Author Topic: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis  (Read 397613 times)

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #340 on: 01/27/2017 02:38 pm »
Eric Berger has now written an article on what he thinks will be further delays, predicting no crew flight for either Starliner or Dragon before 2019. No real specifics in the article though:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/sources-neither-boeing-nor-spacex-likely-ready-to-fly-crews-until-2019/

Offline meberbs

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #341 on: 01/27/2017 03:00 pm »
The actual reasoning for expecting delays is stated late in the article. It suggests Boeing has some more work to do to prove that it really fixed the aerodynamic issues with launch on Atlas V. On the SpaceX side, it states that NASA will want to see multiple F9 Block 5 launches before putting crews on board, including using the F9 Block 5 for the uncrewed demo. Since both initial flight of F9 Block 5 and the uncrewed demo are scheduled late this year, delays in the Block 5 will also delay the demo.

Not knowing who the position of the source for that article, it is hard to judge how much is real inside information and how much is their personal speculation. I personally would be surprised if neither company had their crewed demo in 2018. Schedules will probably slip some, and first operational flight might get delayed to Jan-Feb 2019. This case still leaves 4 months for Boeing, and 7 months for SpaceX, and even if one has something unexpected push it past that, I doubt both would run into that large of issues.

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #342 on: 01/27/2017 03:19 pm »
Yes. And some of the technical problems that bedeviled Dragon 2 in late 2015 were a direct result of NASA adding additional requirements. The most prominent one being the requirement to have early missions of Dragon 2 land in the ocean under parachutes, in stead of propulsive landing on land. Other technical problems are associated with the fact that both companies are now deep into the "bending metal" phase.

When did that change get made?  I remember at the intro events in 2014 that NASA talked about where it was generally agreed that it would start with water landings and then move to land landings if it was proven, and I had assumed that was the plan from the outset, but I could easily have been mistaken. 

I thought that the public Commercial Crew documents showed that they had proposed the water landings at first, perhaps thinking that NASA wouldn't go for land landings at the outset (or maybe that it would've affected their bid for the contract?).

Well, they always had to have water landings as almost any abort scenario required it.
Correct, however in that situation the capsule was only required to survive just a couple of hours in the water, at most.
When NASA required SpaceX to have water landings as the default mode for the first flights, the requirement suddenly expected the capsule, with crew onboard, to survive in the water for nearly a full day.
So, that meant that almost all equipment in the service setion of the capsule had to be made fully resistant to salt seawater for at least 24 hours. It led to several other design changes as well.
« Last Edit: 01/27/2017 03:29 pm by woods170 »

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #343 on: 01/27/2017 03:26 pm »
Yes. And some of the technical problems that bedeviled Dragon 2 in late 2015 were a direct result of NASA adding additional requirements. The most prominent one being the requirement to have early missions of Dragon 2 land in the ocean under parachutes, in stead of propulsive landing on land. Other technical problems are associated with the fact that both companies are now deep into the "bending metal" phase.

When did that change get made?  I remember at the intro events in 2014 that NASA talked about where it was generally agreed that it would start with water landings and then move to land landings if it was proven, and I had assumed that was the plan from the outset, but I could easily have been mistaken. 

I thought that the public Commercial Crew documents showed that they had proposed the water landings at first, perhaps thinking that NASA wouldn't go for land landings at the outset (or maybe that it would've affected their bid for the contract?).
The CCtCAP proposal from SpaceX had land landings (either parachutes with SuperDraco assisted braking or full propulsive landing) as the default landing mode. Water landings were for abort purposes only.
As such, crew Dragon was not going to spend time in water for any longer than just a few hours at most. But, when NASA ordered parachute landings into the ocean as the default landing mode for the first several crew Dragon flight, it had major implications. You see, that parachute-landing-into-the-ocean requirement came with additional requirements about how long the capsule (with crew onboard) would have to last in the ocean. And that in turn required substantial modifications to the seaworthiness of the stuff in crew Dragon's service compartments.

Now, SpaceX had already calculated that there would be additional requirements, so the scope of their CCtCAP contract, in terms of contract value, did not change. It is a FFP contract after all. But the added requirements meant that the original time-schedule went out the window almost immediately after the CCtCAP contracts were signed.
« Last Edit: 01/27/2017 03:28 pm by woods170 »

Offline meberbs

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #344 on: 01/27/2017 03:34 pm »
So in an emergency water landing situation, where they came down in some random ocean because they had no choice, rescue crews are expected to get to them within a few hours. On the other hand, for a planned landing in the ocean where their drop point is predetermined, it might take a full day for the support ship to arrive.

Does this seem backwards to anyone else?

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #345 on: 01/27/2017 03:37 pm »
Eric Berger has now written an article on what he thinks will be further delays, predicting no crew flight for either Starliner or Dragon before 2019. No real specifics in the article though:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/sources-neither-boeing-nor-spacex-likely-ready-to-fly-crews-until-2019/
There is a little too much use of "may", "likely", "probably" and "could" in that article. The give-away that this article is to be taken with several pinches of salt is the bolded part in the quote below:

Quote from: Eric Berger
Among those flights will be an uncrewed test flight of the Dragon V2 spacecraft, which will likely dock with the space station.

It is not "likely". It is in fact the plan.

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.
« Last Edit: 01/27/2017 03:46 pm by woods170 »

Offline meberbs

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #346 on: 01/27/2017 04:02 pm »
Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.
Good catches. There is also the point that we are less than 18 months from the 2 extra seats NASA is planning to buy off of Boeing (on Soyuz), so that rule sounds fairly made up.

Offline gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #347 on: 01/27/2017 07:37 pm »
Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

You're assuming that two month mission would actually happen, I'm pretty doubtful.  The first time a US crew vehicle is really needed would be in Spring of 2019 when the current Soyuz contract ends.  I'd bet that's the first time they will fly a post-certification mission (assuming someone gets certified in time).

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #348 on: 01/27/2017 08:53 pm »

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

Duration of visit doesn't negate a lot of the training though. There's less training for specific experiments but all of the emergency, contingency, operations, eva, etc all has to be done, likely in full. They can't do 1/3 of the systems familiarization simply because they'll only be there 1/3 of the time.

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #349 on: 01/27/2017 11:20 pm »

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

Duration of visit doesn't negate a lot of the training though. There's less training for specific experiments but all of the emergency, contingency, operations, eva, etc all has to be done, likely in full. They can't do 1/3 of the systems familiarization simply because they'll only be there 1/3 of the time.
Every NASA astronaut from day one receives the routine/emergency standard ISS procedures practice/study etc. They only need the refresher course just prior to a mission which should be only a few months.

A BTW 6 months of that claimed 18 months of ISS training is actually Soyuz training occurring in Russia. So the unique ISS training is only 12 months.
« Last Edit: 01/27/2017 11:22 pm by oldAtlas_Eguy »

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #350 on: 01/28/2017 02:37 am »

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

Duration of visit doesn't negate a lot of the training though. There's less training for specific experiments but all of the emergency, contingency, operations, eva, etc all has to be done, likely in full. They can't do 1/3 of the systems familiarization simply because they'll only be there 1/3 of the time.
Every NASA astronaut from day one receives the routine/emergency standard ISS procedures practice/study etc. They only need the refresher course just prior to a mission which should be only a few months.

A BTW 6 months of that claimed 18 months of ISS training is actually Soyuz training occurring in Russia. So the unique ISS training is only 12 months.
And instead of 6 months Soyuz training they'll get 6 months Dragon or Starliner training. In fact they'll probably have to get Soyuz, Dragon, and Starliner training because in an emergency they'll have to be familiar with all crewed spacecraft that will be at the station.

Offline su27k

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #351 on: 01/28/2017 03:23 am »
So in an emergency water landing situation, where they came down in some random ocean because they had no choice, rescue crews are expected to get to them within a few hours. On the other hand, for a planned landing in the ocean where their drop point is predetermined, it might take a full day for the support ship to arrive.

Does this seem backwards to anyone else?

Maybe they're considering anomaly during reentry? IIRC there're a few times Soyuz went off course by hundreds of miles during landing. On the other hand if they used LAS during launch, it wouldn't be far from the launch trajectory which is well know ahead of time and actively monitored.

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #352 on: 01/28/2017 08:27 pm »
So in an emergency water landing situation, where they came down in some random ocean because they had no choice, rescue crews are expected to get to them within a few hours. On the other hand, for a planned landing in the ocean where their drop point is predetermined, it might take a full day for the support ship to arrive.

Does this seem backwards to anyone else?
Only to you. Neither crew Dragon, nor Starliner, were foreseen to ever have "random ocean landings due to not having a choice".
The give-away is the fact that NASA did not order water-landings for Starliner as the baseline for early missions. It only applies to crew Dragon because NASA is uncomfortable with propulsive (assisted) landing for early missions. What remained was parachute landing. However, unlike Starliner, the crew Dragon does not have airbags to cushion a land landing. So, that left parachuting into water as the only option. The result we know: lot's of extra requirements.

But before all this played out, the only scenario having Starliner or crew Dragon land in water was pad-abort or launch-abort. In which case the crew and capsule would be out of the water within a few hours.

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #353 on: 01/28/2017 08:30 pm »

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

Duration of visit doesn't negate a lot of the training though. There's less training for specific experiments but all of the emergency, contingency, operations, eva, etc all has to be done, likely in full. They can't do 1/3 of the systems familiarization simply because they'll only be there 1/3 of the time.
Every NASA astronaut from day one receives the routine/emergency standard ISS procedures practice/study etc. They only need the refresher course just prior to a mission which should be only a few months.

A BTW 6 months of that claimed 18 months of ISS training is actually Soyuz training occurring in Russia. So the unique ISS training is only 12 months.
And instead of 6 months Soyuz training they'll get 6 months Dragon or Starliner training. In fact they'll probably have to get Soyuz, Dragon, and Starliner training because in an emergency they'll have to be familiar with all crewed spacecraft that will be at the station.
Unlike Soyuz the Starliner and crew Dragon are highly automated. Much less involvement of the crew to get the vehicle to the station and back down to earth again. Particularly crew Dragon is very, very much a hands-off vehicle. So, less training required.

Offline erioladastra

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #354 on: 01/28/2017 10:17 pm »

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

Duration of visit doesn't negate a lot of the training though. There's less training for specific experiments but all of the emergency, contingency, operations, eva, etc all has to be done, likely in full. They can't do 1/3 of the systems familiarization simply because they'll only be there 1/3 of the time.
Every NASA astronaut from day one receives the routine/emergency standard ISS procedures practice/study etc. They only need the refresher course just prior to a mission which should be only a few months.

A BTW 6 months of that claimed 18 months of ISS training is actually Soyuz training occurring in Russia. So the unique ISS training is only 12 months.

Actually not correct.  There is generic training but there is a fair amount of emergency training when a crew member is assigned to a given expedition.  The training than focuses on the actual crew he/she will be flying with. 

Regarding the 2 months comment - that is al up in the air and being worked.  Could be a few weeks, could be a month or so.

Offline erioladastra

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #355 on: 01/28/2017 10:20 pm »

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

Duration of visit doesn't negate a lot of the training though. There's less training for specific experiments but all of the emergency, contingency, operations, eva, etc all has to be done, likely in full. They can't do 1/3 of the systems familiarization simply because they'll only be there 1/3 of the time.
Every NASA astronaut from day one receives the routine/emergency standard ISS procedures practice/study etc. They only need the refresher course just prior to a mission which should be only a few months.

A BTW 6 months of that claimed 18 months of ISS training is actually Soyuz training occurring in Russia. So the unique ISS training is only 12 months.
And instead of 6 months Soyuz training they'll get 6 months Dragon or Starliner training. In fact they'll probably have to get Soyuz, Dragon, and Starliner training because in an emergency they'll have to be familiar with all crewed spacecraft that will be at the station.
Unlike Soyuz the Starliner and crew Dragon are highly automated. Much less involvement of the crew to get the vehicle to the station and back down to earth again. Particularly crew Dragon is very, very much a hands-off vehicle. So, less training required.

I would not say it is 6 months for 6 months.  The commercial crew vehicles are required to be operable by one person though two will be trained to do so.  the other 2 crew won't get much vehicle training.

And a crew will be only trained for their vehicle - they will never come down on a vehicle different than they went up on.

edit/gongora: trimmed quotes
« Last Edit: 01/29/2017 12:13 am by gongora »

Offline savuporo

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #356 on: 01/29/2017 02:15 am »
Quick check , is this program slipping about 6 months every 6 months?
Orion - the first and only manned not-too-deep-space craft

Offline rayleighscatter

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #357 on: 01/29/2017 01:27 pm »
So in an emergency water landing situation, where they came down in some random ocean because they had no choice, rescue crews are expected to get to them within a few hours. On the other hand, for a planned landing in the ocean where their drop point is predetermined, it might take a full day for the support ship to arrive.

Does this seem backwards to anyone else?
Only to you. Neither crew Dragon, nor Starliner, were foreseen to ever have "random ocean landings due to not having a choice".
The give-away is the fact that NASA did not order water-landings for Starliner as the baseline for early missions. It only applies to crew Dragon because NASA is uncomfortable with propulsive (assisted) landing for early missions. What remained was parachute landing. However, unlike Starliner, the crew Dragon does not have airbags to cushion a land landing. So, that left parachuting into water as the only option. The result we know: lot's of extra requirements.

But before all this played out, the only scenario having Starliner or crew Dragon land in water was pad-abort or launch-abort. In which case the crew and capsule would be out of the water within a few hours.

I've never read anything along the lines of that first part. I have read that SpaceX has had issues with water landings that had to be addressed before they could even consider a land landing, issues Boeing hasn't had which allows them to go forward with either option.

And the reason is that in the event of a water landing it's highly ambitious to think the astroanuts will be picked up that quick. If an inflight abort takes place, being picked up in a few hours may not be reasonable when you're floating 600 miles off the coast of cape cod. It's the same with an emergency departure from the ISS for any reason. The ships won't be on station, if it's even achievable to target the intended landing zone. And even off the coast of Florida you can get 10 foot swells on a clear day which means the occupants will have to wait it out, if the craft permits it. Shuttle had to make sure a handful of abort sites had acceptable weather, will SpaceX/Boeing have to make sure the entire Atlantic is calm, or will the craft have to be able to endure?



And a crew will be only trained for their vehicle - they will never come down on a vehicle different than they went up on.

Like Expedition 6?
« Last Edit: 01/29/2017 01:32 pm by rayleighscatter »

Offline yg1968

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #358 on: 01/29/2017 02:09 pm »
Eric Berger has now written an article on what he thinks will be further delays, predicting no crew flight for either Starliner or Dragon before 2019. No real specifics in the article though:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/sources-neither-boeing-nor-spacex-likely-ready-to-fly-crews-until-2019/
There is a little too much use of "may", "likely", "probably" and "could" in that article. The give-away that this article is to be taken with several pinches of salt is the bolded part in the quote below:

Quote from: Eric Berger
Among those flights will be an uncrewed test flight of the Dragon V2 spacecraft, which will likely dock with the space station.

It is not "likely". It is in fact the plan.

Another clear mistake in Eric's article is the assumption that crews must be assigned 18 months prior to their flight because of the long preparation needed for their stay on the ISS. He overlooks the fact that the first CCP operational mission will have it's astro's on board ISS for just two (2) months, not the usual six (6). No 18 month prep period needed.

NASA did not require that the uncrewed flight dock to the ISS. Actually, NASA didn't require an uncrewed flight, the commercial crew companies decided to propose one.

The article says that 18 months would allow time for the astronauts to train. It doesn't say that the training would last 18 months.
« Last Edit: 01/29/2017 02:24 pm by yg1968 »

Offline QuantumG

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #359 on: 01/29/2017 09:42 pm »
Quick check , is this program slipping about 6 months every 6 months?

More.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

 

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