SpaceX Rebounds from Friday SNAFU

At 8:57 AM EST this Sunday, Space X’s Dragon capsule attached itself to the International Space Station. This was quite a relief to its crew, who less than a day before had been convinced they would be taking a much shorter trip.

While the Dragon took off successfully, shortly after clearing Earth’s atmosphere it experienced a malfunction in its propellant valves. Each propellant valve is connected to one of the Dragon’s four thrusters, its only form of propulsion and navigation. A malfunction in one would normally be a minor issue. A malfunction in three was considerably more threatening. In order for the Dragon to reach the ISS, somewhere between 330 – 410 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, it needed at least two thrusters operational.

While news outlets began to report on the seemingly doomed mission, engineers at Space X sat down and tried to save the flight of the Dragon – and they succeeded.

Within three hours, the Space X Team tweeted, “2:57 p.m. ET: Pods 1 and 4 now online and thrusters engaged. Dragon transitioned from free drift to active control. Yes!!” The remaining eighteen hours of the Dragon’s journey passed relatively uneventfully, and it soon made contact with the ISS.

Some might see this incident as proof that commercial space projects aren’t mature enough to begin embarking on more ambitious ventures – but on the other hand, space has never exactly been safe. It wasn’t all that long ago that NASA brought the crew of Apollo 13 home, and Space X’s poise and control of this situation demonstrates that it might just be worthy of taking up NASA’s mantle.

Watch SpaceX’s Coverage of the Launch Below:

Images and Video Courtesy of SpaceX