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| Credits: NASA |
The propulsion division of SpaceX has performed another important test. After the test of the Falcon 9’s first stage Merlin engines, the smallest engine of the SpaceX family, Draco, has been put to test.
During the test, the thruster fired for ten minutes, paused for ten minutes, and then was restarted for an additional minute.
The test was performed on a new vacuum test stand built by SpaceX, and put into operation in March 2008 at the SpaceX Test Facility outside McGregor, Texas.
“Draco performed perfectly during the entire test, with expected temperatures and excellent performance,” said David Giger, Propulsion Manager, SpaceX. “We also broke the SpaceX record for longest continuous burn previously held by Kestrel, the Falcon 1 second stage engine.”
The Dragon spacecraft uses eighteen Draco thrusters for orbital maneuvering, attitude control, and to initiate the atmospheric re-entry. Each Draco thruster can deliver up to 400N of force. The thruster is powered by a combination of mono methyl hydrazine (MMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), which is the same bipropellant used by the orbital maneuvering system (OMS) of the Space Shuttle.
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| Credits: NASA |
MMH and NTO are used as propellants because they have long on-orbit lifetimes. This will allow the Dragon spacecraft to perform longer missions to the International Space Station (ISS). The goal is to use the spacecraft as an emergency escape capsule for the crew working on the ISS.
SpaceX has released a video of the Draco thruster vacuum firing.
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One of the OrbitalHub readers on Slashdot pointed out that there is a good article about the manufacturing process used by Space Exploration Technologies on The Fabricator web site.
[…] SpaceX has successfully tested its Draco engines. The Draco engines will be part of the Draco spacecraft. Read more. […]
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