BTW I own a 1969 Triumph GT6 produced by the wonderful craftsmen of the British car industry... What became of them??
To Fatih and Eren Ozmen, Dream Chaser is more than a spaceplane. It’s a vehicle to transform the entire industry.
Eren: We also will be selecting the launch vehicle for future missions. We are working with many launch providers and they are coming up with very affordable new launch vehicles in the 2021 timeframe. After the first mission, we will have more opportunities to reduce the cost because a significant cost of our mission is the launch. We are looking at all those different partnerships with different companies, looking for synergies and strategic relationships. We are in very heavy discussions with all of them. That is helping us understand how the dynamics are changing and how to maintain our competitive place while launch costs come down and technology improves.
Eren: Yes. The NASA crew contract that we got awarded is still open. And actually, we got an extension on that contract. There is no current funding right now because two other companies [Boeing and SpaceX] got the award. But the reason we didn’t get the crew contract is because supposedly we couldn’t achieve the schedule. Now you see the other two companies are behind schedule.
Fatih: A key discriminator between Dream Chaser and our competitors is that we are the only rocket-agnostic space vehicle. We are not married to any particular program.With Dream Chaser, we have a lot of partnerships internationally. We have applications across the board, from the United Nations to working with pharmaceutical companies.It is a unique approach that is different than what we’ve been doing for the last 40-50 years: sending capsules into space and bringing them back to splash down in the ocean. Dream Chaser lands like the space shuttle did and it leverages all the lessons learned over the years into a next-generation spaceplane.
Fatih: We are going through a series of critical design reviews right now. We have a contract in place to do the first launch in 2020. That’s the next big milestone.Eren: We also will be selecting the launch vehicle for future missions. We are working with many launch providers and they are coming up with very affordable new launch vehicles in the 2021 timeframe. After the first mission, we will have more opportunities to reduce the cost because a significant cost of our mission is the launch. We are looking at all those different partnerships with different companies, looking for synergies and strategic relationships. We are in very heavy discussions with all of them. That is helping us understand how the dynamics are changing and how to maintain our competitive place while launch costs come down and technology improves.
That’s where we look at Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ kind of vision. That’s when we talked to him about making space accessible and millions of people going to space, doing experiments, finding the next-generation solutions and making Earth more green, moving heavy industry up there. All these ideas from mining an asteroid to finding new habitats for humanity and making Earth a better place are symbolized in this one vehicle.
Also considering European (A6?)and Japanese LVs (H3?). He noted that there are no requirements under its NASA contract that require those cargo missions to fly on U.S. vehicles, citing NASA’s use of European and Japanese cargo vehicles to resupply the ISS. “We think it’s certainly feasible,” he said, adding that there was interest in launching Dream Chaser on vehicles outside the U.S.Can see ESA supplying A6 for there private DC missions, not sure about UN mission. ESA may offer A6 for ISS resupply missions in exchange for more access to ISS.While DC is not LV depended it still costs a bit to match it to LV, would need a few flights to make it worthwhile.
He noted that there are no requirements under its NASA contract that require those cargo missions to fly on U.S. vehicles, citing NASA’s use of European and Japanese cargo vehicles to resupply the ISS.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 04/19/2018 02:00 amHe noted that there are no requirements under its NASA contract that require those cargo missions to fly on U.S. vehicles, citing NASA’s use of European and Japanese cargo vehicles to resupply the ISS. I find this hard to believe, I think Orbital had to certify Antares contains enough US components to qualify as US launch vehicle when signing CRS1 contract. European and Japanese provided cargo vehicle in exchange for NASA sending their astronauts to ISS, I don't see how that is comparable to this situation.
Can see ESA supplying A6 for there private DC missions, not sure about UN mission. ESA may offer A6 for ISS resupply missions in exchange for more access to ISS.
Quote from: su27k on 04/19/2018 07:22 amQuote from: TrevorMonty on 04/19/2018 02:00 amHe noted that there are no requirements under its NASA contract that require those cargo missions to fly on U.S. vehicles, citing NASA’s use of European and Japanese cargo vehicles to resupply the ISS. I find this hard to believe, I think Orbital had to certify Antares contains enough US components to qualify as US launch vehicle when signing CRS1 contract. European and Japanese provided cargo vehicle in exchange for NASA sending their astronauts to ISS, I don't see how that is comparable to this situation.Requirements changed between CRS 1 & 2. This may have been one of the changes. One can only assume that if SNC is spending the money to investigate foreign launch providers, that it must be possible.
Just musing about the topic of a second DC and since Mark always wanted a crewed vehicle and he could be building all the spares required up to the point where the vehicle could be either a cargo or crew version, lets say an 80% commonality point. Then depending on requirements SNC could construct the remaining components of whichever variant was wanted crew or cargo depending on the "space-landscape" at the time in the future which has a lot of uncertainty at this point with new political and LV/SC (Bigelow station?) players in the mix...
Lindsey: crew version of Dream Chaser “very much alive,” with 85% commonality between systems in cargo and crew versions.
Interesting thought. I wonder if it would be possible to build a cargo craft that has some of the requirements for crew built in (windows, etc.) and in such a way that the remaining features can still be built in at a later date (ECLSS, crew accommodations & interface, etc.)It would take a hit in upmass (mass certainly, some volume likely as well) but would be well positioned to be able to sell services to non-CRS clients.
Quote from: rayleighscatter on 04/30/2018 09:08 pmInteresting thought. I wonder if it would be possible to build a cargo craft that has some of the requirements for crew built in (windows, etc.) and in such a way that the remaining features can still be built in at a later date (ECLSS, crew accommodations & interface, etc.)It would take a hit in upmass (mass certainly, some volume likely as well) but would be well positioned to be able to sell services to non-CRS clients.Technically it should be easy, but it probably wouldn't be very useful. With fixed-position wings it can't fit in a fairing, meaning it can't carry the expendable module. Without that, pressurized volume drops by like half and it loses unpressurized capacity entirely, plus the scheduling benefit of being able to do IDS or CBM attachment. With the main launch options all being fully or mostly expendable, it seems difficult for such a craft to compete against the other CRS systems with such a drop in capability. It'd still need at least an AV N32 most likely, judging by the crew variant (less densely packed I assume) needing 2 boosters and 2 RL10s. Cygnus has over two times the pressurized volume, but requires no boosters and only 1 RL10 (~25-30 million dollars savings). And folding wings (even if deployed at liftoff, without a fairing) are likely a hard no for NASA crew missions