causes the SuperDracos to fire when they weren't needed? Would the SuperDracos otherwise be in an inactive state during re-entry, and if so, what are the risks of having them active? Etc..

Those 2 sentences from Gerstenmaier suggest to me that SpaceX had already decided that, on balance, this capability should be enabled. Whereas NASA have only just reached that conclusion.