SpaceX Tests SuperDraco Engines That Will Actually Land Crew Back To Earth

SpaceX definitely doesn't lack ambition, or things to test. Barely a week after it nearly succeeded, but still failed, to land a Falcon 9 rocket on a sea platform, it is firing up rockets again, but this time for an even more experimental, and luckily less explosive, test. This time, it is the SuperDraco engines that are being put to the test, along with the software and other systems that would eventually allow a Crew Dragon spacecraft, carrying humans inside, to have a nice, soft landing back to earth.

If you thought landing the first stage of an orbital rocket back to Earth was difficult enough, wait until you need to also land a spacecraft carrying delicate humans inside. That seemingly daunting task is, of course, part of SpaceX's dream and mission, to make space exploration and space travel more economical and even enjoyable.

Of course, we've already had people land back from space for ages now and SpaceX is no stranger to that either. In all cases, however, it involved landing the spacecraft beneath parachutes, which aren't exactly the most reliable safety mechanisms on the planet. But without alternatives, they have to do.

SpaceX's SuperDraco engines are the proposed alternatives. Eight of these thrusters will be installed on a Crew Dragon and then will fire off to slow the descent of the spacecraft as it reenters the Earth's atmosphere. Eventually, it would replace those parachute landings.

Unlike with the Falcon 9, however, the testing of SuperDraco engines are still in the early stages, with a Crew Dragon safely tethered to a crane. SpaceX's NASA missions that will use the Crew Dragon will still use the parachutes to land safely on the ocean until the technology is ready to be tested in the field.

SOURCE: NASA