launch site

15:22 May 30th Eastern Time The Falcon 9 rocket was launched from NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley ’s manned dragon spacecraft and fired from the 39A launch pad of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. . After 12 minutes, the spacecraft successfully entered low-Earth orbit, heading towards the International Space Station.

Established 18 years ago, SpaceX achieved its first manned flight. The Dragon spacecraft became the successor to the Soviet Union spacecraft, the American Mercury spacecraft, the Soviet Ascend spacecraft, the American Gemini spacecraft, After the Soviet Union spacecraft, the American Apollo spacecraft, the American space shuttle, and the Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft, the 9th manned spacecraft in human history.

Why can SpaceX succeed while exploding and going to heaven? Pang Zhihao, the chief scientific communication expert of the nation’s space exploration technology, told Peng Mei News (www.thepaper.cn) that from the technical route, the dragon spacecraft “carried two fishes” from freight to manned, taking both money and technology into consideration. route. SpaceX’s success is inseparable from NASA’s contribution and contribution. In addition, in addition to high management efficiency, commercial companies dare to use advanced technology and are not afraid of failure.


“One fish, two eats” makes money and technology is correct

Dragon spacecraft successfully orbiting and eventually returning safely will not only mean the United States The key to restarting manned spaceflight is also to open a new era of commercial manned spaceflight.

Despite the twists and turns of the process, the reason why SpaceX can achieve the first successful manned flight of the Dragon spacecraft, Pang Zhihao, chief scientific communication expert of national space exploration technology, believes that one of the important reasons is ” From freight to manned, one fish and two meals “, taking into account the money and technology, taking the right route.

On the one hand, SpaceX makes money from the Long cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, and on the other hand, it masters the key technology of transportation between the world and the earth. On this basis, SpaceX changed the cargo cabin of the spacecraft into a manned cabin, which has gained technical experience and is cheap.


Bob Benken, 49, and Doug Hurley, 53, were both selected by NASA in 2000.

The manned dragon spacecraft is SpaceX ’s new generation spacecraft, used to send humans to the International Space Station and other destinations. In 2012, the Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the space station, but the Dragon spacecraft was designed to carry people from the beginning.

Both the manned dragon spacecraft and the dragon cargo spacecraft use a two-cabin design. The “Manned Dragon” is composed of two parts: the crew cabin and the unsealed cabin. The Dragon cargo ship is composed of the cargo cabin and the unsealed cabin.

Pang Zhihao introduced that in order to ensure that the Dragon spacecraft is quickly converted from the cargo compartment to the passenger compartment, in addition to the crew escape system, life support system and allowing the crew to use the flight computer to control the shipboard control system Except for the ad hoc system related to manning, the crew cabin of the manned dragon spacecraft and the cargo cabin of the dragon cargo spacecraft are almost the same in structure.


NASA contributes money and projects, commercial companies contract

SpaceX ’s success is inseparable from NASA ’s money and effort. “The funds are directly invested, the launch pad is cheap to use, make money for the freight project, and return to the technical support. If the enterprise has a technical failure, NASA will send experts to guide.” Pang Zhihao said.

“The United States develops commercial manned spaceflight just to be cheap.” In the past, spaceflight was invested by the state and the cost was very high. The near-Earth orbit of the world is handed over to commercial companies for contracting, one is because the technology is relatively mature, and the other is commercialThe company will also take various measures to reduce costs. This business model of using official contracting and contracting by the launcher will save NASA about $ 20 billion to $ 30 billion.

In order to support the development of commercial manned spaceflight, in 2014, Boeing and SpaceX respectively obtained large contracts of 4.2 billion and 2.6 billion US dollars from NASA for construction. “Interstellar passenger aircraft” manned spacecraft and manned dragon spacecraft. In fact, after the big contract in 2014, NASA successively increased capital for the two companies.

At the same time, “commercial companies can tap talents from large enterprises and talents can flow freely.” SpaceX’s main technical backbone comes from traditional aerospace companies and Silicon Valley information technology companies. Also from NASA.


NASA Director and astronauts take a selfie

Head of NASA ’s Manned Space Program William Gerstenmaier joined SpaceX before the first manned flight of the Dragon spacecraft and worked at SpaceX ’s headquarters in California to escort the project. Gerstenmaier has worked at NASA for 40 years and is regarded as one of the world’s top experts in the field of manned spaceflight.

To keep the team innovative, SpaceX has been trying to streamline the organizational structure, omit more specifications, and eliminate unnecessary process management. Huang Zhicheng, an aerodynamicist and aerospace technology expert, said that the flat management not only stimulated the innovation enthusiasm of scientific and technological personnel, ensured the efficiency of the entire R & D work team, but also greatly saved management costs.


Try new technology and allow failure

“Private companies have many advantages. In addition to high management efficiency, they dare to use advanced technology and are not afraid of failure.” Pang Zhihao believes, “Whether it ’s SpaceX ’s rocket or spacecraft,It uses advanced technology that dare not dare to adopt, advanced, cheap and reliable. ”

The Falcon 9 rocket has high reliability and the world ’s first- and second-stage engine efficiency. Although the two-stage rocket connected in series is not thick, the diameter 3.7 meters, but the thrust of the near-Earth orbit reaches 22.8 tons. The first-stage rocket has 9 engines, and one of them can also fly reliably if there is a problem.


Manned Dragon Spacecraft

SpaceX rockets and spacecraft use reusable technology, Recycle into normal. The new launch escape system used in the manned dragon spacecraft does not use an escape tower, but uses its own equipped super dragon engine system to launch and escape, allowing the arrows to separate.

The four sides of the spacecraft are equipped with propeller pods, each pod is equipped with two Super Draco engines, which are mutually backup. Among the four groups of eight engines, any one of them will not have a significant impact on the spacecraft.

The manned first flight of the Dragon spacecraft succeeded, Musk said, “This is the dream of me and everyone at SpaceX.” And just one day before the launch of the manned Dragon spacecraft , SpaceX used to perform deep space missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond, and failed to develop.

A prototype SN4 that experienced multiple static ignitions exploded in Boca Chica, Texas, USA. This is SpaceX’s fourth prototype destroyed in the test in more than six months.

But the prototype is used for experimentation. SpaceX is already developing more “Starship” prototypes. Some observers have seen SpaceX carrying out SN5 and SN6 related work and the initial hardware of SN7 in Boca Chica.

Musk also revealed on Twitter that since SN1, each generationThe prototype opportunity has a little improvement, at least iterate to SN20, and finally realize Starship V1.0.

“Musk has failed many times, but he dared to try new technologies and eventually succeeded.” Pang Zhihao said that a large account must be calculated to allow the aerospace enterprise to fail.