Author Topic: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones  (Read 95599 times)

Offline BobHk

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #20 on: 05/03/2016 06:34 pm »
Red Dragon is arguably easier than Crew Dragon (both v2) because it doesn't need to be human rated and have life support.

Unless you want to have life support for say, a box of plants to grow.

Offline rockets4life97

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #21 on: 05/13/2016 01:03 am »
Jeff Foust reported in this article that SpaceX has completed 8 milestones so far.

Looks like we only have 6 completed on the list in the first post. I wonder what other 2 have been completed?
« Last Edit: 05/13/2016 10:46 am by rockets4life97 »

Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #22 on: 05/13/2016 01:51 am »
Jeff Foust reported in this article that SpaceX has completed 8 milestones so far.

Launch abort test October 2017
Uncrewed orbital test flight of the spacecraft in December 2017
A crewed flight scheduled for February 2018

That's a tight cadence for being 18 months out. 

Schedule compression 18 months out is not a rosey indicator.
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Offline WizZifnab

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #23 on: 05/13/2016 02:25 am »
Launch abort test October 2017
Uncrewed orbital test flight of the spacecraft in December 2017
A crewed flight scheduled for February 2018

To be clear, those are the Boeing Starliner dates quoted from the March NAC slide per the article.  The article also refers to that same March NAC slide still having the SpaceX dates with the uncrewed test flight in Dec 2016.   Apparently the CCP Major Partners Milestone, also from March, may be the most updated with SpaceX uncrewed test flight of May 2017 as woods170 noted.

And as expected the uncrewed mission of Dragon 2 to the ISS has shifted some five months to the right and is now thoroughly in 2017. There will be no Dragon 2 launching this year.  Compared to what was reported last November the crewed demo mission shifted no less than eight months to the right, to august 2017.
The interval between the unmanned flight and the in-flight abort test is IMO unrealistically tight (just two months), so I expect the in-flight abort test to shift to the right. Which means the crewed demo mission will also shift to the right (again). I fully expect for it to eventually shift into 2018.

I also expect similar shifts to happen for CST-100. IMO their first crewed mission will also go into 2018.


Looking back on the milestone dates I've seen, it seems that 2 months has consistently been the interval between either uncrewed and crewed for Boeing and uncrewed, in flight abort (once they decided to use the flight test capsule), and crewed for SpaceX.  I think these obviously assume all goes well and are spaced for the requisite processing time between each.  I think its a fair, if tight, interval if all goes well.  However, even if things go well, I could imagine outside factors could also cause a delay.

Offline woods170

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #24 on: 05/13/2016 06:21 am »
Launch abort test October 2017
Uncrewed orbital test flight of the spacecraft in December 2017
A crewed flight scheduled for February 2018

To be clear, those are the Boeing Starliner dates quoted from the March NAC slide per the article.  The article also refers to that same March NAC slide still having the SpaceX dates with the uncrewed test flight in Dec 2016.   Apparently the CCP Major Partners Milestone, also from March, may be the most updated with SpaceX uncrewed test flight of May 2017 as woods170 noted.

And as expected the uncrewed mission of Dragon 2 to the ISS has shifted some five months to the right and is now thoroughly in 2017. There will be no Dragon 2 launching this year.  Compared to what was reported last November the crewed demo mission shifted no less than eight months to the right, to august 2017.
The interval between the unmanned flight and the in-flight abort test is IMO unrealistically tight (just two months), so I expect the in-flight abort test to shift to the right. Which means the crewed demo mission will also shift to the right (again). I fully expect for it to eventually shift into 2018.

I also expect similar shifts to happen for CST-100. IMO their first crewed mission will also go into 2018.


Looking back on the milestone dates I've seen, it seems that 2 months has consistently been the interval between either uncrewed and crewed for Boeing and uncrewed, in flight abort (once they decided to use the flight test capsule), and crewed for SpaceX.  I think these obviously assume all goes well and are spaced for the requisite processing time between each.  I think its a fair, if tight, interval if all goes well.  However, even if things go well, I could imagine outside factors could also cause a delay.
There is only one constant in manned spaceflight: delay, delay, delay.

Offline deruch

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #25 on: 05/14/2016 08:41 am »
Jeff Foust reported in this article that SpaceX has completed 8 milestones so far.

Looks like we only have 6 completed on the list in the first post. I wonder what other 2 have been completed?

Maybe an inclusion of 2 CCiCap milestones that were recently completed in 2015 year-end time frame.  They were the Primary Structures Qual.-Open Hatch test and the finally complete CCiCap CDR.  The CDR was the milestone that was split out into like 4 sub-milestones, 13A, 13B....  IIRC, they were still waiting on the final piece of that and it was completed in November or December I thought.  Technically, those were CCiCap milestones and not CCtCap ones.  So, like the Inflight Abort, they weren't included in the original list for this thread.
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Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #26 on: 05/14/2016 10:44 am »

There is only one constant in manned spaceflight: delay, delay, delay.

Hopefully the additional delay decays to less than a day.

Offline oldAtlas_Eguy

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #27 on: 05/14/2016 06:31 pm »
If you look at things historically the risk to schedule increase the closer you get to the end date. This is because the builtin cushions have less capability to absorb unforeseen events affecting task completions.

Offline meekGee

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #28 on: 05/15/2016 03:17 am »
If you look at things historically the risk to schedule increase the closer you get to the end date. This is because the builtin cushions have less capability to absorb unforeseen events affecting task completions.
What a beautiful way of saying that towards the end, the ability of people to lie to themselves is overcome by their desire not to be the last ones saying they are still on time...
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Offline The Amazing Catstronaut

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #29 on: 05/15/2016 09:43 am »

What a beautiful way of saying that towards the end, the ability of people to lie to themselves is overcome by their desire not to be the last ones saying they are still on time...

Lying to yourself is how people motivate themselves to get stuff done a lot of the time. Heck, set a realistic end target for somebody within a certain amount of time, and people will instinctively plop all the real hard work right at the end of that timeframe, because work is hard. The same applies to organisations along with individuals.

It's always more productive to demand the extreme from yourself (which you won't fulfil) rather than gun for a conservative realism and then end up stretching those timeframes out as well.
Resident feline spaceflight expert. Knows nothing of value about human spaceflight.

Offline meekGee

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #30 on: 05/15/2016 10:02 am »

What a beautiful way of saying that towards the end, the ability of people to lie to themselves is overcome by their desire not to be the last ones saying they are still on time...

Lying to yourself is how people motivate themselves to get stuff done a lot of the time. Heck, set a realistic end target for somebody within a certain amount of time, and people will instinctively plop all the real hard work right at the end of that timeframe, because work is hard. The same applies to organisations along with individuals.

It's always more productive to demand the extreme from yourself (which you won't fulfil) rather than gun for a conservative realism and then end up stretching those timeframes out as well.
Oh, for sure...

If you relax the schedule, you'll be even more late, no doubt...





ABCD - Always Be Counting Down

Offline llanitedave

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #31 on: 05/15/2016 04:10 pm »

What a beautiful way of saying that towards the end, the ability of people to lie to themselves is overcome by their desire not to be the last ones saying they are still on time...

Lying to yourself is how people motivate themselves to get stuff done a lot of the time. Heck, set a realistic end target for somebody within a certain amount of time, and people will instinctively plop all the real hard work right at the end of that timeframe, because work is hard. The same applies to organisations along with individuals.

It's always more productive to demand the extreme from yourself (which you won't fulfil) rather than gun for a conservative realism and then end up stretching those timeframes out as well.


The way I've seen it put best is to make your long-term goals grand, ambitious, and aspirational, make your short-term goals realistic and practical, but always a step in the direction of the grand long-term goals.
"I've just abducted an alien -- now what?"

Offline the_other_Doug

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #32 on: 05/15/2016 05:03 pm »
Very, very few new development projects come in both on time and on budget.  Those that do are generally either small, iterative changes/upgrades to robust existing products (in which all of the elements are very well known), or they are hugely lucky.

In most cases, the time/cost trade-off ends up being driven by the relative importance of on-time vs. on-budget.  You can almost always make up schedule deficits by throwing more resources at the project, and this is what happens in most cases.  Note, though, that missing your deadlines and moving your schedule milestones to the right can only maintain costs to budget for a limited time.  If you indeed intend to complete your project and need to miss milestones because of lack of funding, you will always end up spending more money down the road in completing those milestones later, after there is any funding still allocated for doing so.

In other words,  you can reduce funding in a given period and stretch out your development timeframes, but the overall impact on the project will be to increase the cost over the life of the development.

If you can take a longer-look approach, it's always better to apply the resources needed to complete the project on time.  This way, you at least achieve on-time, if not on-budget.  If you take the route of extending the timeframes and pushing everything out to the right, you fail in both on-time and on-budget.

So, if you're going to fail on-budget anyway, why not fail all at once and at least achieve on-time?  Unfortunately, most entities which fund big development projects are so institutionally short-sighted that they simply can't see this logic.

And things don't get done.  Or worse, have a ton of money and resources spent on them that mostly gets wasted when the projects are canceled prior to completion.

 :(
-Doug  (With my shield, not yet upon it)

Offline The Amazing Catstronaut

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #33 on: 05/15/2016 05:44 pm »
I reckon SpaceX will be alright. Probably some minor slips but nothing significant beyond this point.

I wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX has a bigger team working on Dragon 2 than Boeing has on CST-100, dreamliner-in-space, or whatever it's called.
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Offline Jim

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #34 on: 05/15/2016 06:47 pm »

What a beautiful way of saying that towards the end, the ability of people to lie to themselves is overcome by their desire not to be the last ones saying they are still on time...

Lying to yourself is how people motivate themselves to get stuff done a lot of the time. Heck, set a realistic end target for somebody within a certain amount of time, and people will instinctively plop all the real hard work right at the end of that timeframe, because work is hard. The same applies to organisations along with individuals.

It's always more productive to demand the extreme from yourself (which you won't fulfil) rather than gun for a conservative realism and then end up stretching those timeframes out as well.

That Elon's MO.  Set an impossible deadline.

Offline meekGee

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #35 on: 05/15/2016 07:01 pm »

What a beautiful way of saying that towards the end, the ability of people to lie to themselves is overcome by their desire not to be the last ones saying they are still on time...

Lying to yourself is how people motivate themselves to get stuff done a lot of the time. Heck, set a realistic end target for somebody within a certain amount of time, and people will instinctively plop all the real hard work right at the end of that timeframe, because work is hard. The same applies to organisations along with individuals.

It's always more productive to demand the extreme from yourself (which you won't fulfil) rather than gun for a conservative realism and then end up stretching those timeframes out as well.


The way I've seen it put best is to make your long-term goals grand, ambitious, and aspirational, make your short-term goals realistic and practical, but always a step in the direction of the grand long-term goals.

My experience had more to do with budgets and politics.

We were doing this project, managed by a NASA center.  Flight hardware.

Dialog went something like this:

"How long until we reach milestone A"?
"6 months"
"That's too long, they'll cancel us. Can you do this and that in parallel?"
"Yes, but it might not work together later"
"ok do that, we'll burn that bridge when we get to it".
... a bunch of other unrealistic ideas follow, and at the end the schedule estimate on paper is down to 3 months ...
"ok - so are you confident it can be done in 3 months?"
sigh.

But that's what happens - you operate in a world that is not entirely technical. There are irrelevant external constraints that are all too real.

You have to under-estimate in order to get the project.  You have to put up a plausible show of surprise and contrition when you invariably go over budget.

As a small subcontractor, I just watched it in amazement.  But once I've seen it up close, I could identify it in almost every government procurement instance out there.

Cough SLS cough.

I think similar processes occur within large companies even without government intervention... It's just that when a company reaches a certain size, and its divisions are so independent that the corporate identity is mostly in the name, it's basically a mini government in and of itself.
ABCD - Always Be Counting Down

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #36 on: 05/15/2016 07:24 pm »
Yeah, right.  Just like FH.
I have been wondering whether SpaceX deliberately held back FH development while they were working out the kinks in F9 and especially F9 reuse. It would make sense to me to do that, since FH is largely based on F9.
Also, it seems like the payload increases in F9 have made FH less urgently needed compared to F9 1.0.

Offline DigitalMan

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #37 on: 05/15/2016 09:13 pm »
Yeah, right.  Just like FH.
I have been wondering whether SpaceX deliberately held back FH development while they were working out the kinks in F9 and especially F9 reuse. It would make sense to me to do that, since FH is largely based on F9.
Also, it seems like the payload increases in F9 have made FH less urgently needed compared to F9 1.0.

No need to be wondering, Gwynne testified in congress that it had been put on the back burner quite a while ago.

Offline TomH

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #38 on: 05/15/2016 10:00 pm »
Yeah, right.  Just like FH.

No. More like returning a first stage and landing it flying backwards-something virtually everyone said was not possible. And doing it in a matter of months, then doing it in the middle of the ocean on a tiny barge, then doing it with a brief three-engine burst and slam landing perfectly in the middle of a bullseye.

Yea, they got distracted......distracted by a total game changer that will make the tri-core far more efficient. I really don't have a problem with that. I call it being innovative and smart. Something old space not only isn't capable of, but has vested interests against doing anyway.

Offline launchwatcher

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Re: SpaceX CCtCAP Milestones
« Reply #39 on: 05/15/2016 10:27 pm »
I think similar processes occur within large companies even without government intervention...
I've seen it happen. 


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