The reason Orion and Dragon have switched to sea landings is that weight growth during development has made land touchdowns impossible.
It will reduce Orion's weight, but what about the added costs of the ocean recovery vessels (ships, helicopters, etc.)? Does the Navy provide those services for free, or will NASA have to budget for them?
This is bad news.Once again, operational costs are being increased (and therefore overall costs) to save some development costs.
Those huge recovery fleets of the 1960s existed to make sure Soviet submarines weren't in the landing area. They were based on an Essex-class antisub carrier packed with sub-hunting airplanes and helicopters.Later, when the Sovs showed no interest in interfering with manned landings, the task was passed to the Guam-class Marine Corps helicopter carriers. There was always at least one surplus to requirements because most of the Marine battalions they were designed to land were tied up in Vietnam. Guidance during Apollo was so good that landings were always in visual range of the carrier.Spacex shows the future by using an oil rig service vessel with a stabilized crane. I don't know why NASA insists on bringing in the Navy again. With the proposed expansion of the Marine Corps to 36 battalions there probably won't be any landing ships to spare.The reason Orion and Dragon have switched to sea landings is that weight growth during development has made land touchdowns impossible.
Since when did the Dragon 2 scrap its plans for propulsive landings? I knew NASA wanted the initial Commercial Crew landings to be splashdowns, but I was under the impression that SpaceX was still actively developing and reserving the propulsive landing system for non-NASA flights and future CC missions.
Quote from: sevenperforce on 03/21/2017 11:51 amSince when did the Dragon 2 scrap its plans for propulsive landings? I knew NASA wanted the initial Commercial Crew landings to be splashdowns, but I was under the impression that SpaceX was still actively developing and reserving the propulsive landing system for non-NASA flights and future CC missions.It didn't, they're talking about Dragon 1
...The reason Orion and Dragon have switched to sea landings is that weight growth during development has made land touchdowns impossible.
Part of the issue of cost of water recovery is being able to respond quickly to landings in many different places. During launch the recovery would have to be quick whether a pad abort drops the capsule a few feet off shore, or it aborts in flight somewhere in the North Atlantic. The same then goes during orbit operations that a craft has to be able to return within a certain amount of time in the event of an emergency to a location they can be recovered from, which means multiple ships on station, or at least contracted. Quote from: sevenperforce on 03/21/2017 11:51 amSince when did the Dragon 2 scrap its plans for propulsive landings? I knew NASA wanted the initial Commercial Crew landings to be splashdowns, but I was under the impression that SpaceX was still actively developing and reserving the propulsive landing system for non-NASA flights and future CC missions.NASA didn't "want" the initial landings to be water-recovery, they required acceptable abort profiles. Since most of the abort landings would be water landings, and SpaceX was having issues with water landings they had to focus on fixing those issues at the expense of propulsive landings.
Dragon 2 is having trouble with water landings?
Part of the issue of cost of water recovery is being able to respond quickly to landings in many different places. During launch the recovery would have to be quick whether a pad abort drops the capsule a few feet off shore, or it aborts in flight somewhere in the North Atlantic. The same then goes during orbit operations that a craft has to be able to return within a certain amount of time in the event of an emergency to a location they can be recovered from, which means multiple ships on station, or at least contracted.
Quote from: rayleighscatter on 03/21/2017 07:34 pmPart of the issue of cost of water recovery is being able to respond quickly to landings in many different places. During launch the recovery would have to be quick whether a pad abort drops the capsule a few feet off shore, or it aborts in flight somewhere in the North Atlantic. The same then goes during orbit operations that a craft has to be able to return within a certain amount of time in the event of an emergency to a location they can be recovered from, which means multiple ships on station, or at least contracted. I just want to know how much costs are added compared to precision (propulsive or runway) recovery or even Soyuz-style land recovery. Does anyone here even know?