Dedicated EM-1 section coming soon, but here's another cool overview of the flow to EM-1 via Chris Gebhardt:http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/11/road-em-1-nasa-hardware-milestones-sls-debut-flight/
Under the current Integrated Mission Milestone Summary, the Forward and Center SRB segments will arrive at the Kennedy Space Center in September and October 2017.This will be followed by the delivery of the Aft Skirts in November/December 2017 and then the Aft segments of the SRBs in late-January/early-February 2018.Finally, the Forward segments are currently slated to arrive at the Kennedy Space Center in early March 2018.
I'd be curious to know how long it would take to build the SECOND SLS system. Meaning, there is so much time spent developing the tooling and doing the certification for this first SLS that I'm curious to see how long it would take just to build the second SLS once all this tooling and certification process has been completed.
Quote from: Johnnyhinbos on 12/09/2015 11:09 pmI'd be curious to know how long it would take to build the SECOND SLS system. Meaning, there is so much time spent developing the tooling and doing the certification for this first SLS that I'm curious to see how long it would take just to build the second SLS once all this tooling and certification process has been completed.Just to establish a best case for what Boeing can do, the outgoing SLS Program Manager at Boeing was quoted as saying:"Boeing has Michoud set up to stamp out enough stages for one SLS a year — two at most with the factory’s current manufacturing capabilities, and then only if NASA pours more money and personnel into the facility."My background is in manufacturing operations, and quite often I've overseen the scheduling of new products (and sometimes factories). Even with incremental upgrades of products there are usually processes that take time to dial in, and with the SLS the production rate is so low that they can't get enough experience to dial in their processes until many years from now. Of course lots of time between builds means that the staff has a lot of time to do dry-runs in between production runs, so that could help them optimize their processes without having to actually build completed parts.But still, you need to build the actual parts in order to validate that you know how to build the product within the planned/allocated amount of time.My guess would be about a year for SLS-2, which is probably about 120-140% above the eventual production time.
So, question - how are the staff at Michoud allocated for this? Is it a small workforce that's working full-time on SLS, or a larger workforce that's part-time on SLS, part time on other projects? IOW, is one, maybe two rockets a year enough to keep a full-time staff employed, much less keep their skills sharp?
Quote from: bob the martian on 12/10/2015 02:51 pmSo, question - how are the staff at Michoud allocated for this? Is it a small workforce that's working full-time on SLS, or a larger workforce that's part-time on SLS, part time on other projects? IOW, is one, maybe two rockets a year enough to keep a full-time staff employed, much less keep their skills sharp?I don't know, but my guess is that the factory is staffed with full-time workers, and that they don't work on any other contracts. However they may not have hired all of the eventually positions they would need for full-rate production (which for now would be assumed to be 1/year).And by virtue of how the SLS is assembled, I'm assuming people will move with the parts as they go through the different work stations, so they would need people with good general skills that can do many tasks.
Back in the days of Saturn, I would have seen the validity in that. Nowadays, however, I would think that most work on machines of this complexity is CAM-robotic and that many of the technicians monitor the computer driven robotic tools.
Human machinists lose skills over time if not practiced enough, and institutional memory is lost over time via attrition. In this day and age, however, a CAM program can be kept in storage devices and employed at any time.
You have stated that you were involved in manufacturing, but were you involved in manufacturing sophisticated modern rockets? What did you manufacture and to what degree was the product dependent on a human machinist's skills versus modern integrated computer controlled robots?
You have never mentioned the product field as being ultra-sophisticated, so I am not convinced that the manufacturing model you describe remains valid.
Jeff Foust @jeff_foustExploration gets $4.03B, including $1.27B for Orion and $2B for SLS, the latter far above the administration’s request.
If it's going to be used to launch a Europa probe in 2022, they need to advance the schedule a bit. That might explain the extra funding.
Quote from: llanitedave on 12/16/2015 04:42 pmIf it's going to be used to launch a Europa probe in 2022, they need to advance the schedule a bit. That might explain the extra funding.The fact they specifically included a "lander" in the language of a Europa mission, they may need a bit more time anyways. Maybe not. But they also explicitly put in language to fund the EUS and essentially replace ICPS for EM-2.
Okay, I'm hoping that I can get some solid information here. As far as I know, so far, the SLS missions are:EM-1 - Uncrewed trans-Lunar flyby with iCPS - 2018;SLS-02 - Europa probe launch with EUS or iCPS, depending on the exact schedule of EM-2 - 2022-ish;EM-2 - ? (AFAIK, the ARM is still baseline although there does seem to be something of a retreat underway) - 2022/23;SLS-04 (?) - ? (Possible cargo precursor for EM-3) - Undefined;EM-3 - ? (No mission defined as yet) - Undefined.IIRC, EM-3's launch vehicle, SLS-05, represents the point where the RS-25D stockpile run out and SLS needs to switch to RS-25E if there are to be further missions in the program. What is the latest time, realistically speaking, when Aeroject/PWR need to start building the tooling for RS-25E in order to avoid serious delays?
What is the latest time, realistically speaking, when Aeroject/PWR need to start building the tooling for RS-25E in order to avoid serious delays?