SpaceX DragonFly

Launch data: Launch date  24 Nov 2015 (hover test) Launch site  CC Launch vehicle   - Mission

SpaceX DragonFly performing a hover test in McGregor, Texas.. Credit: SpaceX

Spacecraft data:

Mission details:

• The SpaceX DragonFly was a prototype suborbital rocket-powered test vehicle for a propulsively-landed version of the SpaceX Dragon 2.
• DragonFly underwent testing in Texas at the McGregor Rocket Test Facility in October 2015. However, the development eventually ceased as the verification burden imposed by NASA was too great to justify it.

Mission details:

• On 24 November 2015, SpaceX conducted a test of Dragon 2′s hovering abilities at the firm′s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. In a video, the spacecraft is shown suspended by a hoisting cable and igniting its SuperDraco engines to hover for about 5 seconds, balancing on its 8 engines firing at reduced thrust to compensate exactly for gravity. The test vehicle was the same capsule that performed the pad abort test earlier in 2015; it was nicknamed DragonFly
• The DragonFly test vehicle is powered by eight SuperDraco hypergolic rocket engines, arranged in a redundant pattern to support fault-tolerance in the propulsion system design. SuperDracos use a storable propellant combination of monomethyl hydrazine (MMH) fuel and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer (NTO), the same propellants used in the much smaller Draco thrusters used for attitude control and maneuvering on the first-generation Dragon spacecraft. While SuperDraco engines are capable of 73,000 newtons (16,400 lbf) of thrust, during use on DragonFly flight test vehicle each will be throttled to less than 68,170 newtons (15,325 lbf) to maintain vehicle stability.