SpaceX does not want to recognize the explosion of its spacecraft. Why?

Sometimes when a small metal capsulefilled with rocket fuel, an explosion may occur. This is exactly what happened last weekend, when SpaceX, a private aerospace company, conducted static tests of the SuperDraco engines of the emergency rescue system for the crew of the new Dragon 2 spacecraft. All world media did not skimp on describing this event in colors: “Crew Dragon exploded,” wrote Scientific American portal , Business Insider called the incident "a big bang", Quartz said that the SpaceX ship "blew up." And what about SpaceX? And the company Ilona Mask called the incident "anomaly". What is it? Childishness or reluctance to recognize a serious blunder?

There was even a video on the web, thoughThe “soapy”, apparently taken from a very long distance to the telephone, on which, although bad, is clear what actually happened to the Crew Dragon ship on Cape Canaveral.

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If you do not watch this video, and immediately reada SpaceX official statement, you won’t understand at all what really happened, because the company did its best not to focus on the explosion:

“Earlier today, SpaceX conducted a series of statictests of the Crew Dragon spacecraft engines at the Landing Zone 1 site, located at Cape Canaveral, Florida’s cosmodrome. The first tests were completed successfully, but during the last test an anomaly was recorded on the test bench. The main reason we are testing is the need to get a guarantee that our systems meet the most stringent security requirements, and to identify anomalies like this. Our engineering teams are investigating what happened and working closely with our partners from NASA, ”the statement said.

Do you understand anything? By the way, SpaceX is not the only space agency that uses the term “anomaly” to describe serious problems with its spacecraft. For example, the same NASA used this word to describe the problems associated with launching its missiles, as well as problems with communications equipment in one of its autonomous space research probes. But it has never been so that NASA called the explosion "anomaly". If an agency explodes, it directly reports it.

Of course, no one excludes the option thatSome arisen "anomaly" led to the explosion itself, but to call the event itself "anomaly"? No, it is clear that the explosion of the spacecraft immediately subconsciously evoke thoughts of human victims (fortunately, this time cost), a lot of money spent and a huge loss of time. It is clear that one of the leaders of the world leaders in the space industry would like to avoid such associations in his statement. But to put an equality sign between the anomaly and the explosion, especially when watching videos on the Internet, I'm sorry, but this is complete disinformation.

Work on the machine Crew Dragon is already going withlate, and the new delays can seriously complicate the position of NASA. Currently, the United States does not have the technology to send people into orbit, since the space shuttle program was closed in 2011. NASA has to pay about $ 80 million for space to send its astronauts to the International Space Station aboard Russian Soyuz, and members of the US Congress do not like it.

It was planned that the key test systemsThe Crew Dragon emergency rescue will take place in June, and its first mission with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Benken on board was scheduled for July. After the incident, you will have to forget about these plans at least until the end of this year.

The situations can benefit the company Boeing,which, like SpaceX, is being built by NASA to build its own spacecraft for delivering American astronauts to near-Earth orbit. A few days ago, it was believed that Boeing was hopelessly behind. Because of the problems with the emergency rescue system of its ship, the corporation was very late, and if SpaceX conducted its first unmanned flight in March, then Boeing just had to do it in the summer of 2019. Now, after such a “gift of fate”, the corporation had time to finish the tests of its ship before a competitor.

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