Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Wikipedia describes the thrusters:

Eighteen Draco thrusters are used on the Dragon spacecraft for attitude control and maneuvering. Dual-redun­dant in all axes: any two can fail and still have complete vehicle control in pitch, yaw, roll and translation.

Four Draco thrusters are used on the Falcon 9 second-stage as a reaction control system.




I've looked at some pictures, and I think a thruster "pod" is a collection of 4 thrusters, all pointing in different directions. It looks like there are 4 such pods arranged around the edge of the Dragon capsule. That would account for 16 or the 18 thrusters.


Two of the pods have 5 thrusters. Those pods have two thrusters point "up". That give a total of six pointing "up". These are the thrusters used for the deorbit burn and having two extra is for redundancy




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: