SpaceX demos emergency escape chute for crewed flights

SpaceX today shared a video demonstration of an emergency escape chute that will enable human flight passengers to exit through an optional system in case of any unfortunate event.

This system is designed for emergencies including propellant leaks, system abnormalities, any pre-post-scrub situation, and any other anomaly. This may lead to a primary escape system such as an elevator that may not work.

Therefore, an escape chute system could come in handy and efficiently extract multiple people in a minute.

SpaceX emergency escape chute (Image Credit: SpaceX)

The video shows the rollout of the emergency escape chute from the launch tower over attached cables. The crew could instantly slide downwards to reach the bottom end while decelerating.

The company tested its emergency escape chute at the Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) launch site in Cape Canaveral Florida. SpaceX launches its crewed mission with Falcon 9 reusable rocket and Dragon spacecraft.

Kik Dontchev, Vice President of Launch at SpaceX explained that the company took commercially available off-the-shelf technology and applied it to the crew tower.

The crew will be trained on it the same way as using an emergency exit door on an airplane. He further reveled that it takes a couple of quick physical actions to deploy the slide and anyone can effectively do it.

“The system will help us scale to bigger towers and spaceships (think 100 people on Starship” said Donchev.

Teams test the new emergency chutes from the pad 40 crew tower in Florida pic.twitter.com/rWVj7zaHp0

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 19, 2024