NASAs Commercial Crew Program Target Test Flight DatesMarie Lewis Posted on November 21, 2018(snip)Test Flight Planning Dates:Boeing Orbital Flight Test (uncrewed): March 2019Boeing Pad Abort Test: Between OFT and CFTBoeing Crew Flight Test (crewed): August 2019SpaceX Demo-1 (uncrewed): January 7, 2019SpaceX In-Flight Abort Test: Between Demo-1 and Demo-2SpaceX Demo-2 (crewed): June 2019(snip)First operational mission: August 2019Second operational mission: December 2019
Bridenstine says that "there is a very low probability" that DM-1 occurs in January.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/11/29/nasa-program-send-astronauts-space-station-facing-more-delays/2143813002/
So what changed in the last week?
Quote from: Comga on 11/30/2018 06:29 pmSo what changed in the last week?And to further the confusion, Hans in the CRS16 briefing just said they're still on for January.
And the confusment lives on! Just now in the CRS-16 pre-launch briefing, Hans says they are still working towards a January launch and says everything is OK with the chutesAlso says every component for the mission is there at the cape
Could be a gentle way of applying public schedule pressure on NASA after the administrator statements. 'Hey, we're ready ask the other guy...'
It's entirely possible Bridenstine just got mixed up. Maybe he was thinking of the Boeing launch, or just got some dates confused, or was just being overly cautious in expectation-setting. He makes a lot of appearances and answers a lot of questions publicly, so it's inevitable some of those answers aren't going to be 100% accurate.
I really don't think that is plausible.
In the interest of keeping a running record of comments, here is a clip of the CRS-16 Briefing where Hans Addresses DM-1.
Ken Kremer, SpaceUpClose: Hi, thank you. For Hans and Joel, first of all, congratulations to both of you on great launches. And ORISIS-REx, too, just arrived, so spectacular day for science. My question for you two is, I wonder if you can clarify a little bit, give us an update on DM-1 launching. Apparently Administrator Bridenstine made some comments last week that January 7th might not be the date. So I wonder if you could clarify that and, Hans, tell us where it is in the process of things.Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX: Okay. Good question. We have all the parts on Demo 1 at the Cape at this point in time. We're going through final integration. We're going through final tests. We're going through a lot of additional analysis, verification on requirements, and the whole company focus is certainly, after CRS-16, back on Demo 1. What I could see is a couple of days because of traffic. For example, CRS-16 is actually, at the same time, on the Station. So there's lots of traffic, lots of crew time requirements, so we need to sort that out. But our target is, at this point in time, mid-January, and pushing as hard and diligent as we can for this particular launch. And so, at the end of the day, I want to really point out that it's way more important for us to get Dragon 2 safely up there and make sure that the mission is successful than anything else in terms of schedule and timeline.Ken Kremer, SpaceUpClose: So there's no issue with parachute testing and things like that?Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX: No, we're working through issues, obviously. I mean, every launch has things that we work through, to make sure they work fine. Demo 1 has four parachutes actually, that's a change from Dragon 1 to Dragon 2. So those parachutes actually have more redundancy than on Dragon 1 and they're also reinforced on Demo 1, so pretty sure it's going to be successful.
Chris Gebhardt, NASASpaceflight: Chris Gebhardt with NASASpaceflight again. Hans, because you mentioned the timelines for this mission coming back in mid-January. Can this cargo Dragon be up there on Station, or free flying in orbit when the DM-1 crew vehicle launches? Is SpaceX capable of having two Dragons on orbit at the same time?Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX: Good question, yeah. It's one of those "In principle, yes," but... When Dragon is on the Station it's relatively quiet in the control room and we could run another mission. We've done this actually many times that we've had other missions at the same time. And that's something that we routinely do. If both are free-flying, that's a little bit more effort, and we've got to do that later. And in general, we must be able to handle more than one Dragon on the Station. So this is not a technical problem, this is more a problem of focusing on Demo 1 and making sure that Demo 1 is really ready to go and not being distracted by any other missions in parallel. So I think that's a benefit, if you can separate them. If we have to, then we can fly both at the same time, but the overhead is obviously there.
Crew 1 mission NET August 2019 is currently planned to be on Dragon.
Quote from: gongora on 12/06/2018 03:44 pmCrew 1 mission NET August 2019 is currently planned to be on Dragon.By Crew 1 you do not mean DM-2 then? Or is that DM-2?
Crew 1 mission NET August 2019 is currently planned to be on Dragon
Crew 1 is the first post-certification mission. DM-1, then DM-2, then certification, then Crew 1.
Quote from: gongora on 12/06/2018 04:14 pmCrew 1 is the first post-certification mission. DM-1, then DM-2, then certification, then Crew 1.Ok thank you. There was some talk about making DM-2 have a full crew complement but I'm guessing that has been set aside with the Soyuz Crew RTF.