SpaceX Dragon Launch 13 Years Ago vs. Today’s Launches
Epsilon3 co-founder and CEO Laura Crabtree’s first launch with SpaceX was in June 2010 with the Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit and the first Falcon9 v1.0 launch. She was ready a few short months later in December 2010 to ensure Dragon, Falcon 9’s first payload, re-entered and splashed down in the Pacific ocean. No one knew if the entire mission would work as planned, they only knew that they had prepared ourselves in the best way they knew how.
The entire launch was a series of firsts without continuous video downlinks and lots of potential for loss of communications. It was only 13 years ago, but, when you hear the story, it’s easy to think this launch happened 50 years ago.
Laura’s first launch stories from her time at SpaceX illuminate how quickly the space industry has innovated and evolved in the past 15 years. Her story will make you realize how innovation can seemingly happen overnight when companies create a culture of constant improvement–even when “it ain’t broke.”
Recovery: Before Satellite Data and Telemetry, There Was Voice Communication
Dragon C1 launched with Falcon 9 and separated. Dragon went through two orbits in LEO (low-earth orbit) where operators were checking out all systems before the vehicles re-entered. Laura had spent much of her time training the ground operations teams for both F9 and Dragon as well as mission operations for F9 recovery, preparing her well for Dragon operations.
What did recovery look like in the early days of Falcon 9?
Most people at the time would have said recovering a 1st stage of a rocket wasn't possible due to the speed and uncontrolled reentry (among many other things). Previously, the shuttle program had recovered Solid Rocket Boosters (that separated at 220k feet (42 mi), but no one has recovered a stage. In order to do so, we needed to learn about how the vehicles re-entered, and when they broke up. To do this, SpaceX would send out a small boat–a lot smaller than today’s recovery ships–depending on conditions. If conditions were good enough and the boat went out, Laura would coordinate with the boat via satphone to relay mission status including launch time, weather conditions, telemetry, altitude, etc.. Satellite data just wasn’t reliable or cheap enough, and so the boat crew had to rely on mission control for information and realtime status.
The First Ten Minutes of the Operation
T0 to first stage re-entry is less than 10 minutes long, however, at this time, pre-launch was 5+ hours (depending on when your role was required on console). Laura spent much of the day in mission control relaying information on a predetermined schedule. Post-launch, Laura and the boat were in near constant communication. After stage separation, the vehicle was to be on an uncontrolled re-entry. Those 10 minutes post-launch to entry were spent gathering data, photos, visual cues and more about what the vehicle was experiencing as it came back to earth. From this data, the team was set on unlocking what the vehicle was doing: trajectory, temperatures, speed, altitude, etc. This set the stage for what would become a controlled re-entry and landing either at the launch site, or one of the droneships.
Without thrusters and the reality of an uncontrolled re-entry, there was a lot of data to piece together to understand what happened to the vehicle as it reentered. The team was determined to learn exactly what the vehicle was doing: how it was tumbling, what the temperatures were, etc. This set the stage for what would become a controlled re-entry and landing either at the launch site, or one of the droneships.
How Many Static Fires Did It Take To Launch Falcon 9?
MANY. In short, to get things right on the first launch, the team went through multiple Wet Dress Rehearsals and multiple Static Fires.
Through each rehearsal they learned something about the vehicle, ground systems, and coordination and fine-tuned each piece through each and every rehearsal.
Dragon & Falcon 9 Unite
Not only did they have to figure out how Falcon 9 and Dragon to work together and how the two would separate, but they had to make sure Dragon’s re-entry was successful.
When the stage separation happened and the second stage ignited there was a huge sigh of relief. It was a first so no one quite knew what to expect. It was also the first actual payload that was getting released. Being in mission control for the separation events was epic, but pretty difficult as it was noisy (as you'd expect) with celebrations outside of mission control, however inside we were just getting started on our mission.
Launch Video Coverage
SpaceX's initial launches all included webcasts that have evolved greatly over the years, as has the ability to get better video of Dragon during in-flight operations.
It’s a reminder of how much video improves the entire mission operation. Just a couple of weeks ago, the world was able to watch videos of Starlink deploying its vehicles out into space. Just 13 years ago, video was not part of the process, and operators had to rely on whatever data they could get, and hope for no disasters when they lost contact with a vehicle.
SpaceX Dragon Launch 13 years ago vs today
Once separation was confirmed from the 2nd stage, the Dragon team in mission control assumed control of the mission and quickly began performing system checkouts. This first mission was run by a single nominal procedure from start to finish that coordinated the entire Dragon operations team. In addition, there was also a single contingency procedure with responses for any number of anomalies that the team had been trained to respond to.
The mission was short, it was only 2 orbits long (less than 3 hours on orbit). There was a recovery vessel for Dragon located in the Pacific Ocean, waiting for similar types of information as was relayed to the F9 recovery vessel just hours earlier.
When someone said “Tally-ho,” it was a signal that Dragon had been spotted. If the boats were close enough to see the parachutes open up, it was much more simple.
The Most Noticeable Difference Between Launching Then and Now
One of the most significant changes in launch (aside from cadence and reliability) over the past 15 years is in communications and the amount of data teams are able to coordinate, retrieve and analyze quickly.
The means of communication, email, voice, etc from years ago, has been replaced with efficient tools used to coordinate operators, data and decision making to reduce the potential for miscommunication, wrong units, etc.
How Did The Space Industry Drastically Improve Communications In Just a Few Short Years?
New space industry companies began to hire people with various backgrounds who came to the drawing board with fresh ways of seeing and an attitude for constant improvement–even if things were working, they wanted to make things better. There were a lot of free-thinking people who had a hunger for things to be easier and more efficient. Rather than sitting in meetings or doing busy work, they spent their time doing innovative work to keep pushing boundaries.
The first launches for these new companies required 40-50 people. By the end of Laura’s time at SpaceX, they were down to 3-5 people for even the most critical operations. That freed up a whole lot of people to work on innovation and improvement.
Laura has brought this same hunger for improvement, innovation, and collaboration to Epsilon3. Her mission is to free up Epsilon3 customers to innovate and accelerate improvement in the space industry.
