Sexes launch escape test in just under 17 minutes and eight seconds.

The test today is to demonstrate the effectiveness of our launch escape system.

Now we're currently go for launch from Pad 39 A at Kennedy Space Center at 10:30 a.m. Eastern Standard time.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm John is Burger Falcon, principal integration engineer.

Here.

It's Basics headquarters in Hawthorne, California, and I'm Marie Louis with NASA Public Affairs.

The purpose of today's test is to demonstrate Crew Dragon's ability to safely fly astronauts away from danger and separate from the Falcon nine rocket during an in flight emergency space.

Axis Launch Escape System is a first of its kind with its eight super Draco thrusters built directly into Dragon to push the spacecraft away from Falcon nine.

In case of an emergency, you can think of it as a rocket on top of a rocket.

Now, in order to test our launch escape system, which is integral to the Dragon spacecraft, you see, in front of a year on the video, we will be simulating an emergency with Falcon nine at about 84 seconds into flight.

This could be a few seconds.

Early or late is Dragon waits for Falcon nine to reach a specific velocity before initiating the escape.

Now, before drawing and separates and fires, it's Super drink oh, engines.

It will command Falcon nine to shut down its engines is part of the escape sequence because Falcon nine is then unpowered.

We are expecting the launch vehicle a fully break up some point, which should create some particularly interesting views for sure.

Now it's not every day you get to see something like that.

So we're gonna do our best to bring it to you live as it happens.

But a reminder with the weather in the clouds were gonna try to find abuse that are best and to be very clear, this is all part of today's test.

Within the context of this test, the views that you will see will allow us to validate the effectiveness of our launch escape system, and we're hoping for some very exciting views.

But the whole point of the test today is the next step in our multi year efforts to fly astronauts again from U.

S soil.

It's part of NASA's commercial crew program, and it's a partnership we have with Space X and Boeing.

But this is not the first time we're putting dragons.

Launch escape system to the test.

If you remember back in 2015 Space X's pad abort test demonstrated Dragon's ability to escape from the Falcon nine in the event of a Nim Urgency on the pad before lift off and the super Draco's in the launch escape system on today's dragon capsule.

You see, there were successfully static fired this past November, and in addition of the test that you just mentioned, Space six also flew a full A NCruz demonstration mission to and from the International Space Station last year with its crew dragon vehicle.

Now this was a full and and test of the entire crew dragon system validating that are upgraded crew.

Dragon spacecraft gets safely docked with the space station.

In addition, our team has conducted over 700 tests on just the super Draco system alone, really looking forward to seeing knows perform in today's flight.

Absolutely.

And if all goes well today, the next big milestone will be to launch astronauts, as we mentioned to the international space station.

That's part of what we call Demo two or demonstration mission, too.

Now we're currently just inside of T minus 13 minutes and 45 seconds and counting down now, whether it's been a watch itin the last couple of days with rough sea, sustained winds in the recovery area we had described yesterday were also still listening.

They're evaluating constantly the weather in the splashdown area right now as we're doing the Webcast.

Now, we do have a six hour window today in case we need to wait for better weather or less cloud cover.

We've obviously used 2.5 hours of it already, but right now we think this is our best opportunity now.

If the weather does not cooperate today, we are preserving tomorrow as a potential backup.

Now, as a reminder again, this is not a typical watch were purposely testing dragons escape system under the most extreme conditions.

So while we want everything to go right today, we are prepared.

If everything goes wrong and if if that does happen, that's the whole point.

This is exactly why we test.

We want to see if there's any potential issues and we want them to happen now so we can address those before we put astronauts on board.

And speaking of astronauts, we have NASA's Darryl Nail at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

That's where the test is taking place this morning.

And he has Maura about what those very first astronauts assigned to fly crew Dragon will be paying special attention to this.

Morning, Daryl.

Good morning, John Marie.

It's a pretty nice day here at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

You can see behind us here on the lawn.

Some of the media have gathered to shoot this launch.

And, of course, the countdown clock.

The iconic one.

They're counting 12 minutes until launch.

As you mentioned, the first crew members assigned to fly Crew Dragon, our NASA astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Franken.

And they have the most you could say invested in the outcome of this test flight.

Right now, they're just a few miles away from Launch Pad 39 a, which is just behind my left shoulder.

Here, they're in the space X firing room inside the launch control center, where they will closely monitor today's flight abort test.

Now, right now, they've been training up until this point, training hard with NASA and Space X so they can understand every aspect of dragon systems.

They're space suits and how to respond in a variety of potential emergency scenarios, including an escape from a Falcon nine rocket in the middle of flight.

The end result of that could be an early splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.

Now both astronauts told us what they will specifically be looking for during today's test flight.

I think both of us Air really excited that the in flight aboard test is about to happen.

You know, we kind of view that as the graduation exercise, like a lot of folks do on the NASA side toe, make sure that we're really confident that we've got a good plan and good procedures in place for pulling that mission off.

So I'm excited that we're this far, and I know once it's behind us, you know will be the prime, uh, Falcon nine crew, Dragon crew.

What we want to see from this test is just an end to end success.

So you know another successful launch of the Falcon nine and then to see the Super Draco's work.

I think that's a really good point.

I think getting the NASA team in the Space X team on the same page, kind of going forward and kind of walking through all the decisions that you have to make for getting ready for this flight, I think is a is a big milestone as well because it's the It's the last launch associate with us before we ride that rocket.

Yeah, that's very true.

It is.

It's kind of the final exam, so it's there's a lot riding on it, but also I think it's a culmination of a ton of work from everybody in NASA and Space six to get to this point.

I'm just really proud that the team is trying to pull off something so critical from a safety perspective.

You know, if we needed to escape off of the rocket toe, have that system demoed before we would actually use it is pretty cool that folks were making the investment to make that happen.

We feel really excited about kind of the progress that the basics and NASA have made to this point, and this China shows us that we're getting really close to our flight, so to see all these capabilities, all put together all the teams together and to be able to launch this vehicle.

It's just a huge boost of confidence.

Now there's an interesting human side to Doug and Bob story.

They're not just crew mates, but they're also friends who have spent a lot of time together over the years.

Both graduated from the same astronaut training class in 2000.

Both flew on the space shuttle.

Both are married to astronauts, and they were in each other's wedding.

Gianna, Marie!

Back to you.

All right, Thanks, Darryl.

You're taking a live look.

Now this is inside Space X is firing room for That's where Bob and Doug are sitting today, along with the NASA and Space X teams watching following along today's test, and this past Friday, they completed what we refer to internally as a dry dress rehearsal.

We saw some video of that during Darryl segment.

This is where the astronauts, along with the Space X and NASA teams, walk through those steps that they'll take before they get on board for Demo two.

We saw them suit up on, and that is really exciting stuff, especially that was the first time we saw them suited up walking out of the the astronaut suit up room and so really looking forward to doing that for demo to Let's take a quick look.

Now at Cru Dragon, it stands almost 27 feet tall from the bottom of the trunk to the top of the nose cone and crew.

Dragon is composed of two main elements.

The capsule.

That top portion is designed to hold crew and pressurized cargo, and it has an unpressurized section known as the trunk that's down below for today's test.

Much of the exciting work is gonna be done by the Dragons.

Eight Super Draco engines we talked about built directly into the capsule.

Now, to give you a sense of power, went fired Together.

The eight super drinkers can move the spacecraft 1/2 a mile in 7.5 seconds.

So from a standing start, Super Draco's accelerate the spacecraft to a speed of 436 miles per hour.

That's a lot faster than catapult launched from an aircraft carrier.

I know it's it's hard to imagine just moving that fast.

I was trying to get a feel for it so I did a little math, and it's about three times faster than take off on a commercial plane, if you can imagine that.

In fact, one jetpack assembly, which consists of two super Draco's, produces more thrust than an F 16 fighter jet at full afterburn.

So, John, if you were to put that strap that to your back, you would break the sound barrier and under half a second.

Not sure you want a volunteer for that.

Probably break something else, too.

So that gets us through the major test objective today.

Dragon separating from the Falcon.

Several minutes later, we will deploy drogue parachutes, followed by the four large main parachutes.

You'll see the main parachutes partially open it first.

If we've got video, then fully open, these will then control the descent of the dragon capsule softly into the Atlantic Ocean.

And while that vehicle that you see on the pad looks like a typical crew dragon spacecraft from outside.

If you had a look inside, you'll see that the interiors have been stripped down and there it is.

We do have a look inside for you.

Three.

Cabin has no interior panels except for one on the ceiling, and there's no control panel in there for this test.

Dragons, also outfitted with two seats that you see there and sitting inside those seats.

We have two anthropomorphic test devices, no cool acronym.

I'll just call them test device.

We have enough acronym.

While the tough devices do not have any sensors on them today, the seats they're sitting on our instrumented we'll be able to measure the loads on the seat to ensure that there are no unexpected issues in this dressing test case, We've also made some other modifications to the Dragon interior for today's test.

That's right.

There will be three cargo racks with some assortment of ballast or cargo bags and no floor now below where the floor would be.

There will be an assortment of mass simulators in place of the life support components and some other equipment that's down there when we have crew aboard.

Now the test today will look a lot like a normal falcon launch for the first minute, and 1/2 will fly until Falcon nine reaches a predetermined velocity.

This will occur about 84 seconds into flight, and that happens at approximately 20 kilometers up once we reach the required velocity, Dragon will then trigger and escape.

Now, as a reminder, the ground is not commanding this support.

It's up to the onboard computers to determine when to trigger the launch escape and do all the functions afterward.

Once drinking does trigger the launch escape, the first event will be commanding Falcon nine to shut down its nine Merlin engines.

Now is Marie and I mentioned earlier.

Dragon will then separate from the Falcon, using its eight super Driscoll engines, firing for about eight seconds that carries dragon capsule with the trunk up in, away from Falcon.

Now, once they've finished firing the Super Drinkers we coast, we jettison the truck.

At Apogee, we reorient the capsule to come back for entry into the earth's atmosphere.

We deploy about two minutes after after JI that drogue chutes, and about a minute after that, the four main parachutes will be released.

Dragon will then splash down softly in the Atlantic Ocean about 35 kilometers offshore.

Now, one dragon separates.

We no longer have that smooth aerodynamic shape on top of the rocket, so the supersonic falcon is going to be exposed to strong aerodynamic forces in the upper atmosphere.

So we expect those aerodynamic forces will cause Falcon to start to tumble.

Our simulations show that the Falcon will likely break apart due to the tumbling instead of having the district system triggered and destroying the rocket.

So now again, this entire test will take less than 10 minutes from the time Falcon eye lifts off until Dragon splashes down.

But Marie, once we splashed down, the work's not over yet, right?

It's just beginning for the recovery team.

We have a lot of things happening very rapidly in that 1st 10 minutes, and the recovery operation takes quite a bit longer.

It'll be similar to the pad abort test, but it will happen slightly farther down range in the Atlantic Ocean.

So after splashdown, recovery teams will already be standing by for range approval toe enter and clear that hazardous area.

And if all goes nominally, Space X could have fully recovered Dragon back onto its recovery ship approximately two hours after splashdown.

Keep in mind, though, if this were to happen during an actual flight with crew on board, rescuing them would be the number one objective, of course, and recovering Dragon would be a secondary operation.

So if that were to happen, an elite military rescue team would deploy at a moments notice.

They're part of the US Air Forces Detachment three.

Or they have this really great nickname, the Guardian Angels, which is very appropriate.

They would jump from military aircraft.

There's a photo of that happening there where they would deploy their own parachutes to gently reach the water.

And from there they would help the crew out of the capsule and then onto a life raft toe wait for a larger ship.

Now, this is not just any life raft there.