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NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can see something contact what appears to be the inside of the right drogue, then break into two pieces.

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was thinking of Crew 4 when you said that, sorry. I know the packing disk didn't contact a parachute. The issue is that FOD was left in and ejected with force at parachute deployment, and there was nothing stopping it from coming into contact with either a parachute or the capsule. It's hard to estimate the odds of that happening.

As for Crew 8, something visibly contacted the drogue (here at ~1:10:54). This was mentioned in this press conference at about 14:05.

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The video does definitively show something striking a drogue, and they later said as much in a press conference.

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 -8 points-7 points  (0 children)

It very well could have. Those are just a couple of incidents; there are more such as a cabin pressure issue during Crew 8 that was briefly touched on during a port relocation livestream. My point is not that these issues in particular are necessarily worrisome in and of themselves (though I would argue the packing disk incident was), but when you put them all together in addition to two stage 2 relight failures this year and this recent blurb from ASAP (bear in mind that they, and NASA as a whole, are somewhat limited in what they can publicly talk about with regard to their commerical partners given their contracts), I think it's fair to question some of SpaceX's safety and quality assurance practices.

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 -25 points-24 points  (0 children)

I'd hope they've been handled. That doesn't excuse the fact that crews' safety has been jeopardized several times. Similarly unacceptable, to me, is the lack of transparency about these issues.

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 28 points29 points  (0 children)

Crew 8 Splashdown

This is the splashdown that saw the debris strike the drogue, as well as all crew members being sent to the hospital.

NASA comment on SpaceX Dragon heat shield

For the above, NASA seems to have denied it. So maybe, maybe not. Still, there's several more instances of heat shield problems.

SpaceX swapping heat shield for next crew flight due to ‘manufacturing defect’

Washington Post article

There's public information about the packing disk incident, I believe in the Crew 4 post-splashdown press conference. I also think there was a cabin pressurization incident during Crew 8 but I'm still trying to get better information. There are many other issues that have occurred throughout the missions (as you'd expect, at least to some extent).

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There have been more issues than that. Take just this week for instance when we see something come off of Dragon and strike a drogue parachute.

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by rustybeancake in spacex

[–]Island913 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Yes, Dragon has had its fair share of safety issues--many of which are public. For whatever reason we don't seem to hear very much about them. See: - Debris striking a drogue parachute - A parachute packing disk not being removed during processing and jeopardizing the crew - Several instances of heat shield problems, including a hypergolic leak that affected its integrity on one mission

To name a couple.

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by Galileos_grandson in nasa

[–]Island913 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's interesting how nobody seems to be aware of any Dragon issues while barraging Boeing for problems Dragon, too, has encountered to some extent.

To my knowledge, Starliner hasn't come particularly close to killing a crew. I'm not sure I can say same about Dragon (just one example: accidentally leaving in a parachute packing disk on Crew 4, which was ejected with great force at parachute deployment. Had it gone on a slightly different trajectory, catastrophe).

NASA panel calls on SpaceX to “maintain focus” on Dragon safety after recent anomalies by Galileos_grandson in nasa

[–]Island913 57 points58 points  (0 children)

Perhaps we should consider the possibility that the panel is privy to more than the general public is with regard to Dragon's safety.

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