SpaceX, NASA Share Why They Were Confident To Fly Crew Despite Cracked Seal
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After a successful on time liftoff of the Crew-8 mission late night yesterday in Florida, managers from NASA and SpaceX shared more details about the problems their teams had to work with to ensure that the Crew Dragon was clear for launch. Before liftoff, SpaceX engineers discovered that a coating on the Dragon spacecraft had a crack, and they, along with NASA engineers, had to ensure that the cracks did not pose a risk to the crew before the rocket could launch.
The go ahead for launch was given roughly ten minutes before liftoff, and according to NASA's Steve Stich and SpaceX's Sarah Walker, data from previous experiments and other calculations confirmed that the material would expand during reentry and seal the crack.
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SpaceX, NASA Teams Independently Reached Conclusion That Dragon Was Clear For Lift Off
As part of her prepared remarks, SpaceX's Walker explained that during closeout photographic checks roughly 45 minutes before launch, engineers discovered that the upper section of the coating around the hatch's seal had a 'defect.'
According to her:
The SpaceX official later added that the RTV (room temperature vulcanized) coating is applied each time a Dragon takes a crew to space, leading SpaceX to conclude that the defect was due to the application process. In response to a question, NASA's Stich shared that the agency has full authority all times during the countdown process to abort a launch if it feels that any criteria are being violated. According to him, the final poll for the launch for NASA's approval came five minutes before to launch.
The seal was on the leeward side of the Crew Dragon, and Stich added that engineers studied the effects of heating in the top part of the hatch seal. Given its size, the heating was not
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