Crew Launch Vehicle 1st Flight 2008

[AndyMc]

http://www.usspacenews.com/index.html
November 29, 2005

"CLV 1st launch is scheduled for July 2008. This will be a straight development flight and may only involve the 1st stage (modified STS SRB). "

[Spacely]

That's good news. Why do I get the strange feeling there will have been more CLV test launches by 2010 than there will have been Shuttle flights.

[tom nackid]

I get the feeling that there is a lot going on "behind the scenes" with the CEV and SDLV development and that it will all happen much faster than we suspect. It doesn't seem to bee a media circus with lots of artists impressions and big promises that never gets anywhere like Venturestar was.

[Flightstar]

Spacely - 29/11/2005  1:03 PM

That's good news. Why do I get the strange feeling there will have been more CLV test launches by 2010 than there will have been Shuttle flights.

I don't know. Care to share?

Also that date is taken from a three month old PDF document from MSFC.

[bad_astra]

Cool. I guess they now got a possible name for the first LV of the Constellation program: Little Joe III. And he's reusable too!

I'm glad they're going to begin suborbital work while devlopment continues, rather then an all-up test. They could conceivably do some dramatic abort tests with this setup as well.

[kraisee]

AndyMc - 29/11/2005  11:52 AM

http://www.usspacenews.com/index.html
November 29, 2005

"CLV 1st launch is scheduled for July 2008. This will be a straight development flight and may only involve the 1st stage (modified STS SRB). "

There had been a "hope" to launch it at the end of '07 some time, but that idea has indeed evaporated due entirely to the financial constrictions of the budget.   Those limitations won't let the program be expedited.

Ross.

[Spacely]

So...is July 08 actually a legit date they're throwing around, or is that itself due for a 6-18 month bump?

[kraisee]

Spacely - 30/11/2005  5:49 PM

So...is July 08 actually a legit date they're throwing around, or is that itself due for a 6-18 month bump?

That's a "target date" to get all the workforce on the same page.   Remember; they did something similar for STS-114 late last year, to get everyone involved focussed on a specfic point in the future they could aim for.

But I'd bet that an expectation of some delays is already built-in to that date.   At a guess, I'd bet there's probably something like 3-4 months of "fudge-factor" built in to cope with unforseeable delays. So as long as nothing goes very seriously wrong during development, we should see a launch somewhere around then.

Ross.