ISS Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) 2017-2030

[okan170]

Can Dreamchaser's disposable module use CBM? I think we've only seen it with NDS.

In the most recent animations shown, they have an additional clip showing an option for the CBM, and an animation of the SSRMS grabbing Dreamchaser by a grapple fixture for berthing. 

[MP99]

SpaceX surely priced their CCtCap bid assuming economies of scale between their cargo and crew business.  Penalizing them for that would not be fair.

ISTM more likely they priced CCtCap based on CRS + extension, but not CRS2.

CRS2, however, could be priced based on them having a CC contract.

Cheers, Martin

[dror]

All of the capabilities in the table below are required.  Note that the only  provider who can meet all requirements is SNC (based on best information available at this time).

SpaceX or Boeing could tick the "pressurized disposal" box just by saying they can pack it in their vehicle, land it, and take it to the nearest landfill.  Or, they could propose a variant of their vehicle with the heat shield replaced with a dummy material and let it burn up in the atmosphere.
Maybe it's not as cost effective, but then that's really about how the cost compares to the cost of the competition, it's not that they don't have the capability.

There were talks earlier in this thread about a third option of adding a pressurised suitcase in dragons trunk to increase it's upmass volume and to allow disposal. We don't know if such an option was offered. it was said that adding a cbm and another pressure vessel will make that option non economic, but it turned out that SNC went that way.

 http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1209/07liberty/03liberty_400300.jpg
 

[deltaV]

I just noticed the following in the solicitation's Q&A #4:

[Q] 91. NASA confirmed in its response to Question #42 that it intends for Offerors to secure $100M of insurance
coverage for scheduled Cargo.  It is requested that NASA remove this requirement for the following
reasons:
[It's too expensive, etc.]
A. NASA will not remove this requirement.

Is this the first time that NASA or the DOD has required a launch vehicle contractor to pay a penalty upon failure (or buy insurance to pay said penalty) that's of similar magnitude to the harm done to the government customer by the failure? ISTM that's a much better way to do quality control than mountains of paperwork. If the paperwork is actually useful the insurance companies will require it.

[A_M_Swallow]

Why would the return limits matter if you want to dispose of the cargo anyway?

There are specified minimums.  For pressurized down-mass standard mission may include:
1. All return: minimum 2500kg.
2. All disposal: minimum 2500kg.
3. Mixed return-disposal: minimum 1500kg return and 1000kg disposal.

Those minimums are specifically intended to eliminate checking the ""pressurized disposal" box without substantively meeting the need.

Can SpaceX meet the Pressurised Disposal option by taking up a second Bigelow BEAM?
All the development has been paid for.

[guckyfan]

In what way would downmass be less desirable than disposal? I don't understand, as already mentioned they could dump downmass if not needed. Or is it that for disposal they could pack materials that would contaminate the vehicle?

[ncb1397]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate and orbital has a 1/3 failure rate, there is a 45% chance that at least one of the incumbent suppliers will fail on their return to flight mission. IMO, if they do, it is most likely they get kicked from the follow on contract. NASA will be in a much better position to award follow on contracts when their current suppliers are operating normally.

[Robotbeat]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate ...

That's not a fair accounting.

[jak Kennedy]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate and orbital has a 1/3 failure rate, there is a 45% chance that at least one of the incumbent suppliers will fail on their return to flight mission. IMO, if they do, it is most likely they get kicked from the follow on contract. NASA will be in a much better position to award follow on contracts when their current suppliers are operating normally.

Not to argue about CRS1 failure/success but are previous launch failures indicative of future launch success? If the problems have been corrected then there should be no bearing. Are you really saying the chance of Cygnus riding on an Atlas V has a 1/3 chance of failure? Doesn't seem worth trying at those odds.

[ncb1397]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate and orbital has a 1/3 failure rate, there is a 45% chance that at least one of the incumbent suppliers will fail on their return to flight mission. IMO, if they do, it is most likely they get kicked from the follow on contract. NASA will be in a much better position to award follow on contracts when their current suppliers are operating normally.

Not to argue about CRS1 failure/success but are previous launch failures indicative of future launch success? If the problems have been corrected then there should be no bearing. Are you really saying the chance of Cygnus riding on an Atlas V has a 1/3 chance of failure? Doesn't seem worth trying at those odds.

Well, it is a test flight of enhanced Cygnus. Atlas V has a low chance of failure but who knows what the odds are on the new ultraflex solar panels not deploying. The same institutional problems that allowed the use of faulty engines could show up elsewhere in the supply chain. CRS-8 will use a pretty new launch vehicle variant and ORB-4 will use a new spacecraft variant. There isn't any statistics on these variants, and so I would suggest institutional track record as being the most objective.

[DaveS]

a test flight of enhanced Cygnus. Atlas V has a low chance of failure but who knows what the odds are on the new ultraflex solar panels not deploying.

They have flown before, on the Mars Phoenix Lander and Space Technology-8 (ST8) and they deployed just fine. So there's flight history.

[sublimemarsupial]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate and orbital has a 1/3 failure rate, there is a 45% chance that at least one of the incumbent suppliers will fail on their return to flight mission. IMO, if they do, it is most likely they get kicked from the follow on contract. NASA will be in a much better position to award follow on contracts when their current suppliers are operating normally.

Not to argue about CRS1 failure/success but are previous launch failures indicative of future launch success? If the problems have been corrected then there should be no bearing. Are you really saying the chance of Cygnus riding on an Atlas V has a 1/3 chance of failure? Doesn't seem worth trying at those odds.

Well, it is a test flight of enhanced Cygnus. Atlas V has a low chance of failure but who knows what the odds are on the new ultraflex solar panels not deploying. The same institutional problems that allowed the use of faulty engines could show up elsewhere in the supply chain. CRS-8 will use a pretty new launch vehicle variant and ORB-4 will use a new spacecraft variant. There isn't any statistics on these variants, and so I would suggest institutional track record as being the most objective.

The institutional track record might be the most objective, just so long as you get the track record correct - since both orbital and SpaceX's failures were in their rocket rather than their spacecraft, the failure rates should be 1/5 and 1/13 respectively (or 1/19 if you count F9v1.0).

[ncb1397]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate and orbital has a 1/3 failure rate, there is a 45% chance that at least one of the incumbent suppliers will fail on their return to flight mission. IMO, if they do, it is most likely they get kicked from the follow on contract. NASA will be in a much better position to award follow on contracts when their current suppliers are operating normally.

Not to argue about CRS1 failure/success but are previous launch failures indicative of future launch success? If the problems have been corrected then there should be no bearing. Are you really saying the chance of Cygnus riding on an Atlas V has a 1/3 chance of failure? Doesn't seem worth trying at those odds.

Well, it is a test flight of enhanced Cygnus. Atlas V has a low chance of failure but who knows what the odds are on the new ultraflex solar panels not deploying. The same institutional problems that allowed the use of faulty engines could show up elsewhere in the supply chain. CRS-8 will use a pretty new launch vehicle variant and ORB-4 will use a new spacecraft variant. There isn't any statistics on these variants, and so I would suggest institutional track record as being the most objective.

The institutional track record might be the most objective, just so long as you get the track record correct - since both orbital and SpaceX's failures were in their rocket rather than their spacecraft, the failure rates should be 1/5 and 1/13 respectively (or 1/19 if you count F9v1.0).

Those are only the probabilities for LV failure. A spacecraft malfunction could lead to it not being able to rendezvous with the station. It could rendezvous with the station, but lose the down mass on reentry. Cargo missions are different operations than sat deployment which is why they get their own statistical pool.

[sublimemarsupial]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate and orbital has a 1/3 failure rate, there is a 45% chance that at least one of the incumbent suppliers will fail on their return to flight mission. IMO, if they do, it is most likely they get kicked from the follow on contract. NASA will be in a much better position to award follow on contracts when their current suppliers are operating normally.

Not to argue about CRS1 failure/success but are previous launch failures indicative of future launch success? If the problems have been corrected then there should be no bearing. Are you really saying the chance of Cygnus riding on an Atlas V has a 1/3 chance of failure? Doesn't seem worth trying at those odds.

Well, it is a test flight of enhanced Cygnus. Atlas V has a low chance of failure but who knows what the odds are on the new ultraflex solar panels not deploying. The same institutional problems that allowed the use of faulty engines could show up elsewhere in the supply chain. CRS-8 will use a pretty new launch vehicle variant and ORB-4 will use a new spacecraft variant. There isn't any statistics on these variants, and so I would suggest institutional track record as being the most objective.

The institutional track record might be the most objective, just so long as you get the track record correct - since both orbital and SpaceX's failures were in their rocket rather than their spacecraft, the failure rates should be 1/5 and 1/13 respectively (or 1/19 if you count F9v1.0).

Those are only the probabilities for LV failure. A spacecraft malfunction could lead to it not being able to rendezvous with the station. It could rendezvous with the station, but lose the down mass on reentry. Cargo missions are different operations than sat deployment which is why they get their own statistical pool.

Ok, so then to match you objective standard of the institutional record, lets include both companies historical spacecraft failure rates then. Dragon is 8/8 and Cygnus is 3/3. Doesn't change the results compared to looking at the LV failure rates alone.... If you want to purposefully ignore successful mission history to make reality look worse than it is go ahead, just don't claim doing so is objective.

[ncb1397]

I think the delay is pretty simple to understand. Given that SpaceX has a 1/7 failure rate and orbital has a 1/3 failure rate, there is a 45% chance that at least one of the incumbent suppliers will fail on their return to flight mission. IMO, if they do, it is most likely they get kicked from the follow on contract. NASA will be in a much better position to award follow on contracts when their current suppliers are operating normally.

Not to argue about CRS1 failure/success but are previous launch failures indicative of future launch success? If the problems have been corrected then there should be no bearing. Are you really saying the chance of Cygnus riding on an Atlas V has a 1/3 chance of failure? Doesn't seem worth trying at those odds.

Well, it is a test flight of enhanced Cygnus. Atlas V has a low chance of failure but who knows what the odds are on the new ultraflex solar panels not deploying. The same institutional problems that allowed the use of faulty engines could show up elsewhere in the supply chain. CRS-8 will use a pretty new launch vehicle variant and ORB-4 will use a new spacecraft variant. There isn't any statistics on these variants, and so I would suggest institutional track record as being the most objective.

The institutional track record might be the most objective, just so long as you get the track record correct - since both orbital and SpaceX's failures were in their rocket rather than their spacecraft, the failure rates should be 1/5 and 1/13 respectively (or 1/19 if you count F9v1.0).

Those are only the probabilities for LV failure. A spacecraft malfunction could lead to it not being able to rendezvous with the station. It could rendezvous with the station, but lose the down mass on reentry. Cargo missions are different operations than sat deployment which is why they get their own statistical pool.

Ok, so then to match you objective standard of the institutional record, lets include both companies historical spacecraft failure rates then. Dragon is 8/8 and Cygnus is 3/3. Doesn't change the results compared to looking at the LV failure rates alone.... If you want to purposefully ignore successful mission history to make reality look worse than it is go ahead, just don't claim doing so is objective.

If you want a more accurate analysis, we could use (n+1)/(k+2) on both launch vehicle and spacecraft independently to derive the probability of failure of at least one system on the return to flight.

Cygnus- 3 tries, 3 successes(orbital demo counts, ORB-3 doesn't) - 80% predicted success rate for next flight.

Dragon- 7 tries, 7 successes(demo counts, CRS 7 doesn't) - 89%

Atlas V - 97%

Falcon 9 - 90%

Probability of dragon + falcon success - .89 * .9 = 80%

Probability of atlas + Cygnus success - .97 * .8 = 78%.

Probability of both return to flight missions succeeding - .78. * .8 = 62%

38% that one of them fails which is pretty close to my original 45% number.

[arachnitect]

In what way would downmass be less desirable than disposal? I don't understand, as already mentioned they could dump downmass if not needed. Or is it that for disposal they could pack materials that would contaminate the vehicle?

One issue might be crew time and packing materials? I assume disposal cargo has to be secured and properly distributed, but it doesn't need to be secured well enough to survive the whole entry process.

They already have trouble repacking everything into the same volume it arrived in.

[joek]

I just noticed the following in the solicitation's Q&A #4:

[Q] 91. NASA confirmed in its response to Question #42 that it intends for Offerors to secure $100M of insurance
coverage for scheduled Cargo.  It is requested that NASA remove this requirement for the following
reasons:
[It's too expensive, etc.]
A. NASA will not remove this requirement.

Is this the first time that NASA or the DOD has required a launch vehicle contractor to pay a penalty upon failure (or buy insurance to pay said penalty) that's of similar magnitude to the harm done to the government customer by the failure? ISTM that's a much better way to do quality control than mountains of paperwork. If the paperwork is actually useful the insurance companies will require it.

Yes for payload; no for launch.  (FAA requires $10-200M liability and property insurance for launch and pre-launch.)  Note that the actual CRS-2 RFP wording allows for more latitude:

Such insurance shall be an amount up to $100 million, or the maximum amount available in the market at reasonable cost, subject to approval by the Contracting Officer.  Financial capability, if authorized by the Contracting Officer, shall be in the amount of $100 million.

The most notable aspect is that the carrier is required to obtain payload insurance.  Typically the payload (e.g., satellite) owner obtains the insurance.

Whether that results in a change in the amount and type of paperwork is anyone's guess.  It won't change NASA's requirements.

[joek]

In what way would downmass be less desirable than disposal? I don't understand, as already mentioned they could dump downmass if not needed. Or is it that for disposal they could pack materials that would contaminate the vehicle?

Careful with terminology.  These terms have very specific meaning in the RFP:
- return: Material from ISS returned to NASA; e.g., science specimens.
- disposal: Material from ISS not returned to NASA; i.e., garbage.
- downmass: return + disposal

[Prober]

the first few pages of this thread are very helpful for the review of info.

[guckyfan]

Careful with terminology.  These terms have very specific meaning in the RFP:
- return: Material from ISS returned to NASA; e.g., science specimens.
- disposal: Material from ISS not returned to NASA; i.e., garbage.
- downmass: return + disposal

OK, I rephrase.

How is disposal on a dump or incineration facility on earth less desirable than disposal in a container burning up in the high atmosphere?

Or: Why would disposal by SpaceX on the ground not be equal to disposal by Orbital Sciences Cygnus burning up in the high atmosphere?