Endurance capsule splashes down safely, returning four astronauts from ISS
SpaceX’s Endurance Dragon capsule successfully splashed down off the coast of California this morning, returning four astronauts from ISS after a five month mission.
I have embedded the live stream below. As of posting the capsule was about to be lifted from the water and placed in its nest on the recovery ship.
Once again it is important to note that this recovery is being done entirely by a private company and its employees. Once Endurance undocked from ISS NASA had no part to play. It purchased the ride from SpaceX, and SpaceX is providing the service.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX’s Endurance Dragon capsule successfully splashed down off the coast of California this morning, returning four astronauts from ISS after a five month mission.
I have embedded the live stream below. As of posting the capsule was about to be lifted from the water and placed in its nest on the recovery ship.
Once again it is important to note that this recovery is being done entirely by a private company and its employees. Once Endurance undocked from ISS NASA had no part to play. It purchased the ride from SpaceX, and SpaceX is providing the service.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The video shows only 2 main parachutes were attached upon splashdown. Did the video producer insert an old video clip of a different mission or were 2 mains actually discarded as the video implies?
I interpreted the two-chute picture as a photo of the two drogue chutes, or perhaps two pilot chutes, after they had pulled out the mains. They were attached to each other and still descending after the capsule and mains had splashed down (in a 4-chute cluster). At the end, they can be seen to enter an undercast layer, similarly to how the 4-chute config did shortly before.
The commenters clearly did not know what they were, and this only added to the confusion. Since the mains were at the time obscured by the undercast layer, I suspect that the aircrew photographed these chutes for lack of any other visible targets.
Do we still have one firm that makes all ‘chutes?
If a main had trouble on Orion, we’d hear no end of it because gov’t bad!
Jeff Wright,
Yes, there is only one supplier of chutes for all current manned US space capsules. I don’t remember its name and am too lazy, just now, to look it up. That being the case, “gov’t bad” can’t be an issue as the gov’t. did not design any of the chutes and also does not do any of the chute manufacturing.
There have been chute anomalies with all of the current manned capsules. In at least one fairly famous case with Boeing and Starliner, said anomaly occurred because Boeing left out some key parts when assembling the chutes. Can’t blame either the gov’t. or the supplier for that.
SpaceX, for its part, also had some chute anomalies during Dragon development. As part of its response to these, SpaceX developed simulation computer code for chutes that is better than anything which existed previously and has made it available to the monopoly chute supplier as well as LockMart and Boeing. SpaceX also collaborated with the monopoly chute supplier to substitute newer and stronger materials as part of the structure of Dragon chutes and this tech has also been shared, royalty-free, with other capsule builders.
Hi Dick,
I believe you are thinking of Airborne Systems, out of Philadelphia.
That said, Airborne as I understand it only makes the main chutes for Dragon. The drogue chutes are manufactured by Pioneer, and SpaceX purchased them outright out of bankruptcy in 2023, so now they at least have direct control of their drogue chutes.
It is a striking case because as you probably know, SpaceX very rarely does corporate acquisitions. The speculation was that simply buying Pioneer turned out to be cheaper than the cost of finding a new drogue chutes supplier.
It is awkward that Airborne is the only supplier in the USA for main chutes for these vehicles, but it’s still a very small market, and parachute design and fabrication to NASA requirements turns out to be super hard — harder than SpaceX wants to bother with for a non-core speciality which has limited future in its long-term plans. As Phil McAllister put it, “Parachutes turned out to be way harder than we thought. We thought, ‘We’ve done parachutes during Apollo, how hard could it be?’ It could be very hard.”
Richard M,
Thanks for doing the searching so I didn’t have to. Yeah, Airborne Systems was the outfit I had in mind.
I had forgotten about the Pioneer thing. I suspect you are entirely correct in your surmise about SpaceX’s motives behind this acquisition.
The lack of alternative suppliers for capsule main chutes is a consequence of the smallness of the market for same. Capsule chutes are a sideline even for monopoly supplier Airborne. Their main product is steerable GPS-guided chute rigs for cargo pallets ejected out the tail doors of large military airlifters.
I suspect the capsule chute market will remain small and might even go away entirely if, say, Stoke Space’s Nova rocket, with its propulsively-landed reusable upper stage, squeezes out chute-landed capsules as the preferred mechanism for doing re-entries from future LEO space stations. Time will tell.