The Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test (also known as Crew Dragon Launch Escape Demonstration
) was a successful test of the
SpaceX Dragon 2
Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...
abort system, conducted on 19 January 2020. It was the final assessment for the Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 launch system before they would be
certified to carry humans into space.
Booster B1046.4 and an uncrewed
capsule C205 were launched from
Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) on a
suborbital
A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will no ...
trajectory, followed by an in-flight abort of the capsule at
max Q and supersonic speed. The test was carried out successfully: the capsule pulled itself away from the booster after launch control commanded the abort, and landed safely.
Background
For the
Commercial Crew Program
The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides Private spaceflight, commercially operated human spaceflight, crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between t ...
, NASA requires participating companies to include and test a
launch escape system
A launch escape system (LES) or launch abort system (LAS) is a crew-safety system connected to a space capsule. It is used in the event of a critical emergency to quickly separate the capsule from its launch vehicle in case of an emergency requiri ...
in their crew-carrying vehicles.
Prior to this, the last time American crewed spaceflight implemented the capability to escape a rocket during an emergency or anomaly was on the
Saturn IB
The Saturn IB (also known as the uprated Saturn I) was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage (, 43,3 ...
launch vehicle during
Skylab
Skylab was the United States' first space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three trios of astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Skylab was constructe ...
missions and
Apollo-Soyuz. The Saturn's successor, the
Space Shuttle
The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...
, had no system to eject the crew compartment from the rest of the spacecraft and launch stack at any time after two-person test flights had ended, and had
limited launch abort options. The Space Shuttle program had fourteen astronaut casualties during its 30-year duration, half of which occurred when
a booster rocket failed during ascent. NASA heavily emphasized crew safety during successor programs.
The need for an effective launch escape system was further amplified by the launch failure of
Soyuz MS-10
Soyuz MS-10 was a crewed Soyuz MS spaceflight that aborted shortly after launch on 11 October 2018 due to a failure of the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle boosters. MS-10 was the 139th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. It was intended to transport two mem ...
in 2018,
during which American astronaut
Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut
Alexey Ovchinin had their lives saved by the rocket's abort system.

The SpaceX in-flight abort test was envisioned as a separation and abort scenario in the
troposphere
The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth. It contains 80% of the total mass of the Atmosphere, planetary atmosphere and 99% of the total mass of water vapor and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. From the ...
at
transonic
Transonic (or transsonic) flow is air flowing around an object at a speed that generates regions of both subsonic and Supersonic speed, supersonic airflow around that object. The exact range of speeds depends on the object's critical Mach numb ...
velocities during
max Q, where the vehicle experiences maximum aerodynamic pressure.
Dragon 2
Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which cons ...
would use its
SuperDraco abort engines to push itself away from the
Falcon 9
Falcon 9 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. The first Falcon 9 launch was on June 4, 2010, an ...
after an intentional premature engine cutoff. The vehicle would reorient, deploy parachutes and soft-land in the Atlantic Ocean. Earlier, this test had been scheduled before the uncrewed orbital test,
however, SpaceX and NASA considered it safer to use a capsule capable of spaceflight rather than the
test article from the pad abort test.
[ ] The flight would have launched from
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Vandenberg may refer to:
* Vandenberg (surname), including a list of people with the name
* USNS ''General Hoyt S. Vandenberg'' (T-AGM-10), transport ship in the United States Navy, sank as an artificial reef in Key West, Florida
* Vandenberg S ...
SLC-4E
Space Launch Complex 4 (SLC-4) is a launch and landing site at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, U.S. It has two pads, both of which are used by SpaceX for Falcon 9, one for launch operations, and the other as Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) for S ...
on board a modified three-engine Falcon 9, which was possibly
F9R Dev2.
After the change of plan, the test would have used the
C204 capsule, which successfully flew
Demo-1, however, C204 was destroyed in an explosion during a static fire test on 20 April 2019.
Capsule C205, originally planned for
Demo-2, replaced C204 in the In-Flight Abort Test;
C206 was subsequently used for
Demo-2.
The capsule was fitted with sensors on its seats, which measured the forces exerted on the crew if they would go through a Dragon launch abort.
NASA and SpaceX also decided to test the newly developed Mark 3
parachute system for Dragon this flight, as they deemed it much safer to use for crewed missions than the then-operational Mark 2.
The Dragon escape test was to be a full-scale simulation conducted on a previously flown Falcon 9. Originally, the flight-proven first stage chosen to be used for the test was
B1048, but it was eventually decided to be
B1046, the first of the human-rated
Falcon 9 Block 5
Falcon 9 Block 5 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable, human-rating certification, human-rated, two-stage-to-orbit, medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. I ...
boosters to be built and flown. The launch stack included a fully loaded second stage with a dummy weight instead of a functional vacuum engine.
As the flight was the final test before SpaceX and NASA were to fly crew to the
International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...
, it was used by all parties involved to practice various procedures surrounding the launch and abort.
Prior to the actual abort test, NASA and SpaceX conducted an all-in simulation of events leading up to an actual crew launch, including crew suit-up and travel to the pad.
For this test, preparing recovery vessels and personnel for emergency and contingency situations was deemed particularly important.
After delaying because of weather and visibility issues, Falcon 9 lifted off at 15:30:00UTC, at
Kennedy Space Center
The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...
from
LC-39A
Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) is the first of Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39, Launch Complex 39's three launch pads, located at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The pad, along with Launch Complex 39B, was built in t ...
, on January 19, 2020.
Mission
The abort test was a full simulation of a malfunction on a nominal trajectory to the International Space Station.
The abort was triggered by a command from ground control. At T+1:25 minutes, the booster engines shut down and the capsule separated itself from the booster. The abort was triggered at a speed of Mach 2.2. Dragon flew approximately away from Falcon within a few seconds and experienced a maximum acceleration force of around 3.5 Gs.
[.]
As expected,
the rocket disintegrated into a fireball after its blunt end was exposed to the supersonic airstream following the escape of Dragon; as a result, the booster began tumbling and its propellant tanks gave way. The second stage was seen breaking apart from the booster in one piece, and it remained so until it impacted the ocean and exploded.
The capsule followed its suborbital trajectory to an
apogee
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values.
Apsides perta ...
of around 138.000 ft (42 km), and jettisoned its trunk and fins into the ocean before positioning itself for descent and successfully deploying both drogue chutes and all four main parachutes. All major functions to be performed during abort were executed without anomalies. Capsule C205 splashed down at 15:38:54UTC just off the
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
coast in the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
. The capsule's unpressurized trunk section survived reentry and was recovered by ''
GO Searcher
MV ''Megan'', formerly known as MV ''GO Searcher'', is one of SpaceX's two Dragon capsule recovery vessels. Owned by SpaceX through Falcon Landing LLC (which also owns SpaceX's fairing recovery vessels and Elon Musk's private jet), this vessel ...
'' in more or less intact condition, being the only Dragon trunk to survive a reentry and to be recovered successfully.
See also
*
Little Joe II
Little Joe II was an American rocket used from 1963 to 1966 for five uncrewed tests of the Apollo spacecraft launch escape system (LES), and to verify the performance of the command module parachute recovery system in abort mode. It was name ...
*
Mercury-Atlas 3
Mercury-Atlas 3 (MA-3) was an unmanned spaceflight of the Mercury program. It was launched unmanned on April 25, 1961 at 16:15 UTC, from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Mercury capsule contained a robotic "mechanical astronaut ...
*
Crew Dragon Pad Abort Test
*
Orion Pad Abort 1 and
Ascent Abort 2
*
Boeing Pad Abort Test
*
Soyuz abort modes
*
TV-D1
References
{{Dragon spaceflights
SpaceX Dragon 2
Test spaceflights
2020 in spaceflight
January 2020 in the United States
Flight abort
Successful space missions