Musk added that while the threat was low, his "biggest concern" about the new spaceship was the capsule's asymmetric design, which is driven by its emergency escape system. While screaming back to Earth at 25 times the speed of sound, the capsule's heat shield will deflect and absorb the energy of superheated plasma — but the forces of atmospheric reentry have a slim chance of causing catastrophe.
"If you rotate too much, then you could potentially catch the plasma in the super Draco escape thruster pods," Musk said, adding this could overheat parts of the ship or cause it to lose control (by wobbling). "We've looked at this six ways to Sunday, so it's not that I think this will fail. It's just that I worry a bit that it is asymmetric on the backshell."
Musk expressed the same concern about a roll instability, as the issue is called, during a press briefing after the company's Demo-1 mission — an uncrewed test flight of its spaceship to orbit and back — lifted off in March 2019.
He also noted a concern about the ship's parachutes, which must deploy to slow down the Crew Dragon as it falls through thicker atmosphere.
"The parachutes are new. Will the parachutes deploy correctly? And then will the system guide Dragon 2 to the right location and splash down safely?" Musk said at the time, though he said he sees "hypersonic reentry as probably my biggest concern, just because of the asymmetric back shell."
"If you rotate too much, then you could potentially catch the plasma in the super Draco escape thruster pods," Musk said, adding this could overheat parts of the ship or cause it to lose control (by wobbling). "We've looked at this six ways to Sunday, so it's not that I think this will fail. It's just that I worry a bit that it is asymmetric on the backshell."
Musk expressed the same concern about a roll instability, as the issue is called, during a press briefing after the company's Demo-1 mission — an uncrewed test flight of its spaceship to orbit and back — lifted off in March 2019.
He also noted a concern about the ship's parachutes, which must deploy to slow down the Crew Dragon as it falls through thicker atmosphere.
"The parachutes are new. Will the parachutes deploy correctly? And then will the system guide Dragon 2 to the right location and splash down safely?" Musk said at the time, though he said he sees "hypersonic reentry as probably my biggest concern, just because of the asymmetric back shell."