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Interesting pics now that the first Dragon flight has been tentatively set for November 29th.
Heat shield in finished trim
And here's SpaceX's Elon Musk next to the business end of the Falcon 9 booster that will launch Dragons, both cargo and crewed.
That'll be one helluva candle to ride up to orbit.
It's been an incredibly busy year so far at SpaceX and we continue to move full steam ahead. Of particular note are recent developments with respect to the Dragon spacecraft.
The image below shows the first joining of a full flight fidelity Dragon capsule and trunk section earlier this year on the manufacturing floor at our Hawthorne headquarters.
Standing over 23 feet tall in flight configuration, the stack included the Dragon qualification capsule and first flight trunk section, topped off with the carbon composite nose cap. The cap protects the spacecraft's common berthing mechanism ring, which enables it to join securely to the ISS, so that astronauts can access the interior of the capsule.
The image below shows the first joining of a full flight fidelity Dragon capsule and trunk section earlier this year on the manufacturing floor at our Hawthorne headquarters.
Standing over 23 feet tall in flight configuration, the stack included the Dragon qualification capsule and first flight trunk section, topped off with the carbon composite nose cap. The cap protects the spacecraft's common berthing mechanism ring, which enables it to join securely to the ISS, so that astronauts can access the interior of the capsule.
The engineering heat shield shown above has precisely machined test tiles fitted into place in their flight configuration. With 17 Dragon flights presently on our manifest, our PICA-X lab is operating non-stop to meet all our mission needs. SpaceX has come a long way since starting out in 2002 — all the way to Earth orbit. Our team now numbers over 700 and we're still hiring.
And here's SpaceX's Elon Musk next to the business end of the Falcon 9 booster that will launch Dragons, both cargo and crewed.
That'll be one helluva candle to ride up to orbit.