Author Topic: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis  (Read 398153 times)

Offline Rondaz

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #700 on: 11/14/2018 04:44 pm »
Astronauts Tour Boeing Spacecraft Test Facilities

Marie Lewis Posted on November 14, 2018

Astronauts slated to fly on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner for its upcoming Crew Flight Test recently toured two spacecraft testing facilities in southern California. NASA astronauts Eric Boe and Nicole Mann, and Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson, met with employees who conduct the structural and environmental testing on the spacecraft built to ferry them to the International Space Station from U.S. soil.

Upcoming environmental qualification testing is a major milestone on the road to launch. Performed at the El Segundo, Calif. test facility, it ensures that the CST-100 Starliner, designed and built in Florida, can withstand the extreme environments of space. Likewise, structural testing conducted in Huntington Beach verifies that the vehicle hardware is adequately built to withstand the pressures and load dynamics during flight.

Boeing test teams will put the spacecraft through several assessments including thermal vacuum testing which simulates hot and cold temperature swings the vehicle experiences on orbit. They’ll also perform acoustic testing, meant to safely shake the capsule to ensure it’s been properly built, and electromagnetic testing to see whether the frequencies expected in space would cause any dangerous interference.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2018/11/14/astronauts-tour-boeing-spacecraft-test-facilities/

Offline Comga

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #701 on: 11/30/2018 06:29 pm »
And we were under six weeks to launch.....

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program Target Test Flight Dates

Marie Lewis Posted on November 21, 2018

(snip)
Test Flight Planning Dates:
Boeing Orbital Flight Test (uncrewed): March 2019
Boeing Pad Abort Test: Between OFT and CFT
Boeing Crew Flight Test (crewed): August 2019
SpaceX Demo-1 (uncrewed): January 7, 2019
SpaceX In-Flight Abort Test: Between Demo-1 and Demo-2
SpaceX Demo-2 (crewed): June 2019
(snip)
First operational mission: August 2019
Second operational mission: December 2019

And now we have Bridenstine throwing major shade on the schedule only 8 days later:

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?
We have known for some tme that the parachute reef cutters are coming from a new supplier without flight heritage.
This does put some finite added risk into the DM-1 flight.
The parachute system is significantly modified from the 3 chute Cargo Dragon version which has something like 16 for 16 successes.  However it has been tested ~10 times, although I don't know how many included the new reef cutter.

Why, again, did NASA insist of adding a 4th parachute?
And won't NASA let SpaceX assume the risk of a parachute failure on DM-1, at the potential cost of having to do it again, as they continue their certification for DM-2?

Does anyone else remember and feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football? 
Imagine Bridenstine in the role of Lucy....
« Last Edit: 11/30/2018 08:00 pm by Comga »
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Offline speedevil

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #702 on: 12/03/2018 08:40 pm »
So what changed in the last week?

And to further the confusion, Hans in the CRS16 briefing just said they're still on for January.

Offline Comga

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #703 on: 12/03/2018 10:23 pm »
So 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 chutes
Also says every component for the mission is there at the cape
What kind of wastrels would dump a perfectly good booster in the ocean after just one use?

Online docmordrid

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #704 on: 12/04/2018 05:51 am »
Could be a gentle way of applying public schedule pressure on NASA after the administrator statements.

'Hey,  we're ready ask the other guy...'
DM

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #705 on: 12/04/2018 09:13 am »
Could be a gentle way of applying public schedule pressure on NASA after the administrator statements.

'Hey,  we're ready ask the other guy...'

SpaceX has been applying this gentle, but publically visible, pressure for months now. Their first announcement that the hardware would be ready to fly in late December / early January dates back to last September, a few months after they had shipped the DM-1 hardware to KSC for final processing.

But this being a test flight, and NASA having to sign off on it, means that NASA has final say in when it will launch.

Offline rcoppola

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #706 on: 12/04/2018 02:41 pm »
More NASA - KSC mentions of DM-1 being in January:

https://twitter.com/NASAKennedy/status/1069957537175285761
« Last Edit: 12/04/2018 02:44 pm by rcoppola »
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Offline JonathanD

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #707 on: 12/04/2018 04:32 pm »

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.

Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #708 on: 12/04/2018 05:14 pm »

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.

Offline JonathanD

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #709 on: 12/04/2018 05:20 pm »
I really don't think that is plausible.

Sometimes there is a tendency to overestimate our public officials.  But if you are correct, it's a pretty weird cognitive dissonance.

Offline rcoppola

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #710 on: 12/04/2018 05:55 pm »
In the interest of keeping a running record of comments, here is a clip of the CRS-16 Briefing where Hans Addresses DM-1.

Specific to "Parachutes" he makes mentions of - more redundancies, they being reinforced and overall pretty sure of success:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNPkYbJj1R0?t=1325
« Last Edit: 12/04/2018 06:12 pm by rcoppola »
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Offline theinternetftw

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #711 on: 12/04/2018 07:12 pm »
In the interest of keeping a running record of comments, here is a clip of the CRS-16 Briefing where Hans Addresses DM-1.

For the same reason, here it is in transcript form, along with a related question from Chris G. (Full transcript here)

Quote
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.

Quote
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.
« Last Edit: 12/04/2018 07:13 pm by theinternetftw »

Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #712 on: 12/06/2018 03:44 pm »
Crew 1 mission NET August 2019 is currently planned to be on Dragon.

Offline JonathanD

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #713 on: 12/06/2018 04:00 pm »
Crew 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?

Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #714 on: 12/06/2018 04:14 pm »
Crew 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 is the first post-certification mission.  DM-1, then DM-2, then certification, then Crew 1.

Offline anik

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #715 on: 12/06/2018 04:43 pm »
Crew 1 mission NET August 2019 is currently planned to be on Dragon

USCV-1 launch is planned on October 2, 2019.

Offline JonathanD

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #716 on: 12/06/2018 05:37 pm »
Crew 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.

Offline Alexphysics

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #717 on: 12/06/2018 09:15 pm »
Crew 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.

Making DM-2 a rotation mission was not related to the Soyuz but rather with the actual certification process of the system. Remember these are all tentative dates and no only they can slip to the right, you should expect they will slip to the right given we're still 9 months away from that and anything could happen. If DM-2 is delayed a lot or to a point where Crew-1 may be too late into the future, then it would make sense to expand the DM-2 mission to a full rotation mission. In short: It has not been set aside, this is just what it is being planned now, the extentstion of the mission is a contingency measure.

Offline Rondaz

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #718 on: 12/14/2018 03:56 pm »
Commercial Crew: 2018 Year in Review

Stephanie Martin Posted on December 14, 2018

NASA and our partners have been busy this year manufacturing flight hardware, testing their systems and preparing for flight tests.  Our nine U.S. crew members have also participated in spacecraft system testing checkouts, spacesuit fit checks and launch simulations.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2018/12/14/commercial-crew-2018-year-in-review/

https://www.nasa.gov/specials/CCP2018/
« Last Edit: 12/14/2018 04:17 pm by Rondaz »

Offline Rondaz

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Re: Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis
« Reply #719 on: 12/21/2018 08:52 pm »
Ready to Rumble: Flight Tests Launching in 2019

Marie Lewis Posted on December 21, 2018

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and private industry partners, Boeing and SpaceX, will make history in 2019 with the return of human spaceflight launches to the International Space Station from U.S. soil. Get ready for the rocket rumble: 2019 Preview

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2018/12/21/ready-to-rumble-flight-tests-launching-in-2019/

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/commercial-crew-program-2019

 

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