SpaceX has successfully completed the first of three phases of review required by NASA's Safety Review Panel (SRP) to send its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). Over a series of meetings spanning four days at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the team of SpaceX engineers developing the Dragon spacecraft presented their Phase I plans for sending the cargo version of Dragon to the $100 billion dollar orbiting space laboratory.
The review covered twenty-three specific hazards, with extra attention paid to the danger of collision — one of the most difficult hazards to mitigate. The issue of preventing a collision with the ISS was a primary topic of the safety review, and is generally considered one of the more difficult visiting vehicle topics. According to the Safety Review Panel's approval letter, the Phase I collision hazard report for Dragon was approved on the first attempt
"To date, no other group has passed the Hazard of Collision report the first time through or completed the overall review in such a short time," said Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX. "The fact that we passed in under a week speaks well of our team's capabilities."
As part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) competition, SpaceX intends to demonstrate its launch, maneuvering and docking abilities by 2009 — a year before NASA has scheduled the conclusion of Space Shuttle operations.
