How does SpaceX test it? Have they needed to solve this problem?

SyzygyRhythm 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There were 19 successful unmanned Dragon 1 missions before Crew Dragon, and an unmanned Crew Dragon mission before the first crewed one (actually two missions, but one didn't reenter from orbit). The heat shield material and design was essentially the same and so there was a great deal of flight heritage.

▲

recursivecaveat 12 hours ago | parent [-]

In particular I don't think its physically possible to test Orion components in flight very many times. It relies on SLS which chews through 4 space-shuttle engines every time, which even with unlimited money I don't think you could acquire a large supply of very quickly.

	▲	pavon an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		SLS is required to get Orion to the moon, but there are other options for LEO tests. Exploration Flight Test-1 was performed on a Delta IV Heavy, and Falcon Heavy is also capable of launching Orion to LEO (and now New Glenn, although that wouldn't have been an option at the time NASA needed to start work on another Orion test).
	▲	cryptonector 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Not only that, but it has to reach much higher altitudes in order to also reach the much higher re-entry velocities that it will have IRL. That makes testing Orion very expensive. Testing Crew Dragon was much much cheaper.

▲

hvb2 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

By having a much higher launch cadence and then analyzing the flight hardware afterwards.

Also, they don't have anything human rated going beyond LEO. Coming back from the moon means you're going significantly faster and thus need a better heat shield

	▲	pas 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		... so the real problem is that to get back and slow down nicely would require so much more launch mass, right? (By slow down I mean to change to an orbit that has more drag and wouldn't take forever to return to Earth.)

▲

idlewords 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They do iterative flight testing. Starship is I believe on its twelfth flight test; the first one was in 2023.

▲

jccooper 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Crew Dragon flew an automated demo flight before flying with crew. It was proceeded by 20 flights of Dragon 1 over 10 years.

Starship's heatshield has already been tested full-up half a dozen times. Many changes have been made as a result.

▲

margalabargala 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

SpaceX tests these in prod. Kinda like Artemis I did.

▲

eru 13 hours ago | parent [-]

And this is actually a decent strategy, but you can only really do this when you have lots of unmanned flights.

	▲	randomNumber7 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Nothing stops you from doing this with manned flights except that it's not culturally accepted currently. But maybe that changes as NASA will demonstrate with artemis 2 and 3 (which will then use another newly desiged heat shield).

▲

rkagerer 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

By blowing up unmanned spacecraft and letting the ones that survive catch fire?

▲

swiftcoder 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

SpaceX has a reusable launch vehicle, so they could afford to fly a whole mess of unmanned flights before they stuck a human in there

▲

whywhywhywhy 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They launch rockets