Author Topic: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis  (Read 398131 times)

Offline yg1968

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #20 on: 06/13/2015 01:11 pm »
Do all the milestones carry equal dollar value? Doesn't seem like they should.

I don't think it's unreasonable for me to reveal that they don't. Still trying to find a public list of payments. Kinda ridiculous that this information isn't available to everyone.

There is no such list. The amounts were redacted from the contracts which means that the companies did not want this information disclosed.

Offline joek

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #21 on: 06/13/2015 07:42 pm »
Do all the milestones carry equal dollar value? Doesn't seem like they should.

They don't have equal dollar value.  If this follows typical patterns, the milestone payments are lumpy, and there is significant front-loading.

However, there are milestone payments and there are also interim or progress payments.  Those payments are effectively government financing payments between milestones.  The difference is that the government has the right to recover those  payments if, e.g., milestones are missed and the contract is terminated.  (Once you hit the milestone, you can bank the money; until then any interim payments are at risk.)

While milestone and interim payments are not public, occasionally we get a bit of insight into the run rate; per the Boeing contract amendment 19-Dec-2014:
Quote
This modification changes the amount obligated under this contract from $320,075,675 to $439,575,675, an increase of $119,500,000.
...
Paragraph (c)(1) The date that it is contemplated that funds presently allotted to this contract will cover the work to be performed is changed from December 13, 2014 to February 2, 2015.
+$320M for work from initial award 16-Sep-2014 through 13-Dec-2014.
+$119M for additional work through 2-Feb-2015.
=$439M total for work from initial award through 2-Feb-2015.

Offline saliva_sweet

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #22 on: 06/19/2015 08:38 pm »
Here's a piece from SpaceNews outlining delays in CCtCAP schedule:
http://spacenews.com/commercial-crew-budget-debate-centers-on-program-schedule/

There's an interesting snippet from the senate appropriations committee:
Quote
The committee aide suggested NASA could solve its commercial crew funding shortfall by diverting funding from Soyuz seats.

Could the senate's intention be to put NASA all-in? An interesting gambit that could pay off and expedite commercial crew. The potential risk to crew safety is obvious however.
« Last Edit: 06/19/2015 08:40 pm by saliva_sweet »

Offline davey142

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #23 on: 06/19/2015 08:49 pm »
Here's a piece from SpaceNews outlining delays in CCtCAP schedule:
http://spacenews.com/commercial-crew-budget-debate-centers-on-program-schedule/

There's an interesting snippet from the senate appropriations committee:
Quote
The committee aide suggested NASA could solve its commercial crew funding shortfall by diverting funding from Soyuz seats.

Could the senate's intention be to put NASA all-in? An interesting gambit that could pay off and expedite commercial crew. The potential risk to crew safety is obvious however.
Whatever decision NASA makes, it's going to have to make it quickly. The lead time on those [Soyuz] seats is several years.
« Last Edit: 06/19/2015 08:50 pm by davey142 »

Offline nadreck

Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #24 on: 06/19/2015 09:03 pm »
Back in the early days of the "space race" there was an immediacy that was communicated to the public along with the very real risks. While I doubt if you can justify that science or engineering is done better under pressure, the appearance of working under a deadline, is often good to attract an audience. For example your team needs to win 4 of the next 5 games to make the playoffs, they win one, now you update that to 3 of the next 4 and more people pay attention and watch, they lose one, 3 of the next 3, if they lose it, the next game might have been the most watched of the season, but if they win guaranteed the next game is, even more so the game after that if they won the 2nd to last one.  Mercury, Gemini, Apollo were very much like that in the perception of the public.

Now I don't say that any decision Congress, Senate, or NASA makes is based on this, but I do think that from a PR perspective, you would have people on the edges of their seats if there was a race to keep the ISS manned (or a race to keep from ceding all the seats in the ISS to non US crew if they are waiting for commercial crew to take them there). I don't think this will happen, but I do think that this is part of what is different today from earlier programs, somewhere I think that immediacy coming back will help. Obviously "The Martian" has that immediacy, so does a lot of fiction, that helps get the public genuinely interested, but like Kennedy's "In this decade" we probably have to follow through in real space programs some of that immediacy to keep the public interest alive.
It is all well and good to quote those things that made it past your confirmation bias that other people wrote, but this is a discussion board damnit! Let us know what you think! And why!

Offline yg1968

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #25 on: 03/03/2016 01:21 am »
Quote from: Jeff Foust
Phil McAlister showed this chart of CCtCap (comm’l crew) milestones; more have been completed since last update.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/705107057251233792

Offline Flying Beaver

Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #26 on: 03/03/2016 01:27 am »
Quote from: Jeff Foust
Phil McAlister showed this chart of CCtCap (comm’l crew) milestones; more have been completed since last update.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/705107057251233792

Nice to see Dragon is still slated to fly this December. And that the first crew flight has been moved up 2-3 months from July 2017 to April.
 If anything SpaceX is hitting all there milestones ahead of schedule, Boeing on the other hand...
Watched B1019 land in person 21/12/2015.

Offline arachnitect

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #27 on: 03/03/2016 02:15 am »
Quote from: Jeff Foust
Phil McAlister showed this chart of CCtCap (comm’l crew) milestones; more have been completed since last update.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/705107057251233792

Nice to see Dragon is still slated to fly this December. And that the first crew flight has been moved up 2-3 months from July 2017 to April.
 If anything SpaceX is hitting all there milestones ahead of schedule, Boeing on the other hand...

We will see.

Offline docmordrid

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #28 on: 03/03/2016 02:20 am »
Quote from: Jeff Foust
Phil McAlister showed this chart of CCtCap (comm’l crew) milestones; more have been completed since last update.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/705107057251233792

Does that say the D2 propulsive descent milestone was completed in December?
DM

Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #29 on: 03/03/2016 02:33 am »
Quote from: Jeff Foust
Phil McAlister showed this chart of CCtCap (comm’l crew) milestones; more have been completed since last update.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/705107057251233792

Does that say the D2 propulsive descent milestone was completed in December?

It says initial propulsion test (the hover test).

Offline docmordrid

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #30 on: 03/03/2016 03:05 am »
I took the Initial Propulsion Module Testing in November to be the hover test since it coincides with the November hover test video. Also, the hover didn't involve a "Descent."
DM

Offline Confusador

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #31 on: 03/03/2016 04:06 pm »
Quote from: Jeff Foust
Phil McAlister showed this chart of CCtCap (comm’l crew) milestones; more have been completed since last update.

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/705107057251233792

Does that say the D2 propulsive descent milestone was completed in December?

The chart is from November, but it says it was scheduled for December and accompanied by a statement that more tests have been completed, so I'm going with 'probably'.  When we'll get video is anyone's guess.

Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #32 on: 03/03/2016 04:18 pm »
It's likely that milestone just hasn't been moved to the right on the chart yet.

Offline Nomadd

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #33 on: 03/07/2016 05:59 pm »
I took the Initial Propulsion Module Testing in November to be the hover test since it coincides with the November hover test video. Also, the hover didn't involve a "Descent."
I'm pretty sure it's not still hovering.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.

Offline Prober

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #34 on: 03/22/2016 02:26 pm »
2017 - Everything Old is New Again.
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." --Isoroku Yamamoto

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #35 on: 03/22/2016 06:16 pm »

Take-aways from that vid:
- SpaceX and NASA in the middle of designing the crew acces arm for pad 39A (sounds like a combined effort)
- SpaceX working mainly on the FSS this year
- Every time the question came up about the RSS coming down the response was: "contact SpaceX"
- First demo mission (the unmanned one) is in 2017
« Last Edit: 03/22/2016 06:17 pm by woods170 »

Offline yg1968

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #36 on: 03/28/2016 02:53 pm »
Quote
Boeing has already been awarded $621 million in contracts, while SpaceX has received roughly $545 million. [...]

SpaceX is expected to launch flight tests this year from Florida's Space Coast. An unmanned test flight to the International Space Station, along with a manned mission, will follow in 2017. Meanwhile, Boeing plans to launch an unmanned test flight in April 2017, with a flight complete with crew to be delivered in late 2017.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-starliner-human-cargo-space-20160325-1-story.html
« Last Edit: 03/29/2016 01:47 pm by yg1968 »

Offline Sesquipedalian

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #37 on: 03/31/2016 03:19 pm »
Jeff Foust has tweeted a new Commercial Crew milestone chart presented by Bill Gerstenmaier, current as of March 2016.  (Previous chart was from November 30, 2015.)

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/715552131323994115
Quote
Gerst: commercial crew program doing pretty good overall, lots of challenges. Upcoming milestones:

Offline yg1968

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #38 on: 03/31/2016 03:38 pm »
Uncrewed SpaceX test flight has been delayed from December 2016 to May 2017.

The Boeing and SpaceX test flight dates are now very close.
« Last Edit: 03/31/2016 03:42 pm by yg1968 »

Offline jongoff

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #39 on: 04/01/2016 01:56 am »
Uncrewed SpaceX test flight has been delayed from December 2016 to May 2017.

The Boeing and SpaceX test flight dates are now very close.

Yeah, it's interesting that there's still over a year before any of them do any flight tests of any sort.

~Jon

 

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