Author Topic: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion  (Read 667283 times)

Offline meekGee

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SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« on: 08/09/2014 05:17 am »
We need a dedicated thread for this, especially since new information is probably forthcoming.

Several people posted this link:
http://new.livestream.com/AIAAvideo/space2014/videos/58462185

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Offline meekGee

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #1 on: 08/09/2014 05:20 am »
This from JBF over at the live unveiling event thread:

Some interesting comments from Garrett Reisman at the AIAA space Human Flight panel see 30:15 http://new.livestream.com/AIAAvideo/space2014/videos/58462185

1. The capsule that was shown has the Interior Structural Qualification Article.
2. The exterior is the TPS panels that will be used on the Pad Abort vehicle.

Point 1 is especially important - there was plenty of discussion a while back on whether the seats/flight console/hatch/door/door-handle were final design or just mock-ups.
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Offline Norm38

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #2 on: 08/09/2014 05:31 am »
Moved my post over here
http://new.livestream.com/AIAAvideo/space2014/videos/58462185

Dragon V2 Operations Critical Design Review scheduled for 2 weeks from now.  28:30 in the video.
Lots of good V2 updates and milestones leading up to the abort tests.

Offline tobi453

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #3 on: 08/19/2014 06:19 pm »
SpaceX at IAC-14:
http://www.iafastro.net/iac/paper/id/26573/summary/

SpaceX Plans for Commercial Human Spaceflight
Dr. Garrett Reisman, SpaceX, United States
2014-09-30 09:45

Only NASA or also other customers? ;)
« Last Edit: 08/19/2014 06:29 pm by tobi453 »

Offline jabe

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #4 on: 08/21/2014 07:02 pm »
An interesting tweet
not sure if it is a "slip of an embargo" or not

Quote
CCtCap: Boeing CST-100 called 'simpler' - but a "powerpoint tiger?:" SpaceX way ahead on design and test of real hardware for Dragon V2.

Offline docmordrid

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #5 on: 08/21/2014 07:58 pm »
An interesting tweet
not sure if it is a "slip of an embargo" or not

Quote
CCtCap: Boeing CST-100 called 'simpler' - but a "powerpoint tiger?:" SpaceX way ahead on design and test of real hardware for Dragon V2.

Owww.... harsh!
DM

Offline guckyfan

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #6 on: 08/21/2014 08:08 pm »
An interesting tweet
not sure if it is a "slip of an embargo" or not

Quote
CCtCap: Boeing CST-100 called 'simpler' - but a "powerpoint tiger?:" SpaceX way ahead on design and test of real hardware for Dragon V2.

Owww.... harsh!

But no reference who is supposed to have said it.


Offline jabe

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #7 on: 08/21/2014 08:13 pm »

But no reference who is supposed to have said it.

Sent a tweet asking for clarification..no reply yet... but not expecting one .. Charles is pretty quiet in the twitter world...

Offline Lars_J

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #8 on: 08/21/2014 08:17 pm »
An interesting tweet
not sure if it is a "slip of an embargo" or not

Quote
CCtCap: Boeing CST-100 called 'simpler' - but a "powerpoint tiger?:" SpaceX way ahead on design and test of real hardware for Dragon V2.

Owww.... harsh!

But true... Boeing's ratio of "paper"/"powerpoint" milestones to hardware milestones ratio for CCiCap is much higher than SNC or SpaceX. Besides the pressure vessel and abort engine (from another project), precious little CST-100 hardware has seen the light. Boeing does not want to spend any more than it has to.
« Last Edit: 08/21/2014 08:19 pm by Lars_J »

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #9 on: 08/21/2014 08:29 pm »
An interesting tweet
not sure if it is a "slip of an embargo" or not

Quote
CCtCap: Boeing CST-100 called 'simpler' - but a "powerpoint tiger?:" SpaceX way ahead on design and test of real hardware for Dragon V2.

Owww.... harsh!

But true... Boeing's ratio of "paper"/"powerpoint" milestones to hardware milestones ratio for CCiCap is much higher than SNC or SpaceX. Besides the pressure vessel and abort engine (from another project), precious little CST-100 hardware has seen the light. Boeing does not want to spend any more than it has to.

Absolutely. And given the different between active flight test components and heritage flight components, it might make one cautious for selection, even given the enormous talent, competence, and experience.

Yes, big companies fool themselves into travelling "cheap". All along they've been miffed at the stingy budget for commercial crew out of Congress. More so than the other two. 

Offline AncientU

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #10 on: 08/21/2014 11:38 pm »
An interesting tweet
not sure if it is a "slip of an embargo" or not

Quote
CCtCap: Boeing CST-100 called 'simpler' - but a "powerpoint tiger?:" SpaceX way ahead on design and test of real hardware for Dragon V2.

Owww.... harsh!

But true... Boeing's ratio of "paper"/"powerpoint" milestones to hardware milestones ratio for CCiCap is much higher than SNC or SpaceX. Besides the pressure vessel and abort engine (from another project), precious little CST-100 hardware has seen the light. Boeing does not want to spend any more than it has to.

Absolutely. And given the different between active flight test components and heritage flight components, it might make one cautious for selection, even given the enormous talent, competence, and experience.

Yes, big companies fool themselves into travelling "cheap". All along they've been miffed at the stingy budget for commercial crew out of Congress. More so than the other two.

Boeing is accustomed to decades and billions.  Fast-paced and cost-competitive are hard.
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Offline rcoppola

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #11 on: 08/22/2014 12:01 am »
The tweet is certainly true. Most of us have been saying that for quite some time.

It always bothered me that NASA new what milestones they were paying for through the CCiCAP phase. They knew after 400+ Million where Boeing was going to net out. If it took that much for them to get to this point, they must have known that for CCtCAp, they'd need substantially more. I suppose they had to let this play out as there were uncertainties with how DC would progress. But thank the stars Mark and his team really pushed through the last 18 months or so.

I commend the Boeing team but I suspect corporate kept the CST team on a very short financial leash.

Well, NASA should just get this over with now. We all know how it's going to play out.
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Offline Lars_J

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #12 on: 08/22/2014 01:40 am »
Well, CCtCAp hasn't been awarded yet, so any celebration and/or gnashing of teeth is premature.

Offline king1999

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #13 on: 08/22/2014 04:51 pm »
The tweet is certainly true. Most of us have been saying that for quite some time.

It always bothered me that NASA new what milestones they were paying for through the CCiCAP phase. They knew after 400+ Million where Boeing was going to net out. If it took that much for them to get to this point, they must have known that for CCtCAp, they'd need substantially more. I suppose they had to let this play out as there were uncertainties with how DC would progress. But thank the stars Mark and his team really pushed through the last 18 months or so.

I commend the Boeing team but I suspect corporate kept the CST team on a very short financial leash.

Well, NASA should just get this over with now. We all know how it's going to play out.

I can't agree more. It has always bothered me that Boeing got the most fund in CCiCAP but had done the least in terms of hardware verification. There are a lot of news articles lately saying only Boeing has met the milestones for CCiCAP and SpaceX and SNC got delayed. But they didn't point out that Boeing mostly had power-point review milestones and SpaceX has two real abort tests coming.

I have no doubt that SpaceX is one of the selections solely due to the uncertainty of Altas V's future. Hopefully the other would be DC for its low-G return of crew and payload. CST would be a money hole if selected.
« Last Edit: 08/22/2014 04:53 pm by king1999 »

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #14 on: 08/22/2014 04:53 pm »
DST would be a money hole if selected.

Based on what information?

Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #15 on: 08/22/2014 04:55 pm »


Boeing is accustomed to decades and billions.  Fast-paced and cost-competitive are hard.

that is a broad brush statement not base on any relevant information.

Offline PahTo

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #16 on: 08/22/2014 05:01 pm »
All along they've been miffed at the stingy budget for commercial crew out of Congress. 

...so have we all, so have we all...
(where's the shaking head emoticon?)

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #17 on: 08/22/2014 05:33 pm »
It always bothered me that NASA new what milestones they were paying for through the CCiCAP phase. They knew after 400+ Million where Boeing was going to net out.

Well, I think in all fairness the situation was that NASA knew where things should have ended up when the CCiCap milestones were complete.  And they certainly thought that Dream Chaser had more risk to retire than CST-100 or Dragon.

When CCiCap was announced two years ago there were far more unknowns for all three vehicles, and NASA all along has been trying to make sure that they were going to end up with at least one vehicle by 2017.  And at that time the CST-100 looked like a strong contender and a pretty safe bet.  And it still is, but now NASA has a new set of criteria two years later to evaluate the contenders on.

Another factor is the internal funding angle, which NASA said in the CCiCap Selection Statement for Boeing:

"No new strengths were identified.  All weaknesses were fully addressed except as follows: proposed corporate investment during the CCiCap period does not provide significant industry financial investment and there is increased risk of having insufficient funding in the base period."

So essentially Boeing, who received the most funding from NASA, may have had lower overall funding (NASA + Boeing) available for making progress than other contenders - certainly SpaceX it appears.  That was a strategy decision that Boeing made, and we'll see how well that turns out.
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Offline king1999

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #18 on: 08/22/2014 06:07 pm »
So essentially Boeing, who received the most funding from NASA, may have had lower overall funding (NASA + Boeing) available for making progress than other contenders - certainly SpaceX it appears.  That was a strategy decision that Boeing made, and we'll see how well that turns out.
They thought they were a sure bet. But now it sure gets more interesting to see. They have people in Congress to fight for them, maybe that's causing the delay of NASA's announcement?

Offline Ben the Space Brit

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Re: SpaceX Dragon V2 Updates and Discussion
« Reply #19 on: 08/25/2014 01:23 pm »
I'd have been a lot happier if SpaceX had gone ahead with a crewed Dragon v.1. This second model strikes me as a time- and money-eater.

I'll probably get flames for this but one part of me wonders if Musk has already been warned he won't get commercial crew funding, so he's offering a high-spec final model to interest other potential customers that he'll work towards on SpaceX's own dime and schedule rather than a simpler and quicker-to-deploy model to fit into NASA's budget and schedule.
« Last Edit: 08/25/2014 01:24 pm by Ben the Space Brit »
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