Author Topic: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion  (Read 203893 times)

Offline antonioe

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #120 on: 07/01/2008 03:21 am »
Some more info here about who is in and who is not for COTS OSC.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/30/1176167.aspx

I'm curious: what do you mean by "COTS OSC"?
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline Smoothie

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #121 on: 07/01/2008 04:52 am »
Some more info here about who is in and who is not for COTS OSC.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/30/1176167.aspx

I'm curious: what do you mean by "COTS OSC"?

Isn't this the thread about the latest round of COTS bids?  The one for actual contracts to take cargo to station and not just seed money?

Offline meiza

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #122 on: 07/01/2008 10:12 am »
No, this is about OSC's (Orbital Sciences Corporation, a company) COTS 1 proposal.
I can understand it gets a little confusing with all the acronyms flying around.

Offline antonioe

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #123 on: 07/01/2008 11:05 am »
Isn't this the thread about the latest round of COTS bids?  The one for actual contracts to take cargo to station and not just seed money?

The program to solicit "actual contracts to take cargo to station" is called the "Commercial Resupply Services" or CRS and was issued by NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate (SOMD), vs. COTS (the one you call "seed money"), which was issued by the Space Exploration Missions Directorate (SEMD).

Same as the COTS funding explicitly precluded its being used to procure ANY services, the CRS money is used to procure services (by the Kg, curiously, not by the flight or mission), and does not have any provisions to directly fund development.  Other than the COTS moneys that SpaceX and Orbital are receiving, any development costs have to be funded by the supplier(s).  This kind of severely limits the number of companies able and willing to bid.

Proposal were due June 30.
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Offline Jim

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #124 on: 07/01/2008 11:59 am »
Some more info here about who is in and who is not for COTS OSC.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/06/30/1176167.aspx

I'm curious: what do you mean by "COTS OSC"?

Isn't this the thread about the latest round of COTS bids?  The one for actual contracts to take cargo to station and not just seed money?
There is a CRS thread

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=12077.0
« Last Edit: 07/01/2008 12:03 pm by Jim »

Offline Smoothie

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #125 on: 07/01/2008 02:51 pm »
No, this is about OSC's (Orbital Sciences Corporation, a company) COTS 1 proposal.
I can understand it gets a little confusing with all the acronyms flying around.

Whoops!  My bad!  :o

Offline synchrotron

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Re: Man-rated Taurus II being studied
« Reply #126 on: 07/26/2008 02:58 pm »
"We have no competition." - Elon Musk


Offline Eerie

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Re: Man-rated Taurus II being studied
« Reply #127 on: 07/26/2008 03:22 pm »
"We have no competition." - Elon Musk

That is true, as SpaceX don`t have anything that can be competed with yet.
« Last Edit: 07/26/2008 03:23 pm by Eerie »

Offline edkyle99

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Re: Man-rated Taurus II being studied
« Reply #128 on: 08/06/2008 01:53 pm »
Orbital is opening an office in Huntington Beach, California.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/05/AR2008080503270.html

An attempt to nab some of those Boeing engineers who didn't want to move to Colorado or Alabama?

 - Ed Kyle
« Last Edit: 08/06/2008 01:53 pm by edkyle99 »

Offline antonioe

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #129 on: 08/06/2008 05:19 pm »
Also satelliters who may be looking for a job after Boeing lost the GPS III competition (see http://www.dailytech.com/Lockheed+Beats+Boeing+For+146B+GPS+III+Satellite+Contract/article11828.htm)
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline marsavian

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #130 on: 08/17/2008 07:49 pm »
Orbital failing a COTS milestone ? Any truth in this ?

http://rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/08/cots-maybe-not.html
« Last Edit: 08/17/2008 07:50 pm by marsavian »

Offline jimvela

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #131 on: 08/17/2008 08:49 pm »
Orbital failing a COTS milestone ? Any truth in this ?

http://rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/08/cots-maybe-not.html

A blog with overwhelmingly negative things to say about Orbital, Ares, and Spacex... For example:

Quote
Pinhole hydraulic leaks are patched with silicon instead of getting a more productive repair.

From an anonymous blogger who's credentials are:

Quote
Rocket Man
    * Industry: Accounting
    * Location: United States
Yeah, thats credible... ???

( From http://www.blogger.com/profile/05109496878476775729)

I'd say you'll need to find a MUCH more credible source than that...

Like right here on NSF:  Antonioe- any comments???




Offline marsavian

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #132 on: 08/17/2008 08:55 pm »
It all depends who he does Accounting for ;). Yeah that's why I posed the question here so it could be refuted/confirmed directly.

Offline antonioe

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #133 on: 08/17/2008 09:13 pm »
Orbital failing a COTS milestone ? Any truth in this ?

http://rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/08/cots-maybe-not.html

Not that I am aware of; we were paid the first two milestones (so I guess we passed those) and the presentation of data for the third one (the UCM PDR) happened last week, with a data drop a couple of weeks before that.  Unfortunately I could not attend last week's meeting, but Alan Lindenmoyer did and the feedback I got was that "there were no liens against the material".  That usually means NASA is happy.

It usually takes NASA about a couple of weeks to review the material presented, ask us any additional questions, get the answers from us, and digest our answers.  So it will take a couple of weeks to certify that we passed the last milestone, but I have not been told of any unhappiness with the material from NASA.  On the contrary, they were happy to see "real engineering" (the previous milestones were organizational and requirements-dominated).

There were some very interesting (and unfortunately, negative) UCM design consequences from the COTS unpressurized cargo being booted out of the CAS sites; we had to add a @&$#* PCBM to the UCM just to make the mechanical and electrical connections required.  Worse than that, the vestibule (the pressurized volume between the hatches) has to exist and be functional, because the astronauts HAVE TO MANUALLY MAKE THE ELECTRICAL CBM CONNECTION inside the vestibule (needless to say, we had NOT budgeted having to do that when we proposed, sized and priced the system; we - NASA and Orbital - thought at the time we could use the much more effective and light CAS approach... oh, well!...)

I'll call Alan Lindenmoyer Monday and make him aware of  that blogger's claim.  I will report back.
« Last Edit: 08/17/2008 09:18 pm by antonioe »
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline Danderman

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #134 on: 08/17/2008 09:30 pm »
Translating the last post into layman's terms, Orbital was told that their unpressurized cargo carrier could not mate with ISS using the CAS system on the truss, but rather would have to mate using a CBM, implying that it would be attached to a pressurized module (even though the payload is unpressurized). CBM requires that the vestibule, the "doorstep" be pressurized since the crew has to do some work after attachment to make connections and the like, which means that the UCM must be "man-rated" to some degree.

So, the question is why CAS is out, what is the rationale for that?

Offline antonioe

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #135 on: 08/17/2008 09:32 pm »
Sorry about the jargon... your explanation is entirely accurate and very readable to boot; the reason the CAS sites are not available to the COTS providers is that NASA expects all the CAS sites (six?) to be fully occupied by the time the first COTS unpressurized cargo mission flies.  NASA came to that conclusion AFTER we were selected for the COTS recompete SAA.
« Last Edit: 08/17/2008 09:34 pm by antonioe »
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline marsavian

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #136 on: 08/17/2008 09:34 pm »
Thanks Antionio and for the great update too ! ;) Looks like the blogger may have got confused with the implications of this mating change.
« Last Edit: 08/17/2008 09:47 pm by marsavian »

Offline bobthemonkey

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #137 on: 08/17/2008 09:40 pm »
Hypothetically, could you fly a CAS to PCBM 'converter' on the first flight? Its not as if there will be a lack of unused CBM's on orbit. Gets you an extra CAS site (if not two), and no need to fly a pressurised vestibule on each flight.

Actually if the timing is enough, it could be prefitted to N3 before launch.

Offline antonioe

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #138 on: 08/17/2008 09:51 pm »
That is indeed a very interesting notion; the big problem with unpressurized cargo is that WE (including NASA) don't really know how much will be actually required; so that favors the "least expensive kludge" until sufficient demand appears for, say, permanently dedicate a CBM site to a "CAS converter tree".

The only reason we proposed demonstrating the UCM on the COTS demo flight was to save money (we don't actually want to hard mate on the first flight, just be grappled by the arm, so the idea was to carry a dummy CAS attachment, now a dummy PCBM)

I would not be surprised, though, if after November 28 we switched to a PCM for the demo flight - not that we would hard mate and open the hatch, but we would fly what will be (by a wide margin) the most frequent CRS configuration.  We would have to find the extra money to do that, though - a dummy PCM (i.e., no internal cargo attachments, no Passive CBM) is more expensive than a dummy UCM (i.e., no FRAMs, no PCBM.)
« Last Edit: 08/17/2008 09:55 pm by antonioe »
ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS...

Offline pippin

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Re: OSC COTS I Proposal Discussion
« Reply #139 on: 08/17/2008 10:12 pm »
That blog as awfully useful information:

Quote
The Russians still haven't figured out what's going wrong with their separation bolts either. As they dance through Georgia, we can see that they may be distracted from worrying about such mundane things.

Yea! All "Russians" work on the space program. And all "dance through Georgia". No wonder they don't find time to fix things...

But then the Americans will not be able to fix the Space Shuttle - as he proposes - because they're all in Iraq...

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