SpaceX’s Ripley Mannequin Full of Sensors

Seal Beach, CA – (Mar. 2019) – Following the successful launch and return of the Crew Dragon capsule from the International Space Station (ISS), one of the next steps for SpaceX will be a detailed review of every aspect of the mission. That includes extensive analysis of data collected via Ripley, the HYBIII-50M Anthropomorphic Test Device (ATD) that was one of the first official first “passengers.” According to SpaceX, Ripley was instrumented with 10 (of 30 available) critical sensors to capture head, neck and spine data. DTS sensors and data acquisition systems were onboard to measure loads and forces that future crew members may experience during launch, docking and splashdown. The Demo-1 data will be carefully analyzed to ensure the safety, comfort and reliability of space travel for future astronauts. Once SpaceX determines everything is mission-ready for Demo-2, this will include transporting a live crew of two NASA astronauts to the ISS.