<ul><li><strong>Made-in-India drone companies are seeing a boost in sales post ban of drone imports by the government.<br /></strong></li><li><strong>Consumer brands like Swiggy, Zomato, Dunzo and <keyword id="41887" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="biryani" source="Orion">Biryani</keyword> by Kilo have started launching trials for delivery by drones.<br /></strong></li><li><strong>Drones are being used for defense, consumer and delivery purposes.<br /></strong></li><li><strong><keyword id="1605364" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="throttle" source="Orion">Throttle</keyword>, a drone manufacturing company based out of Bangalore, witnessed a 150% growth.</strong> <br /></li></ul>Declaring the Indian drone industry as a ‘sunrise sector’, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade, under the Ministry of Commerce, banned the import of drones in February. This has given a fillip to homegrown drone companies that are finding innovative uses for these unmanned aerial vehicles.<br /><br />One of India’s leading drone companies <keyword id="7785402" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="throttle-aerospace-systems" source="Orion">Throttle Aerospace Systems</keyword> (TAS) witnessed a 150% growth since the announcement. Even e-commerce companies like Dunzo, Swiggy and Zomato have ventured into the drone delivery space. <br /><br />Last year, Zomato acquired a drone startup <keyword id="6576859" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="techeagle" source="Orion">TechEagle</keyword> to build models that can help deliver essentials and possibly food in the near future. <br /><br /><strong>Medicines and Biryani from the sky</strong><br /><br /><keyword id="2757817" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="rattanindia" source="Orion">RattanIndia</keyword>’s drone company Neosky in association with TAS, is now planning to also supply drones for e-commerce and consumer-led initiatives besides defence. The companies have partnered with Dunzo, leading hospitals in India and even grocery delivery for Instamart, by Swiggy. At present, they are manufacturing 30 drones per month, aiming to go upto 45-50 units in the near future. <br /><br />Consumer brands like Swiggy recently partnered with Garuda Aerospace and Throttle to launch doorstep deliveries for groceries through Instamart. Its trials have already begun across Delhi-NCR and Bangalore. Another startup Biryani by Kilo delivered Biryani to eight influencers post the launch of eight stores in Hyderabad. <br /><br />As of now, the drone space in India is extensively being used in the defense sector and helping with delivery of average payload commodities. <br /><br />“We can see consumer led drones picking up but before that we would need designated drone corridors by the government. As of now, drones would be extensively used in the defense sector or for average load deliveries. Though it is exciting to witness food being delivered by a drone, it is further down the future,” said Sarath Chandra <keyword id="14985844" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="gudlavalleti" source="Orion">Gudlavalleti</keyword>, CEO of Neosky.<br /><br />The government too had founded extended uses for drones. During the pandemic, a box weighing 12 kilos of medicines and 20 vials of vaccines was delivered to rural parts of Telangana through drones in an initiative called ‘Medicines from the Sky’. <br /><br /><strong>‘Laws for this sector are still being made’</strong> <br /><br />The government is taking active steps to boost domestic manufacturing of drones. On July 6, 2022, India’s aviation ministry released the second provisional list of 23 beneficiaries of the production-linked incentives (PLI) scheme for the drone industry. <br /><br />Combined annual sales turnover of PLI beneficiaries in the drone industry reached ₹3.19 billion in 2021-22 from ₹880 million the previous year. <br /><br />“A welcome change by the government was to stop drone imports which has boosted Make In India drone companies. Dividing India’s airspace into Red, Green and Amber zones has also helped. But laws for this sector are still being made as it is very new,” said Gudlavalleti. <br /><br />The Ministry of Civil Aviation has divided the Indian airspace into three zones- Green (no permission required), Amber (controlled airspace) and Red (no drones allowed). <br /><br />The government also launched a DigitalSky platform in January 2022 for verification of Made in India drones. <br /><br /><strong>The drone defender</strong><br /><br />Through small steps, the Indian government is also opening the door for commercial use of drones during disaster management and even economic mapping. <br /><br />Beginning April 2022, all drone operators have been allowed to promote secure operations without needing multiple approvals by possessing a valid UIN. Throttle is one such beneficiary. <br /><br />On Thursday, RattanIndia through their drone company Neosky assisted with manufacturing company Throttle launched a ‘drone defender.’ It was unveiled by Minister General <keyword id="6364699" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="v-k-singh" source="Orion">V K Singh</keyword>, MOS Aviation Ministry at Air Force Auditorium during the ‘Unmanned Aerial Systems India 2022’ event on September 13. <br /><br />“This drone is 70% indegenious and launches a soft-kill against approaching rogue drones without any human intervention. Instead of using direct attack, this drone will pull down the attacker by shooting a net,” said <keyword id="14985845" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="nagander-ramaswamy" source="Orion">Nagander Ramaswamy</keyword>, CEO of drone manufacturing company TAS. <br /><br />“We have acquired a 60% stake in Throttle and hope to build our capacity further,” said Gudlavalleti. <br /><br />SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/cant-be-locking-horns-with-zomato-and-swiggy-says-restaurant-body/articleshow/94203208.cms">Can’t be locking horns with Zomato and Swiggy, says restaurant body</a><br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/sustainability/news/india-to-assume-g20-presidency-for-one-year-from-december-2022-host-over-200-meetings-and-mea-lists-priorities/articleshow/94194674.cms">India to assume G20 Presidency for one year from December 2022; host over 200 meetings and MEA lists priorities</a><br /><a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/harsha-engineers-ipo-opens-today-grey-market-premium-is-at-210/articleshow/94197117.cms">Harsha Engineers IPO opens today; grey market premium is at ₹210</a>

Medicines and Biryani from the sky: Made-In-India drones witness growth post import ban

<ul class="summary-list"><li>An Optimized Profile Descent is a smooth way of landing planes with their engines close to idle.  </li><li>The landing style is less noisy, saves fuel, and reduces emissions. </li></ul><p>In most cases, planes are pretty noisy when they land. The pilots slowly reduce the altitude of the plane step by step, throttling and decreasing as necessary, in what's called a "staircase descent.</p><p>The slow progression makes it easier for air traffic controllers to coordinate busy airspace and avoid collisions. But it's a source of both noise and carbon emissions, two things airports are trying to cut down as they work towards a net-zero aviation system by 2050. </p><p>That's why an increasing number of airports allow planes to "glide" down from cruising altitude with their engines close to idle. The new, smoother landing approach — "a gracious slide through the clouds," <a href="https://simpleflying.com/faa-adds-fuel-saving-routes-11-airports/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to one flight reviewe</a>r — is called "Optimized Profile Descent" by the Federal Aviation Administration.</p><p>It's less noisy, saves fuel, reduces emissions, and is now allowed at 64 airports thanks to the <a href="https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-adds-fuel-saving-arrival-routes-11-airports" target="_blank" rel="noopener">addition of 11 new airports in 2022</a>, including major hubs Orlando, Houston, and Miami. </p><p>With the new airports, the FAA estimates "the industry will save more than 90,000 gallons of fuel on average and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 27,000 tons annually." </p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M4vuJKCwOdw" frameborder="0"></iframe><p>"So it's a win, win, win and a win," John-Paul Clarke, an aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who has studied continuous descents, told <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-airports-to-use-greener-glide-approach-to-landing/?TrucksFoT" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scientific American</a>. Clarke added that, while more fuel efficient, "gliding" is harder to implement, especially at busy airports, because of safety concerns.  </p><p>The FAA started using optimized profile descents" in 2014. Their implementation is slow because it requires adjusting flight routes. You can't have dozens of idle planes smoothly glide into the same airport at the same time without some safety concerns. </p><p>The change in landing style is part of the US aviation's effort to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, as was outlined in the<a href="https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2021-11/Aviation_Climate_Action_Plan.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> US Aviation Climate Action Plan</a> released at a United Nations conference in 2021. </p><p>In 2021, the US recorded 4.9 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. US commercial aviation contributed to approximately 2% of the total. Other sustainability efforts include <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/aviation-sustainable-fuel-saf-production-challenge-decarbonization-zero-emissions-planes-2023-1">increasing the production</a> of Sustainable Aviation Fuel — or SAF — a fuel that's similar to conventional jet fuel but can be up to 80% less carbon intensive.</p>

Your next flight might land a lot smoother and quieter than you're used to as new rules that save fuel expand to more airports

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360701" type="DEFINITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacex">SpaceX</keyword> is set to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-live-spacex-nasa-crew-1-astronaut-launch-2020-11">launch</a> its first full astronaut crew for <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> on Sunday in its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-certifies-spacex-fly-astronauts-crew-dragon-spaceship-2020-11">newly certified launch system</a>.</li><li>Since its test launch of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-dragon-spaceship-nasa-astronauts-mission-landing-surprises-demo2-2020-8">two NASA astronauts</a> this summer, SpaceX has made major adjustments to its <keyword id="165741" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Falcon-9">Falcon 9</keyword> rocket, <keyword id="3150656" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="crew-dragon">Crew Dragon</keyword> spaceship, and spaceflight processes.</li><li>The Crew Dragon has a reinforced <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-nasa-crew-dragon-heat-shield-erosion-2020-9">heat shield</a>, the Falcon 9 has been inspected for clogs, and the spaceship now knows how to move to new ports on the space station.</li></ul><p><strong><em>Update</em></strong><em>: SpaceX </em><em><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-launches-rocket-mission-nasa-astronauts-crew-1-dragon-spaceship-2020-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">successfully rocketed the four Crew-1 astronauts</a></em><em> into orbit.</em></p><p>SpaceX is ready to send its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-crew-1-mission-timeline-nasa-astronaut-launch-2020-11">first full astronaut crew</a> into space for NASA, on a launch system newly certified <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-certifies-spacex-fly-astronauts-crew-dragon-spaceship-2020-11">for human spaceflight</a>. The Falcon 9 rocket is upright on the launchpad, a Crew Dragon spaceship secured firmly to its nose. The engines have been test fired. Four <keyword id="73998" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="astronauts">astronauts</keyword> are anxiously waiting for the countdown — launch is scheduled for Sunday at 7:27 p.m. ET.</p><p>Since SpaceX's first human launch, a demonstration that rocketed NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station (ISS), the company has ironed out several wrinkles with its system.</p><p>In that mission, called Demo-2, the Crew Dragon spaceship's fiery fall through Earth's atmosphere wore away its protective shield more than expected. Its parachutes also deployed a little late, and then boats full of spectators swarmed the toasted capsule once it landed. Additionally, a few weeks after the astronauts returned, another Falcon 9 launch revealed that a nail-polish-like substance was clogging up vents in the engines.</p><p>NASA and SpaceX have worked quickly to correct these malfunctions, adapt their processes, and upgrade the hardware. As a result, the upcoming mission, called <keyword id="9717263" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="crew-1">Crew-1</keyword>, is going to look different from Behnken and Hurley's.</p><p>"We're flying a lot of upgrades on this flight compared to Demo-2," Steve Stich, the manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said in a briefing on Tuesday. "So we continue to evolve and be safer as we move toward these flights."</p><div type="image" title="spacex crew1" height="2560" width="3413" msid="79233806" hostid="261"></div><p>Here's how SpaceX changed its system.</p><h2>Checking tiny holes for nail-polish-like buildup</h2><p>SpaceX was set to launch a routine satellite mission on October 2, but seconds before liftoff, a flight computer sensed an issue and automatically shut everything down.</p><div type="image" title="falcon 9 merlin engines" height="441" width="589" msid="79233808" hostid="261"></div><p>The problem turned out to be in the Falcon 9's Merlin engines: A tiny hole on a relief valve had gotten clogged with a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-delayed-nasa-launch-red-nail-polish-blocking-rocket-engines-2020-10">lacquer used to cover certain parts of the rocket while a treatment to prevent corrosion gets applied to other areas</a>. This could have resulted in an explosion that would have rattled and damaged the engines — like a car backfiring.</p><p>So SpaceX examined all its engines for similar remnants of the nail-polish-like substance.</p><p>"SpaceX and the NASA team looked across the launch vehicle for any other areas that might have a small passage that could get blocked by this similar masking process. And we cleared all that hardware," Stich said.</p><p>Separately, the engines also have new bladed, jet-engine-like turbine wheels that pump in the liquid fuel. The upgrade makes the wheels less prone to vibrations called "resonances," which can damage hardware.</p><p>"These wheels are a little bit more robust to the kind of throttle profile that the Merlin engines fly," Stich said. "So we're happy to have that as a safety upgrade."</p><h2>New, long-lasting solar panels</h2><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon endeavour docked international space station iss july 1 2020 iss063e034054" height="1780" width="2373" msid="79233810" hostid="261"></div><p>The crew of the upcoming mission, called Crew-1, consists of NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi. They're slated to dock to the space station around 11 p.m. ET on Monday after a 27-hour journey. After that, they'll spend six months on the orbiting laboratory.</p><p>Their Crew Dragon capsule will stay at the ISS for all that time, too. Keeping a spaceship in orbit may sound easy, but as it sits there, the vehicle gets doused in solar radiation and weathers extreme temperatures. In fact, the capsule Behnken and Hurley flew, which they named Endeavour, probably wouldn't have survived a full-length six-month mission in space. Its solar panels likely would have degraded significantly after 110 days in orbit.</p><p>So Resilience, as the new capsule is known, has a set of solar panels that can last 210 days (nearly seven months).</p><h2>New software allows the Crew Dragon to switch ports on the ISS</h2><p>Docking to a port on the space station requires the Crew Dragon to execute a series of complex maneuvers. But it might not be able to stay docked in the same place for the full six months. Unlike the capsule used in the Demo-2 flight, this one is programmed with the ability to move itself to another port in order to make room for other incoming spaceships.</p><div type="image" title="crew dragon iss docking demo2 spacex" height="1403" width="1872" msid="79233812" hostid="261"></div><p>"It's getting a little crowded in space. And that's a really good thing," NASA astronaut Suni Williams said in a Friday briefing.</p><p>Williams is set to fly on the first operational mission of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner — that company's spaceship for astronauts, which was funded and designed through the same NASA program that gave rise to SpaceX's Crew Dragon. The Starliner is set to reattempt an uncrewed test flight to the space station in 2021, since the first test failed. That might require the Crew Dragon to move to a different port.</p><p>To relocate the spaceship, the crew will climb back in and run new software that should maneuver the Crew Dragon away from its original docking point, the Forward Port, and re-dock to the station's Zenith Port.</p><p>The flight is programmed to be autonomous, but the crew will monitor the process. They can manually maneuver the spacecraft if anything goes wrong.</p><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon spaceship digital touchscreen docking controls international space station youtube sm" height="506" width="900" msid="79233814" hostid="261"></div><h2>A fortified heat shield for the plunge back to Earth</h2><p>After Behnken and Hurley splashed into the Gulf of Mexico and a recovery crew pulled them out, SpaceX studied the toasted Endeavor spaceship up close. Examiners found something unusual: deep erosion on the Crew Dragon's heat shield.</p><p>This thermal protection system is a collection of heat-resistant tiles that line the spaceship's underbelly. It deflects and absorbs heat that can reach 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit as the space capsule plummets through the atmosphere on its return to Earth.</p><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon spaceship atmospheric reentry hot plasma heat shield earth return youtube sm" height="568" width="1024" msid="79233819" hostid="261"></div><p>One of the heat shield's tiles suffered "a little bit more erosion than we wanted to see," Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX's vice president of build and flight reliability, said in September.</p><p>So SpaceX reinforced the new Crew Dragon's heat shield with stronger materials. NASA then tested five samples of the new tile in a wind tunnel that simulates the environment of reentry.</p><p>"I'm confident that we fixed this particular problem very well," Koenigsmann said.</p><h2>Parachutes should open higher up</h2><div type="image" title="spacex crew dragon spaceship capsule splash down gulf mexico pensacola astronauts bob behnken doug hurley demo2 august 2 2020" height="1429" width="1905" msid="79233825" hostid="261"></div><p>As the Crew Dragon approaches Earth toward the end of its descent – traveling 350 miles per hour — it should deploy its first two parachutes at about 18,000 feet. But on Behnken and Hurley's reentry flight, that happened closer to the ground than NASA and SpaceX expected.</p><p>As it turned out, a filter that vents air into the sensor that measures atmospheric pressure had gotten clogged.</p><p>"That particular filter has been opened up a little bit so that it's less constrained," Koenigsmann said. "That has the effect that we measure the barometric pressure more accurately and we come down and supply the parachute right on time."</p><p>Additionally, Stich said, "we've made some improvements to the [spaceship] structure so that we can handle a little bit more wind at the landing zone, which gives us a few more opportunities to land."</p><h2>Keeping boats away from the landing site</h2><iframe src="https://gfycat.com/ifr/YellowMediocreGallowaycow" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;"></iframe><p>When the Endeavour capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, a beeline of onlooker boats swarmed the toasted spaceship. Some <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-flag-boat-disrupts-live-nasa-astronaut-spacex-landing-2020-8">passed alarmingly close</a>.</p><p>That's a hazard for the astronauts and a danger for the boaters, since after plowing through Earth's atmosphere, the capsule was shrouded in low levels of a poisonous gas called nitrogen tetroxide.</p><div type="image" title="nasa astronauts doug hurley bob behnken spacex crew dragon spaceship capsule demo2 demo 2 mission landing splashdown recovery boats pleasurecraft august 2 2020 50186437176_b9417db9ef_o edit" height="1384" width="3000" msid="79233828" hostid="261"></div><p>To keep would-be spectators away from the Resilience capsule when it eventually returns to Earth, SpaceX and NASA plan to set up a 10-mile <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-nasa-plan-keep-boats-away-from-next-spaceship-landing-2020-9">no-boat perimeter</a> around the splashdown site. They also expect to have more Coast Guard boats there to enforce it.</p><p>"We ask that all boaters respect all notifications and guidance from our partners with the Coast Guard and the Navy," Benji Reed, SpaceX's senior director of human-spaceflight programs, said in a briefing on Tuesday. "Any distraction or interference with those operations can cause significant delays and actually can put the crew themselves and our recovery teams at risk."</p>

SpaceX made 6 major changes to its spaceship and rocket to be ready to launch its first full crew of NASA astronauts

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5e220e9b24306a01351a4008-2400/crew-dragon-falcon-9-rocket-launch-in-flight-abort-test-illustration-spacex-twitter-eofei8luyaajozn.jpeg" alt="crew dragon capsule falcon 9 rocket launch in flight abort test illustration spacex twitter EOfei8lUYAAjOZN" /><ul class="summary-list"><li>SpaceX plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday morning - and cause the rocket to fail 84 seconds into flight and explode shortly thereafter.</li><li>The goal of the mission is to show that a new spaceship called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/crew-dragon">Crew Dragon</a> can safely escape from a rocket that's not working correctly.</li><li>The in-flight abort test is a penultimate step toward SpaceX launching its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-crew-dragon-astronaut-launch-animated-video-2019-12">first human passengers</a> into space: NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.</li><li>If the flight is successful, SpaceX should launch Behnken and Hurley this year.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime">Click here to read more BI Prime stories</a>.</li></ul><p>SpaceX is about to do the unthinkable.</p><p>On Saturday morning, the company plans to launch a doomed Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a brand-new spaceship for NASA, called Crew Dragon, perched on top.</p><p>The 230-foot-tall vehicle is expected to heave itself off the ground between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. ET, but then suddenly shut down its engines about 84 seconds into flight. At that point, the Falcon 9 will be traveling nearly twice the speed of sound some 13 miles above Earth's surface. </p><p>What comes next for the rocket will be catastrophic. Within seconds of cutting its engines, aerodynamic forces will throttle the uncontrolled, tube-shaped body and rip it to pieces. Inside, huge tanks full of liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene propellant will rip open - so a large explosion and fireball is almost a given.</p><p>But if all goes according to plan, the Crew Dragon will escape to safety moments after the failure begins. </p><p>Such a scenario is one of an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronaut-suni-williams-on-spacex-boeing-spaceships-2018-6">astronaut's worst nightmares</a>, but NASA is excited to get on with the flight. That's because the spectacle is part of a highly orchestrated, human-free, and strenuous test of the Crew Dragon's launch escape or abort system. </p><p>If the empty spaceship flies away to safety and splashes down in the Atlantic Ocean, as planned, SpaceX will be a penultimate step closer to launching astronauts - its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-spacex-crew-dragon-astronaut-launch-animated-video-2019-12">first-ever human passengers</a> - who are part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.</p><p>"We are purposely failing a launch vehicle to make sure that our abort system on the spacecraft that we'll be flying for our crews works," Kathy Lueders, the manager of the agency's program, said during a televised press briefing on Friday. "This is a very important test."</p><h2>'Way past ready for this to happen'</h2><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5b64932f8ea82fb0108b4575-2400/nasa-astronauts-commercial-crew-program-august-2018-ap18215575643268.jpg" alt="nasa astronauts commercial crew program august 2018 AP_18215575643268" /><p>More than the safety of SpaceX's launch system for astronauts is riding on the in-flight abort test. In fact, NASA's ability to launch astronauts from American soil at all partly depends on it.</p><p>In July 2011, NASA retired its space shuttle fleet without a new American ship to get astronauts to and from orbit from the International Space Station - a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-station-trump-plan-problems-astronaut-risk-2018-5">$150 billion, football field-size laboratory</a> that orbits Earth. Since that time, the agency has had no practical choice but to buy tickets aboard Russia's Soyuz spacecraft for astronauts, to the tune of about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-cost-per-soyuz-seat-2016-9">$80 million per seat</a> today.</p><p>The first crewed flights of NASA's commercial program were supposed to start taking off around 2015. But neither SpaceX nor Boeing, which is also part of the agency's program, have not yet completed rigorous mandatory testing required to launch astronauts.</p><p>"Most of us are just way past ready for this to happen. It has taken a lot longer than anybody thought," Wayne Hale, an aerospace engineering consultant and retired NASA space shuttle program manager, told Business Insider. "This year we really need to do it. It really needs to be done."</p><p>Saturday's test is the next-to-last step toward that goal, which is why it's so crucial that everything go right.</p><p>"The number-one most important thing is we launch them safely," Benji Reed, SpaceX's director of crew mission management, said during NASA's briefing at Kennedy Space Center on Friday.</p><p>Hale said that "everybody hopes at this stage that success is the outcome." But he added that in-flight abort tests are not only rare - only a handful of them have been done since the Apollo moon program in the 1960s - but also "a very difficult situation" where "many things can go wrong."</p><p>SpaceX has had <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-boeing-nasa-parachute-emergency-test-problems-2019-5">trouble with its parachutes</a>, for example, though Hale noted that tweaking and testing has apparently resolved those difficulties. Meanwhile, Boeing also saw a parachute deployment hiccup with its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft due to an incorrect rigging. A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-boeing-cst-100-starliner-spaceship-mission-failed-docking-iss-2019-12">clock error</a> on the Starliner also caused Boeing's first uncrewed launch of the vehicle toward the space station to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boeing-cst-100-starliner-spaceship-orbital-flight-test-mission-rescue-2019-12">veer wildly off-course</a>.</p><h2>A rocket mission designed to fail - then to fall</h2><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5c8178812628987234710da7-1920/spacex-crew-dragon-spaceship-space-capsule-four-parachutes-drop-test-nasa-droptestimage01.jpg" alt="spacex crew dragon spaceship space capsule four parachutes drop test nasa DROP_TEST_image_01" /><p>Benji said the Crew Dragon is pre-programmed to detach itself from the Falcon 9 rocket "at the right point in time" if anything goes wrong.</p><p>"We're looking for anything that's off-nominal," he told Business Insider.</p><p>In the case of Saturday's test, the rocket will shut down while the vehicle is moving through extreme, though not maximum, forces in the atmosphere - what Lueders described as "a stressing test" for the entire system, and one that SpaceX ultimately chose over less trying and expensive ones.</p><p>"Getting this test behind us is a huge milestone," she said.</p><p>Shortly after detaching from the rocket on Saturday, Reed said Crew Dragon should fire its SuperDraco escape engines for about 10 seconds. That should be enough to put many miles between the doomed rocket and the spaceship.</p><p>"We expect there to be some sort of ignition, and probably a fireball of some kind. Whether I would call it an explosion that you would see from the ground? I don't know," Reed said of the rocket. "We'll have to see what actually happens."</p><p>As the rocket breaks up, Crew Dragon will coast to an altitude of about 25 miles, shed its aerodynamic "trunk" (which serves as dead weight), and begin to fall toward Earth, according to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qObBRM4euxk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a SpaceX animation on YouTube</a> (below). The plummeting capsule will then use clusters of small rocket engines, called reaction-control thrusters, to right itself at high speed. The goal is to keep the gumdrop-shaped base facing down - and it's parachute pods pointed up.</p><p>About 4 minutes and 30 seconds after launch, two small drogue shoots will pop out of the capsule's top to stabilize its fall. Four enormous main parachutes will deploy about a minute later and dramatically slow down the vehicle. A little while later - about nine minutes total into the mission - the Crew Dragon is supposed to splash down about 20 miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, where SpaceX recovery crews on boats should be ready and waiting to recover it.</p><p>SpaceX and NASA will then review all of the data they collect from the safety test and see if it matches their predictive computer models. That process could take months, and smaller tests may be required afterward.</p><p>Assuming the abort test is a success, SpaceX will be poised to fly its first-ever humans - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-announcement-astronaut-crew-spacex-boeing-selection-2018-8">NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley</a> - on a demonstration mission called Demo-2. (In March 2019, the company launched an uncrewed Crew Dragon <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-spaceship-splashes-down-returns-earth-safely-nasa-2019-3">to the space station and back</a> on a mission called Demo-1.)</p><p>"The main objective of this test is to show that we can carry the astronauts safely away from the rocket in case anything's going wrong," Reed said.</p><iframe width="800" height="450" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/qObBRM4euxk" frameborder="0"></iframe>

SpaceX is about to launch a doomed rocket for NASA - and that's a good thing. Here's what you need to know about Saturday's explosive and crucial in-flight abort test.

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/59b94dc638d20d2a008b5720-2400/cassini-saturn-grand-finale-illustration-artwork-nasa-jpl-caltech-14.jpg" alt="cassini saturn grand finale illustration artwork nasa jpl caltech 14" data-mce-source="NASA/JPL-Caltech" data-mce-caption="An illustration of NASA's Cassini probe as it plunges into the clouds of Saturn." data-link="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7634/"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7634/">NASA/JPL-Caltech</a></span></p><p class="caption">An illustration of NASA's Cassini probe as it plunges into the clouds of Saturn.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>NASA has sent its $3.26-billion Cassini Saturn mission into a death spiral.</strong></li><li><strong>Called the "Grand Finale," the months-maneuver is meant to protect possible alien life on Saturn's ocean-hiding moons.</strong></li><li><strong>Cassini will be destroyed in Saturn's clouds around 6:32 a.m. EDT on Friday.</strong></li></ul><p>The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cassini-death-will-it-be-visible-nasa-hubble-telescopes-2017-9">end is nigh</a> for Cassini, a spacecraft that launched in 1997 and has explored Saturn and its moons for 13 years.</p><p>However, scientists will squeeze every <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-cassini-saturn-finale-timeline-2017-4">last discovery they can</a> from the probe during its final moments.</p><p>NASA is destroying the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-powered-spacecraft-nasa-history-2017-3">nuclear-powered robot</a> early Friday morning because it has run very low on propellant. Burning that fuel has led to countless discoveries, including a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/saturn-hexagon-storm-images-2017-5">giant hexagon</a> on Saturn's north pole and a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/earth-water-ice-volume-versus-planets-moons-2016-11">vast ocean</a> of liquid water - and possibly alien life - below the icy crust of the moon <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/saturns-moon-enceladus-cassini-ocean-life-global-salty-nasa-2015-9">Enceladus</a>.</p><p>But it's also created a problem, since the spacecraft is dusted with earthly microbes.</p><p>"Cassini's own discoveries were its demise," Earl Maize, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) who manages the Cassini mission, previously <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cassini-death-grand-finale-reason-2017-4">told reporters</a>. "We cannot risk inadvertent contact with that pristine body."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/594a7cc2e592ed9b008b5d59-739/screen%20shot%202015-10-26%20at%2055612%20pm.png" alt="enceladus plume" data-mce-source="YouTube/NASA" data-link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ1KowQXc3Y"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ1KowQXc3Y">YouTube/NASA</a></span></p><p class="caption">An image of Saturn's moon Enceladus spewing jets of saltwater from its hidden ocean.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Instead of chucking Cassini into the void of space, mission managers in 2010 decided to squeeze every last ounce of the probe's fuel tanks at Saturn.<p>With one last big burn in April 2017, the probe began a spectacular death spiral called the "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/category/cassini-grand-finale">Grand Finale</a>." This maneuver slipped Cassini through a veritable cosmic keyhole: a small gap between Saturn and its rings.</p><p>So far, the probe has made 22 ring crossings. On Friday, it will make one final orbit, plunge into the Saturnian atmosphere, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cassini-death-will-it-be-visible-nasa-hubble-telescopes-2017-9">burst into light</a> as an artificial meteor.</p><p>"Cassini has got to be put safely away," Maize previously said. The decision was made at the recommendation of NASA's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-planetary-protection-officer-job-opening-2017-7">planetary protection office</a>.</p><p>With just days left in the mission, here's what to expect and when, <a href="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/grand-finale/cassini-end-of-mission-timeline/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to NASA JPL</a>.</p><p><em>Note: Since beams of light (and data transmissions) take more than an hour to reach Earth from Saturn, all times are from Cassini's vantage unless otherwise noted.</em></p><h2>Final Grand Finale data download</h2><p><strong>When</strong>: Friday, Sept. 9 - 9:07 a.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: Cassini beamed back images and other data from the probe's final crossing <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-cassini-saturn-rings-pictures-2017-4">between Saturn and its rings</a>.</p><h2>Titan's 'goodbye kiss'</h2><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/59b94d9d38d20d3c098b5581-1238/cassini-spacecraft-titan-illustration-nasa-jpl-caltech.jpg" alt="cassini spacecraft titan illustration nasa jpl caltech" data-mce-source="NASA/JPL-Caltech" data-mce-caption="An artist rendering of NASA's Cassini spacecraft observing a sunset through the hazy atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon." data-link="https://images.nasa.gov/#/details-PIA18410.html"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://images.nasa.gov/#/details-PIA18410.html">NASA/JPL-Caltech</a></span></p><p class="caption">An artist rendering of NASA's Cassini spacecraft observing a sunset through the hazy atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>When</strong>: Monday, Sept. 11 - 3:04 p.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: A flyby of Titan, a moon the size of planet Mercury, that put Cassini on course to slam into Saturn.</p><p>"Instead of passing safely into and out of Saturn's outermost atmosphere," NASA JPL <a href="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/grand-finale/grand-finale-orbit-guide/">wrote on its site</a>, "Cassini will instead dip so deeply into the atmosphere that the spacecraft will burn up like a meteor."</p><h2>Soaring before the plunge</h2><p><strong>When</strong>: Tuesday, Sept. 12 - 1:27 a.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: Cassini reached its farthest point from Saturn, called an orbital apoapsis, before beginning its final descent toward the planet. The spacecraft was about 800,000 miles away from Saturn.</p><h2>Last images of Titan</h2><p><strong>When</strong>: Tuesday, Sept. 12 - 7:56 p.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: All of the images Cassini took of Saturn's moon Titan during its "goodbye kiss" were sent home.</p><h2>Speeding toward doom</h2><p><strong><br>When</br></strong>: Tuesday, Sept. 12 - Friday, Sept. 15</p><p><strong>What</strong>: Cassini will gradually accelerate as Saturn - a planet 95 times the mass of Earth - drags the probe toward its destruction. The robot will reach a speed of about 78,000 mph before splintering into <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cassini-saturn-mission-death-plutonium-238-burn-up-2017-8">glowing, meteoric pieces</a>.</p><h2>Cassini's final photos</h2><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/59b94ec89803c51e008b5584-1776/daphnisedgewaveshadows.jpg" alt="daphnis" data-mce-source="NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute" data-link="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Saturn#/media/File:Daphnis_edge_wave_shadows.jpg"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Saturn#/media/File:Daphnis_edge_wave_shadows.jpg">NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute</a></span></p></img></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><p><strong>When</strong>: Thursday, Sept. 14 - 3:56 p.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: The probe will take one final image before shutting down its camera system. That picture will be of Saturn "looking toward the dark side of the planet at the impact location" <a href="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/visible-and-infrared-mapping-spectrometer/">in infrared light</a>, plus - in visible light - "a fairly dark observation showing in the area lit by reflected light from the rings," Preston Dyches, a spokesperson for NASA JPL, told Business Insider in an email.</p><p>Dyches added: "Prior to that, the last image will be of one of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/daphnis-saturn-moonlet-image-cassini-nasa-2017-1">propeller features</a> in the rings."</p><h2>Live transmission begins</h2><p><br><strong>When</strong>: Thursday, Sept. 14 - 4:22 p.m. EDT</br></p><p><strong>What</strong>: Cassini reorients itself so that its big, non-moving antenna dish is pointed toward Earth, allowing NASA to download all data it's recorded (included the final photos). The spacecraft will fight to maintain this position for the next 14 hours and 30 minutes - right until the moment it burns up - so that it can transmit atmospheric and other data in real-time.</p><h2>Australia tracks Cassini</h2><p><strong>When</strong>: Thursday, Sept. 14 - 11:15 p.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: A <a href="https://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/">Deep Space Network station</a> in Canberra, Australia, will point its giant radio dishes at Saturn to receive track Cassini and receive its final signals until the probe dies.</p><h2>The Grand Finale - Friday, Sept. 15</h2><h3>Spacecraft roll, live transmission starts</h3><p><strong>When</strong>: 3:14 a.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: A few hours before burning up, and while keeping its antenna pointed at Earth, Cassini will take five minutes to roll itself into a new position. This will point an instrument called the ion and neutral mass spectrometer, or INMS, toward Saturn - allowing NASA to "sniff" the planet's atmospheric gases.</p><p>As Cassini rolls, its computer will reconfigure for live transmission of atmospheric data. The bandwidth will be just 3.4 kilobytes per second - about 830 times slower than the <a href="http://www.speedtest.net/reports/united-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">average download speed</a> of a US mobile phone - but it will be enough to get crucial data about the composition of Saturn's gases home to Earth.</p><h3>Atmospheric entry, thrusters fire</h3><p><strong><br>When</br></strong>: 6:31 a.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: Cassini starts to plunge into the outer fringes of Saturn's thick atmosphere - something the probe was never designed to do. It won't go silently to its death, though: Cassini will start firing its position-changing thrusters at 10% of "open throttle" to keep its antenna dish pointed at Earth as gases buffet the spacecraft.</p><h3>Loss of contact</h3><p><strong>When</strong>: 6:32 a.m. EDT</p><p><strong>What</strong>: About a minute after ramming into Saturn's atmosphere at up to 78,000 mph, Cassini's computer will boost the thrusters to 100% to keep the live transmission going.</p><p>However, the robot won't win this battle. Maize and <a href="http://www4.csudh.edu/inauguration/events/womeninstem/speaker-bios/julie-webster" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Julie Webster</a>, an aerospace engineer and manager of the Cassini spacecraft, told reporters during an August 29 teleconference that the probe has about 60 lbs of propellant out of the 6,900 lbs it started with to use - not enough to right the antenna during the entire descent. At some point Cassini will begin to tumble toward its doom.</p><h3>Total destruction</h3><p><strong><br>When</br></strong>: Seconds to minutes after signal loss</p><p><strong>What</strong>: Cassini will heat up more rapidly the deeper and faster it dives. In fact, "temperatures around the spacecraft will increase by 30-to-100 times per minute" as it descends, <a href="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/the-journey/grand-finale-feature/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NASA said</a>.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58ffde4f7522ca15128b63d1-2000/cassini-instruments-diagram-nasa-jpl-caltech-2943img001943.jpg" alt="cassini instruments diagram nasa jpl caltech 2943_IMG001943" data-mce-source="NASA/JPL-Caltech" data-mce-caption="A diagram of the Cassini spacecraft and its main instruments." data-link="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/2943/"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/2943/">NASA/JPL-Caltech</a></span></p><p class="caption">A diagram of the Cassini spacecraft and its main instruments.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div>Insulating gold-colored blankets will char and break off first, followed by Cassini's antenna, 30-foot-long magnetometer boom, and other loose or fragile parts. Carbon blocks full of plutonium-238 fuel <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cassini-saturn-mission-death-plutonium-238-burn-up-2017-8">will last the longest</a>.<p>"It will basically disintegrate ... long before we hit any real surface of Saturn," Webster said. "Not too long after we lose signal, we'll have already started to be 200 to 500 degrees centigrade - within seconds. We'll start to melt. All parts of it."</p><p>"The deepest it could possibly go in the atmosphere is about 200 kilometers, or 120 miles," Eric Strum, a Cassini mission planner, said on the call. He added that Cassini will disintegrate "thousands of kilometers" above what scientists consider the "surface" of Saturn - where air pressure is the same as on Earth's surface.</p><p>Once fully melted, NASA said, "Cassini's materials will sink deep into Saturn and mix with the hot, high-pressure atmosphere of the giant planet to be completely diluted."</p><h3>Photos of Cassini exploding(?)</h3><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/59b6f5ff38d20d20008b45cb-1030/siding-spring-observatory-australia-wikipedia-ssopete-ccbysa4.jpg" alt="siding spring observatory australia wikipedia ssopete ccbysa4.JPG" data-mce-source="Wikipedia/Ssopete (CC BY-SA 4.0)" data-mce-caption="The Siding Spring Observatory in Australia." data-link="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SSO_overhead_image.JPG"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SSO_overhead_image.JPG">Wikipedia/Ssopete (CC BY-SA 4.0)</a></span></p><p class="caption">The Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.</p></img></div><p></p></div></div><p><strong>When</strong>: 1 hour, 23 minutes, and 28 seconds after Cassini is destroyed</p><p><strong>What</strong>: This is about how long the bursts of light caused by Cassini's death will take to reach Earth. (Saturn will be some 932,822,000 miles away at that moment, according to "<a href="https://eyes.nasa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NASA's Eyes on the Solar System</a>" software.)</p><p>The Hubble space telescope might have recorded Cassini's death in ultraviolet light - the strongest signal the probe will emit as it burns up. But Linda Spilker, a Cassini project scientist and a planetary scientist at NASA JPL, told Business Insider that Hubble <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cassini-death-will-it-be-visible-nasa-hubble-telescopes-2017-9">won't be in a position to see Cassini die</a>.</p><p>Spilker is hopeful that professional observatories and hobbyist astronomers in the southern hemisphere catch a glimpse, especially if several kilograms of Cassini's hydrazine fuel explodes brightly in the final moments.</p><p>"We've got sort of the double-whammy of a little tiny spacecraft that's really not that massive hitting on basically the day side of Saturn. So it's unlikely, but it's definitely worth looking," Spilker told Business Insider. "It's gonna be tough, but I'm hopeful."</p><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:57%"><iframe src="https://gfycat.com/ifr/GlumFailingHookersealion" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div></div><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:54%"><iframe src="https://gfycat.com/ifr/CooperativeUnsightlyCirriped" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div></div><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:54%"><iframe src="https://gfycat.com/ifr/HospitableFreeDore" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div></div><div><div style="position:relative;padding-bottom:43%"><iframe src="https://gfycat.com/ifr/EqualPoliteIcelandichorse" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="100%" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/5-biggest-discoveries-nasa-saturn-cassini-huygens-2017-5">The 5 biggest discoveries from NASA's Cassini spacecraft that changed our view of space</a></h3>        <div>            <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" data-player="jwplayer" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/U6CXTqB3-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><script>function receiveMessage(event){ console.log(event.data.fullscreen); Android.fullscreen(event.data.fullscreen); }window.addEventListener("message", receiveMessage, false);</script>        </div>    </div>

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