While an intern at SpaceX in Fall 2017, I had the opportunity to design and develop parts to support Crew Dragon Ocean Recovery.
During my internship, if I wasn’t designing parts in Siemens NX or analyzing them with ANSYS FEA at headquarters, I was working from the docks in San Pedro, CA with the ocean recovery vessels. I had the opportunity design, analyze, draft, and procure the parts that I designed - and actually see them get used! This experience was truly rewarding as it gave me a cradle-to-grave perspective on how parts develop from concepts.
My primary contribution at SpaceX was developing the “horse collar.” As seen in the above picture, the horse collar is the strap that sits around the capsule to minimize swinging of the vessel during hoist. As the capsule is being designed to carry people to space, astronaut safety during ocean recovery is critical to mission success. Excessive swinging during hoist and capsule placement can seriously injure astronauts, damage the capsule, or damage the ocean vessel.
There were several competing requirements to design around - maximize astronaut safety, minimize capsule damage, maximize equipment reusability, maximize ease of operational use, and minimize cost to name a few. Compromises and trade-offs were made to handle the competing requirements and arrive at the solution for which I participated in 3 operational offshore tests to gather insights, opportunities, and validation.
By the conclusion of my internship, I presented a preliminary design review to the team, prepared a critical design review, identified a vendor to fabricate the horse collar, and worked with the supplier’s project engineer to develop the part to our required specifications. Prior to the internship, I was fairly unexposed to slings and rigging equipment, but I was able to quickly learn and drive design decisions by the end of the internship to push this project forward.
In March 2019, the ocean recovery operation had its first real mission - SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-1. On reviewing the footage, I was excited to see the horse collar on the capsule was nearly identical to the one I developed in my internship! See ocean recovery footage below:
