SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon capsule will test its optimized toilet technology when it first launches this weekend.
The spacecraft, called Endurance by a crew of four astronauts, is scheduled to launch on Sunday morning (October 31), marking the launch of SpaceX. Crew mission 3 to the International Space Station for NASA.
Endurance is different from the other two SpaceX names crew kite Capsules in a small but important way – it has a redesigned toilet system to prevent this from happening Urine leak in space.
Live update: SpaceX Crew 3 mission to the space station for NASA
Such a leak happened on the last Crew Dragon flight Inspirasi4which sent billionaire Jared Isaacman and three other private individuals into orbit with the Resilience capsule last month. Post-landing inspections revealed that the hose attached to the toilet tank was detached during the three-day flight.
An unmounted hose “allows urine not to enter the storage tank, but essentially to the fan system,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of Build and Flight Reliability at SpaceXsaid in a press conference on Monday (25/10) after the flight readiness check (FRR) of Crew-3 was completed.
After this revelation, SpaceX and NASA wondered if the issues were similar Crew mission 2which arrived at the space station in April and is scheduled for completion next week. So astronauts in the lab orbiting Endeavor examined the Crew Dragon used for Crew-2 and found some signs of urine leakage in this capsule as well, Gerstenmaier said.
Leaks don’t seem like a big deal. The two crew that flew the capsule saw no problems during their flight, and analysis shows that Endeavor did not suffer the corrosion damage that could make it difficult to return to Earth, said Gerstenmaier (although there is still more needed here to be done on the ground to fix it). support this last conclusion).
However, SpaceX decided to take precautions before the next astronaut flight, as urine leakage should generally be avoided.
“At Crew-3 we fixed this problem in the tank by essentially creating a completely welded structure with no more loose and loose joints,” says Gerstenmaier.
NASA is still reviewing these changes, although they are likely to be approved.
“We looked back well today,” said Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager, during a post-FRR press conference on Monday. “Today there are no surprises. Everyone came today with an understanding of the mission and an understanding of the work that needed to be done.”
SpaceX has a multi-billion dollar contract with NASA to transport agency astronauts to and from the space station with Crew Dragon and company staff. Falcon 9 Rocket. As the name suggests, Crew-3 will be SpaceX’s third operational mission under this agreement. The company also launched a two-month manned test flight to an orbiting lab called Demo-2 in summer 2020.
Boeing has a similar contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The space giant hasn’t flown astronauts yet; its Starliner capsule must first complete an unmanned test flight to the space station. Starliner completed this mission in December 2019, but suffered some glitches and was stranded in the wrong orbit. Boeing is preparing for trial number two in first half of 2022.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about finding extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @spacedotcom or Facebook.
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