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The big news in this update is confirmation that while Dragon will touchdown on water during early flights later ones will come down on land.
To accomplish this the Dragon fleet will be modded with a new series of high-thrust engines that will share the 1290kg of hypergolic fuels used for long duration DragonLab missions. These will be dual-purpose engines, serving as landing engines normally but also as a launch escape system if need be - a prerequisite to crewed flights.
To facilitate land touchdowns Dragon will also be getting landing gear, and very likely will come down tail-first as in the 50's movies. The chutes will slow it to ~13mph, then a few meters from touchdown the engines will fire, the chutes disengage and the gear deploy for a soft, upright landing.
Now for the pretty pictures:
SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California. Makes NASA's look more than a bit dated. This is what happens when you don't need a drawn-out bid system & can get whatever you want.
Wet dress rehersal - tanks filled, practice countdown etc. Next comes a few second long hotfire.
Falcon 9-flt2/Dragon COTS-1 final integration. Big maw on those Merlins.
Dragon & its cargo Trunk on the breakover fixture (rotating gantry)
Dragon spacecraft showing its PICA-X heat shield. See that opening? Guesses are thatz's an opening for either the landing engines or landing gear. My money's on the engines. A PICA-X cover would blow off before either is engaged.
Even with Dragon's cargo storage system installed there's plenty of room inside.�*
Astronauts Akihiko Hoshide (Japan) and NASA's Sunita Williams in front of the Dragon engineering sample.
Pressure hull for Dragon COTS-2 under construction. If COTS-1 and the early part of COTS-2 go well this Dragon could be cleared to also do the COTS-3 mission - docking at the ISS.
To accomplish this the Dragon fleet will be modded with a new series of high-thrust engines that will share the 1290kg of hypergolic fuels used for long duration DragonLab missions. These will be dual-purpose engines, serving as landing engines normally but also as a launch escape system if need be - a prerequisite to crewed flights.
To facilitate land touchdowns Dragon will also be getting landing gear, and very likely will come down tail-first as in the 50's movies. The chutes will slow it to ~13mph, then a few meters from touchdown the engines will fire, the chutes disengage and the gear deploy for a soft, upright landing.
Now for the pretty pictures:
SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California. Makes NASA's look more than a bit dated. This is what happens when you don't need a drawn-out bid system & can get whatever you want.
Wet dress rehersal - tanks filled, practice countdown etc. Next comes a few second long hotfire.
Falcon 9-flt2/Dragon COTS-1 final integration. Big maw on those Merlins.
Dragon & its cargo Trunk on the breakover fixture (rotating gantry)
Dragon spacecraft showing its PICA-X heat shield. See that opening? Guesses are thatz's an opening for either the landing engines or landing gear. My money's on the engines. A PICA-X cover would blow off before either is engaged.
Even with Dragon's cargo storage system installed there's plenty of room inside.�*
Astronauts Akihiko Hoshide (Japan) and NASA's Sunita Williams in front of the Dragon engineering sample.
Pressure hull for Dragon COTS-2 under construction. If COTS-1 and the early part of COTS-2 go well this Dragon could be cleared to also do the COTS-3 mission - docking at the ISS.