Interview with Mr de Groot.
Quote from: Star One on 05/02/2016 05:00 pmInterview with Mr de Groot.Somehow he succeeded not clarifying the primary cause of the delays, while stressing that they are not far behind and the spacecraft will need to go to storage."There were too many different parts of the mission that had severe problems with the 2018 schedule. If you have a mission where it’s only one instrument or one component that is creating the problem, you can talk about de-scoping. But here we would have had to de-scope 50 percent of the mission."50% of what ? Right side wheels and rear thrusters ?
We were still negotiating the full development contracts for the 2018 mission. We were very close to finalizing this and now this adds a little bit of complexity. That’s why we are trying not to mention any numbers here, because it will not help our negotiations with Airbus Defence and Space, which is responsible for the rover, and with Thales Alenia Space Italia, which is overall program prime contractor
New video - ExoMars is on its way
It's worse than just having some components not ready for integration. Some fundamental systems engineering has not been adequately addressed. Nor have all requirements been unambiguously flowed down to various subsystems. If they want success on this mission, 2020 is too soon.
Quote from: Star One on 05/03/2016 08:35 pmNew video - ExoMars is on its wayIncidentally, this video is about ExoMars 2016, not ExoMars 2020.
Quote from: synchrotron on 05/03/2016 07:49 pmIt's worse than just having some components not ready for integration. Some fundamental systems engineering has not been adequately addressed. Nor have all requirements been unambiguously flowed down to various subsystems. If they want success on this mission, 2020 is too soon.This is based on what?
Quote from: Dalhousie on 05/04/2016 12:47 amQuote from: synchrotron on 05/03/2016 07:49 pmIt's worse than just having some components not ready for integration. Some fundamental systems engineering has not been adequately addressed. Nor have all requirements been unambiguously flowed down to various subsystems. If they want success on this mission, 2020 is too soon.This is based on what?Contracts have been initiated with vendors to provide equipment. However, the mission-level requirements have not been decomposed and allocated to vendors' subsystems. Without doing this, you won't know what performance you'll get at the tail end. Your margins will likely be negative against some of your requirements.Concurrent systems engineering needs to occur upfront. Not after you've started to cut metal.
This is another example of an overambitious aerospace project heading down the well worn path of schedule overruns and cost blowouts. In many ways it is not a lot less ambitious than Curiosity, but the Europeans are telling themselves that they are going to build Exomars for a lot less. A MER class rover would be much more suited to European skills and budgets.
Before you get too harsh on ESA, what became Curiosity was endorsed by the Decadal Survey as a modest-cost rover technology demonstration mission.It seems that Mars rover missions have a way of expanding, regardless of the space agency. NASA has the advantage of a single funding source while ESA, for this voluntary program, must negotiate among a number of member states.
Quote from: vjkane on 05/06/2016 05:53 amBefore you get too harsh on ESA, what became Curiosity was endorsed by the Decadal Survey as a modest-cost rover technology demonstration mission.It seems that Mars rover missions have a way of expanding, regardless of the space agency. NASA has the advantage of a single funding source while ESA, for this voluntary program, must negotiate among a number of member states.Not to mention that it was NASA that pulled the rug out from under this mission once already, and still against all odds TGO is on its way to Mars regardless.
Quote from: Don2 on 05/06/2016 05:28 amThis is another example of an overambitious aerospace project heading down the well worn path of schedule overruns and cost blowouts. In many ways it is not a lot less ambitious than Curiosity, but the Europeans are telling themselves that they are going to build Exomars for a lot less. A MER class rover would be much more suited to European skills and budgets.Before you get too harsh on ESA, what became Curiosity was endorsed by the Decadal Survey as a modest-cost rover technology demonstration mission.It seems that Mars rover missions have a way of expanding, regardless of the space agency. NASA has the advantage of a single funding source while ESA, for this voluntary program, must negotiate among a number of member states.
I think that the one overarching takeaway from all this is that these things are not easy to do. So before immediately jumping to criticism, we should consider that there are big challenges to building these things and the people doing them are often very good at what they do, but what they do is very difficult.
I've read that ESA and Russia have found that their management, design, and testing methods are quite different. Also, given the nature of the landing system, it has proven harded to have clean interfaces. As a result, progress has been slower as the two organizations work out how to work together productively. Any future cooperative missions will benefit from these learnings.
I think something similar happened with ESA and the JUICE mission making an offer to NASA. Somebody comes along with a mission opportunity and the potential partner has no money for it, so cooperation does not happen.
I think that's an excellent point--the Russians are a new partner here.
Quote from: Blackstar on 05/06/2016 04:33 pmI think that's an excellent point--the Russians are a new partner here.They are not, entirely ? ESA member and Russians have collaborated on multiple planetary missions before, going back as far as Vega probes.