Author Topic: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 1  (Read 640885 times)

Offline edzieba

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1500 on: 03/04/2019 04:31 pm »
According to the timeline from the last NAC, DM-2's Dragon should have had capsule completion yesterday, and be undergoing integration with the trunk today. Have there been any rumblings of delays to this timeline? I can't recall seeing any photos of that Dragon since August (prior to heatshield integration).
« Last Edit: 03/05/2019 01:15 pm by edzieba »

Offline Lar

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1501 on: 03/04/2019 06:49 pm »
According to the timeline from the last NAC, DM-s's Dragon should have had capsule completion yesterday, and be undergoing integration with the trunk today. Have there been any rumblings of delays to this timeline? I can't recall seeing any photos of that Dragon since August (prior to heatshield integration).
Do you mean DM-2? 
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Offline Star One

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1502 on: 03/04/2019 06:55 pm »
According to the timeline from the last NAC, DM-s's Dragon should have had capsule completion yesterday, and be undergoing integration with the trunk today. Have there been any rumblings of delays to this timeline? I can't recall seeing any photos of that Dragon since August (prior to heatshield integration).
Do you mean DM-2?

Yes. Original post is confusing as current Dragon is attached to ISS.

Offline Lar

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1503 on: 03/04/2019 11:54 pm »
I meant, is there some meaning for -s that we're not aware of. This has to be at least 2 though.
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
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Offline BrianNH

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1504 on: 03/05/2019 12:34 pm »
Poster was referring to DM-2, specifically screenshot 66 on the linked NAC presentation.

That presentation was in December (or earlier?) and had DM-1 (now at ISS) launching January 7th and DM-2 launching in June, so there have been significant delays since this presentation was put together.

I don't know if DM-2 has been integrated with the trunk yet, however.  I have not seen anything posted about that.

Offline kevinof

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1505 on: 03/05/2019 12:54 pm »
In one of the press conferences , they mentioned they had some changes to make to heaters on the dracos, life support etc. Wouldn't this delay the mating to the trunk until the changes are done and also keep the DM-2 in Hawthorne until completed? They may also find other issues as a result of the current (dm-1) flight.

Somehow I can't see DM-2 in Florida for a couple of months.

Offline edzieba

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1506 on: 03/05/2019 01:21 pm »
Yep, I meant DM-2, that was a typo.

Was the prop line temperature issue only identified post launch, or already known about and simply flown with mitigation for DM-1 (by capping max pulse duration IIRC)? It may have already been fixed for DM-2 during initial build if it was discovered early enough.

Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1507 on: 03/05/2019 01:25 pm »
Yep, I meant DM-2, that was a typo.

Was the prop line temperature issue only identified post launch, or already known about and simply flown with mitigation for DM-1 (by capping max pulse duration IIRC)? It may have already been fixed for DM-2 during initial build if it was discovered early enough.

The temperature issue was disclosed in the pre-launch briefings.  It didn't sound like the issue was resolved yet.

Offline joseph.a.navin

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1508 on: 03/05/2019 01:39 pm »
Hello,
I am writing an article for my school newspaper and I mentioned the CCtCAP contracts. Am I correct in this paragraph about how the contracts work etc?

"SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is derived from their Dragon spacecraft which currently delivers cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract awarded to SpaceX along with Orbital ATK (which is now part of Northrop Grumman) by NASA. The first CRS mission (CRS-1) launched to the ISS in 2012. Crew Dragon was developed as a result of SpaceX along with Boeing being awarded with the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts in 2014. The CCtCap contracts were given to the companies to build safe and low-cost spacecraft which could transport NASA astronauts from American soil to the ISS."


 
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Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1509 on: 03/05/2019 01:47 pm »
Hello,
I am writing an article for my school newspaper and I mentioned the CCtCAP contracts. Am I correct in this paragraph about how the contracts work etc?

"SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is derived from their Dragon spacecraft which currently delivers cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract awarded to SpaceX along with Orbital ATK (which is now part of Northrop Grumman) by NASA. The first CRS mission (CRS-1) launched to the ISS in 2012. Crew Dragon was developed as a result of SpaceX along with Boeing being awarded with the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts in 2014. The CCtCap contracts were given to the companies to build safe and low-cost spacecraft which could transport NASA astronauts from American soil to the ISS."

There were multiple rounds of contracts leading up to the CCtCap selection.  Crew Dragon was in development before that final contract was awarded.  Its development was completed as a result of SpaceX winning that final contract.  (Low-cost may have been an initial goal of the Commercial Crew Program but it didn't really turn out that way.)

Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1510 on: 03/05/2019 02:19 pm »
Yep, I meant DM-2, that was a typo.

Was the prop line temperature issue only identified post launch, or already known about and simply flown with mitigation for DM-1 (by capping max pulse duration IIRC)? It may have already been fixed for DM-2 during initial build if it was discovered early enough.

The temperature issue was disclosed in the pre-launch briefings.  It didn't sound like the issue was resolved yet.

To me it did: someone asked Hans how much new findings/issues from dm-1 would affect the dm-2 schedule and he said something like 'if they're like the Draco heaters issue they'd be pretty straightforward to solve'.   
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Offline ChaseOne

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1511 on: 03/10/2019 08:58 pm »
 I have a really basic question but no one has answered this question anywhere…  on commercial crew flights, what is the protocol for communicating with the spacecraft and controlling it after tower is cleared? Is Houston going to control the flights and use their Capcom  to make callouts and advise the crew like they did in previous missions or is there a different protocol for commercial crew? Also will there be a difference between controlling SpaceX flights as opposed to Starliner? I realize during unmanned missions space X and ULA, respectively control the missions. Thanks I hope somebody can answer this. thanks I hope somebody can answer this
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Offline QuantumG

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1512 on: 03/10/2019 09:01 pm »
SpaceX / Boeing will control the flight. NASA will talk to the crew.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline joek

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1513 on: 03/10/2019 09:18 pm »
As QuantumG stated, crew communication is through CAPCOM.  Same as it has always been.  Long history there. Short version is that NASA wants a single point of contact-communication on the ground who has experience and understands what the Crew Up There are going through.  (Think that may have been relaxed recently?)  Note that  on the most recent mission, not even the NASA Flight Director communicated directly with the astronauts, although CAPCOM was sitting next to him.

Offline Alexphysics

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1514 on: 03/10/2019 09:36 pm »
Launch control is done by each provider's launch provider (in case of SpaceX, SpaceX and in case of Boeing, it is ULA). SpaceX's launch control will be at KSC's firing room and I don't know where is ULA's launch control but it is somewhere on the cape I guess. Mission control is done by SpaceX at Hawthorne and by Boeing at NASA's JSC.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1515 on: 03/12/2019 10:29 pm »
Remember all those arguments about seat cost for commercial crew? Well, now we know! NASA has published a paper giving the separate costs for development and unit.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008895.pdf

E. Zapata, "An assessment of cost improvements in the NASA COTS/CRS program and implication for future NASA missions," AIAA Space 2017 Forum, Orlando FL, Sep. 2017.

Costs in millions of dollars.

            Development  Unit  Crew  Seat
Apollo CSM    $26,700    $716   3   $238.7
Apollo LM     $14,761    $732   2   $366.0
Orion         $19,466    $980   4   $245.0
Dragon 2       $2,201    $308   4    $77.0
CST-100        $3,271    $418   4   $104.5


For the crew number, I'm using the numbers that NASA will be flying. Only Dragon 2 is cheaper than Soyuz, which is $90M a seat. If we average Dragon 2 and CST-100, that works out to $90.75M a seat, pretty much equal to that of Soyuz.

Edit. Looking at the fine print, the Dragon 2 and CST-100 costs do not include the launcher cost, which will substantially increase the per seat cost.
« Last Edit: 03/12/2019 11:11 pm by Steven Pietrobon »
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Offline QuantumG

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1516 on: 03/12/2019 11:30 pm »
It's almost like they baked the numbers that way...

For example, there's virtually no chance that NASA will be paying $77M/seat for Dragon, they'll be paying the unit price and flying 2 or 3 seats. Worse for Starliner (why are they still using CST-100?)

Thankfully, few people ever took seriously the idea that spending $6B to develop two vehicles*, that will cost more for NASA to fly than just buying seats on Soyuz until the retirement of the ISS, was about cost saving. It's about national prestige and giving money to Boeing (with SpaceX along for the ride). Only recently has anyone been pushing the idea that Dragon/Starliner have a lifetime beyond the ISS - and it's really not that popular a viewpoint.

* Plus the rest of the funding that went into this program - notice how none of that got accounted.
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Online gongora

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1517 on: 03/12/2019 11:34 pm »
Remember all those arguments about seat cost for commercial crew? Well, now we know! NASA has published a paper giving the separate costs for development and unit.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20170008895.pdf

E. Zapata, "An assessment of cost improvements in the NASA COTS/CRS program and implication for future NASA missions," AIAA Space 2017 Forum, Orlando FL, Sep. 2017.

That was discussed in multiple threads here in 2017.

Offline QuantumG

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1518 on: 03/12/2019 11:35 pm »
That was discussed in multiple threads here in 2017.

Oh... that's why. I remember what year it is now  ::)
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Offline theinternetftw

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Re: Commercial Crew (CCtCAP) - Discussion Thread
« Reply #1519 on: 03/12/2019 11:56 pm »
Edit. Looking at the fine print, the Dragon 2 and CST-100 costs do not include the launcher cost, which will substantially increase the per seat cost.

Was about to mention this, but you beat me to it :)  Note also from the fine print that Orion doesn't include the cost of ops or ground support, but the CCP figures do. If I had to WAG it, the costs would be $90 for a NASA-friendly SpaceX F9 launch, bringing cost per head to $99.5M and $150M for an Atlas V N22, bringing the cost to $142M per head.  I wonder how much allowing both Dragon and F9 reuse would save.  (Edit: don't quote these numbers, see the immediately following post)

Edgar Zapata has a bunch of great papers and presentations in NTRS.  A few cool ones to highlight:

The Opportunity in Commercial Approaches for Future NASA Deep Space Exploration Elements (presentation version)

Kickstarting a New Era of Lunar Industrialization via Campaign of Lunar COTS Missions

Do All Our Models Still Say ‘No’? which starts off like this:
Quote
This paper’s essential idea is that when NASA’s space exploration ambitions and cost inflation exceed the rate of
NASA budget growth over the long term, the result is ever-larger scale programs that stretch increasing efforts
across longer time spans and this distribution of funding causes increasing NASA irrelevance. With distance to a
moving target increasing over time, hitting the target may be merely challenging today but impossibly difficult
tomorrow. Reducing ambitions, aiming for closer targets, merely reinforces the irrelevance the new plan tries to avoid
while creating unsustainable scenarios, programs stretched so far across time the low flight frequency calls into
question the ability to maintain competence and safety. Irrelevance is the likely loss of stakeholder interest as much
as a certainty of being overcome by events as planned results stretch beyond a generation. We propose a steady
transformation of NASA space exploration and operations funding towards more, smaller commercial / public-private
partnerships, favoring those with strong non-government business cases, to increase the pace of NASA achievements
and avoid having most funding in projects with goals forever a generation away. A stakeholder should be able to begin
and end at least one major program and see its goals achieved, and preferably more, within a single career, rather than
handing off incomplete tasks to another generation with those goals still a generation away.
« Last Edit: 03/13/2019 12:43 am by theinternetftw »

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