Author Topic: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3  (Read 403499 times)

Offline rubicondsrv

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #620 on: 03/11/2022 04:12 pm »
Yes, we would all be happier to have a second CCP system. But today we don't. I am not competent to do the analysis, but would crewed Dream chaser have any chance of flying next year if it were funded today?

a chance, sure, but not a significant one. 

cargo DC has not flown yet, and it lacks an abort system and can fly within a standard fairing.

expecting crew dc to fly on a similar schedule or sooner than cargo dc, not very likely. 

could it be done at great risk and expense, likely, but that doesn't make it worth it. 




Offline rcoppola

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #621 on: 03/11/2022 04:47 pm »
I don't recall....With the extra Atlas V needed for an OFT redo, is there an Atlas V available for a supposed 6th flight of Starliner under the initial contract? Or will that necessitate a Vulcan human rating. (Which Boeing would have to pay for)
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Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #622 on: 03/11/2022 05:51 pm »
NASA also told Boeing that stepping out of CCP would result in certain fines. One of them being that Boeing would have to return the additional $287M they got paid. Stepping out of CCP after the failed OFT-1 mission would have resulted in Boeing having to pay nearly $800M in total fines to NASA.

So, continueing with CCP and eating the additional costs for OFT-2 (~$550M so far) is actually less expensive for Boeing. It also provides for milestone payments coming their way once they successfully complete OFT-2 and CFT.
It's a shame that the $800M in potential fines exists. Otherwise, Boeing might just walk away and put Starliner out of  its misery. The profit margin on the remaining progress payments is probably near or below zero by now due to inflation and overruns.

Yes, we would all be happier to have a second CCP system. But today we don't. I am not competent to do the analysis, but would crewed Dream chaser have any chance of flying next year if it were funded today?

Emphasis mine.

No chance whatsoever. UNcrewed Dream Chaser is already 2 years behind schedule and won't launch until 2024. A crewed version, even if properly funded from this day forward, won't be ready until sometime in 2026, at the earliest.
« Last Edit: 03/18/2022 06:20 pm by woods170 »

Offline woods170

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #623 on: 03/11/2022 05:54 pm »
I don't recall....With the extra Atlas V needed for an OFT redo, is there an Atlas V available for a supposed 6th flight of Starliner under the initial contract?

Yes. And room for another contingency.

Offline abaddon

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #624 on: 03/11/2022 06:28 pm »
would crewed Dream chaser have any chance of flying next year if it were funded today?
Zero.

Offline whitelancer64

Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #625 on: 03/11/2022 08:43 pm »
*snip*

Yes, we would all be happier to have a second CCP system. But today we don't. I am not competent to do the analysis, but would crewed Dream chaser have any chance of flying next year if it were funded today?

No.

The current design of the Cargo Dream Chaser was intentionally made to be about 80% of what would be needed for a Crew version. However, that 20% -- including full ECLSS, crew cabin controls, seats, pressure suits, redundant orbital control systems, fixed wings, and the abort system -- among many other things I'm sure -- would certainly require years of development and testing.
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Offline lrk

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #626 on: 03/12/2022 12:20 pm »
And room for another contingency.

First I've heard of that.  So they have 9 Atlases on order currently (OFT-2, CFT, 6 PCMs, 1 backup?) 

Could that backup potentially used for another PCM if all goes well with the contracted missions? 

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #627 on: 03/12/2022 03:05 pm »
And room for another contingency.

First I've heard of that.  So they have 9 Atlases on order currently (OFT-2, CFT, 6 PCMs, 1 backup?) 

Could that backup potentially used for another PCM if all goes well with the contracted missions?
With a launch cadence of one per year starting NET 2023, the last of the six PCMs is NET 2028, so if it is truly a backup they cannot release it before then. But why do we think they have nine Atlas Vs allocated to Starliner?

Offline baldusi

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #628 on: 03/12/2022 11:47 pm »
The JOFOC posted just above says:
Quote
….NASA has determined a need to acquire up to three additional PCMs from SpaceX to assure uninterrupted crew access to the International Space Station.  The FFP PCM prices were competitively defined in the contract during the CCtCap acquisition.
Does that answer your question?

My opinion is that it’s still win-win for NASA and SpaceX.

I read that as that the prices for those additional 3 missions where, in fact, agreed upon and part of the CCtCap submission. Not saying that SpaceX couldn't try to pull a Boeing's, but contractually they would probably have made with some assumption of inflation, or with a formula withe the aerospace inflation index (I think it's NASA's mission start index or something like that).

Offline baldusi

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #629 on: 03/12/2022 11:51 pm »
Quote from: NASA’S MANAGEMENT OF CREW TRANSPORTATION TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION Page 23
For Boeing’s third through sixth crewed missions, we found that NASA agreed to pay an additional $287.2 million above Boeing’s fixed prices to mitigate a perceived 18-month gap in ISS flights anticipated in 2019 and to ensure the contractor continued as a second commercial crew provider, without offering similar opportunities to SpaceX.

Emphasis mine.

The bolded part is much telling.

Basically: Boeing threatened to step out of CCP if they didn't get additional money on top of the agreed-upon $4.2B FFP. NASA failed to call their bluff, caved in and gave Boeing the additional money.

Boeing tried this route again after OFT-1. They again threatened to step out of CCP if NASA didn't bear the cost for OFT-2. This second time however NASA DID call Boeing's bluff.
NASA reminded Boeing of the fact that stepping out of CCP, at this stage of the game, would result in Boeing NOT getting the payments for the OFT, CFT and 6 PCM milestones.
NASA also told Boeing that stepping out of CCP would result in certain fines. One of them being that Boeing would have to return the additional $287M they got paid. Stepping out of CCP after the failed OFT-1 mission would have resulted in Boeing having to pay nearly $800M in total fines to NASA.

So, continueing with CCP and eating the additional costs for OFT-2 (~$550M so far) is actually less expensive for Boeing. It also provides for milestone payments coming their way once they successfully complete OFT-2 and CFT.

And now you also understand why Boeing didn't bother to seriously bid on HLS. The HLS milestones-based Firm Fixed Price principle has become rather unpalatable for a company that is fully entrenched in Cost-Plus. It also explains why they had their paid representatives in US Congress (for example rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson) push for HLS becoming a NASA-owned vehicle. That way it would have morphed to become SLS-like, with contractors building what NASA had designed. And by NO coincidence whatsoever the Boeing design for HLS was a near exact copy of NASA's HLS "reference design". And oh ah, it would have been launched on SLS as well.

Boeing made another mistake when they tried to change the details of their initial HLS submission when it became clear that their design wouldn't make the cut. That's how Loverro left the field. It also focused the attention of NASA's IG on Boeing. That forced Boeing off the stage entirely.
Good riddance IMO.

I think also that pulling out of CCtCap unilaterally would have put Boeing Space Systems in default and would not be able to bid to the US govt for a while. That would have been a much more powerful threat than anything else.

In this case, I also seriously doubt SpaceX could somehow argue anything but their bid PCM prices. At least without asking "pretty please".
« Last Edit: 03/12/2022 11:51 pm by baldusi »

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #630 on: 03/13/2022 12:29 am »
The JOFOC posted just above says:
Quote
….NASA has determined a need to acquire up to three additional PCMs from SpaceX to assure uninterrupted crew access to the International Space Station.  The FFP PCM prices were competitively defined in the contract during the CCtCap acquisition.
Does that answer your question?

My opinion is that it’s still win-win for NASA and SpaceX.

I read that as that the prices for those additional 3 missions where, in fact, agreed upon and part of the CCtCap submission. Not saying that SpaceX couldn't try to pull a Boeing's, but contractually they would probably have made with some assumption of inflation, or with a formula withe the aerospace inflation index (I think it's NASA's mission start index or something like that).
There is a big difference. In 2019, Boeing  threatened to pull out of its CCtCap contract that they had signed unless NASA forked over the extra $287 million and committed to the entire 6 PCMs instead of 2 committed plus 4 optional.  By contrast, The SpaceX extension was at NASA's request and was for three additional optional flights after SpaceX completely fulfilled all its obligations under its CCtCap contract. SpaceX was under no contractual obligation to accept the contract extension and would have been free to decline. My guess is that they agreed to an extension whose terms were so unexceptional that nobody would object and force a new RFP instead of a contract extension.

Opinion: Meanwhile, Boeing is hoist on its own petard. They coerced NASA into buying the entire set of 6 PCMs at a fixed price, and then the slipped by four years, so now the profits in that fixed price are likely to be eaten away by inflation.

Offline su27k

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #631 on: 03/13/2022 01:30 am »
The JOFOC posted just above says:
Quote
….NASA has determined a need to acquire up to three additional PCMs from SpaceX to assure uninterrupted crew access to the International Space Station.  The FFP PCM prices were competitively defined in the contract during the CCtCap acquisition.
Does that answer your question?

My opinion is that it’s still win-win for NASA and SpaceX.

I read that as that the prices for those additional 3 missions where, in fact, agreed upon and part of the CCtCap submission. Not saying that SpaceX couldn't try to pull a Boeing's, but contractually they would probably have made with some assumption of inflation, or with a formula withe the aerospace inflation index (I think it's NASA's mission start index or something like that).

The CCtCap contract's CLIN 002 only has prices for missions ordered between 2015 and 2020.

Offline Jim

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #632 on: 03/13/2022 02:07 pm »

Opinion: Meanwhile, Boeing is hoist on its own petard. They coerced NASA into buying the entire set of 6 PCMs at a fixed price, and then the slipped by four years, so now the profits in that fixed price are likely to be eaten away by inflation.

Just stop with these unsupported posts.  How is inflation going to affect when most of the hardware has been purchased?
« Last Edit: 03/13/2022 02:11 pm by Jim »

Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #633 on: 03/13/2022 03:00 pm »

Opinion: Meanwhile, Boeing is hoist on its own petard. They coerced NASA into buying the entire set of 6 PCMs at a fixed price, and then the slipped by four years, so now the profits in that fixed price are likely to be eaten away by inflation.

Just stop with these unsupported posts.  How is inflation going to affect when most of the hardware has been purchased?
You are correct that my opinion on inflation/profit is unsupported. The other two points (coercion and slip) are supported in the portion of my original post that you trimmed.

About inflation: the front-loaded costs are mostly already incurred as you said. I don't know what percentage of them have already been paid in the milestone payments so far or that will be paid in OFT and CFT milestone payments, all with only minor inflation impacts since inflation has been quite low until recently. I presumed without support that a meaningful portion of the PCM costs are costs of operations and therefore subject to inflation in the years 2023-2028.

With respect to capital costs, here's how inflation works: If I pay for material in 2016 dollars in the year 2016, and I then collect the payment from my customer in 2023 dollars in 2023, then I incur the loss due to inflation (in addition to non-inflation part of the time cost of money).  Exactly how this shows up on the corporate books is beyond my competence.

Offline deadman1204

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #634 on: 03/13/2022 03:31 pm »

Opinion: Meanwhile, Boeing is hoist on its own petard. They coerced NASA into buying the entire set of 6 PCMs at a fixed price, and then the slipped by four years, so now the profits in that fixed price are likely to be eaten away by inflation.

Just stop with these unsupported posts.  How is inflation going to affect when most of the hardware has been purchased?
You are correct that my opinion on inflation/profit is unsupported. The other two points (coercion and slip) are supported in the portion of my original post that you trimmed.

About inflation: the front-loaded costs are mostly already incurred as you said. I don't know what percentage of them have already been paid in the milestone payments so far or that will be paid in OFT and CFT milestone payments, all with only minor inflation impacts since inflation has been quite low until recently. I presumed without support that a meaningful portion of the PCM costs are costs of operations and therefore subject to inflation in the years 2023-2028.

With respect to capital costs, here's how inflation works: If I pay for material in 2016 dollars in the year 2016, and I then collect the payment from my customer in 2023 dollars in 2023, then I incur the loss due to inflation (in addition to non-inflation part of the time cost of money).  Exactly how this shows up on the corporate books is beyond my competence.

There are also fixed costs per year like facilities and personal and such that eat away at the money. The longer it goes, the more these bite as well

Offline meekGee

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #635 on: 03/13/2022 07:06 pm »

Opinion: Meanwhile, Boeing is hoist on its own petard. They coerced NASA into buying the entire set of 6 PCMs at a fixed price, and then the slipped by four years, so now the profits in that fixed price are likely to be eaten away by inflation.

Just stop with these unsupported posts.  How is inflation going to affect when most of the hardware has been purchased?
You are correct that my opinion on inflation/profit is unsupported. The other two points (coercion and slip) are supported in the portion of my original post that you trimmed.

About inflation: the front-loaded costs are mostly already incurred as you said. I don't know what percentage of them have already been paid in the milestone payments so far or that will be paid in OFT and CFT milestone payments, all with only minor inflation impacts since inflation has been quite low until recently. I presumed without support that a meaningful portion of the PCM costs are costs of operations and therefore subject to inflation in the years 2023-2028.

With respect to capital costs, here's how inflation works: If I pay for material in 2016 dollars in the year 2016, and I then collect the payment from my customer in 2023 dollars in 2023, then I incur the loss due to inflation (in addition to non-inflation part of the time cost of money).  Exactly how this shows up on the corporate books is beyond my competence.

There are also fixed costs per year like facilities and personal and such that eat away at the money. The longer it goes, the more these bite as well
Yes, standing army costs might rival hardware costs and other per flight costs, especially when Boeing are not done with development costs
« Last Edit: 03/13/2022 07:21 pm by meekGee »
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Online DanClemmensen

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #636 on: 03/26/2022 02:55 pm »
From another thread:

My guess is that Dream Chaser will be incorporated in the next round of commercial crew (CCSTS). There are plans for both Starliner and crewed Dream Chaser to transport astronauts to Orbital Reef. The reasons that there is no extra Starliner missions is because Vulcan hasn't yet been certified. I expect that Vulcan will be certified in the next round of commercial crew (CCSTS).
But why? NASA has already committed to the purchase of six Starliner flights, and these will almost certainly be at a rate of one a year or slower, starting in 2023 at the earliest, so 2023 through 2028. NASA also has options for at least 5 more Crew Dragon flights, starting with Crew-5, ISS may not still be flying when all of these run out, so NASA does not need another CCP system for ISS. If commercial operations need another option, there is no need for NASA to be involved.

Offline yg1968

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #637 on: 03/26/2022 03:02 pm »
From another thread:

My guess is that Dream Chaser will be incorporated in the next round of commercial crew (CCSTS). There are plans for both Starliner and crewed Dream Chaser to transport astronauts to Orbital Reef. The reasons that there is no extra Starliner missions is because Vulcan hasn't yet been certified. I expect that Vulcan will be certified in the next round of commercial crew (CCSTS).
But why? NASA has already committed to the purchase of six Starliner flights, and these will almost certainly be at a rate of one a year or slower, starting in 2023 at the earliest, so 2023 through 2028. NASA also has options for at least 5 more Crew Dragon flights, starting with Crew-5, ISS may not still be flying when all of these run out, so NASA does not need another CCP system for ISS. If commercial operations need another option, there is no need for NASA to be involved.

NASA will still require that its astronauts be launched on certified commercial crew systems when is starts using commercial LEO Destinations habitats. CCSTS will have a certification process in it.
« Last Edit: 03/26/2022 03:05 pm by yg1968 »

Offline su27k

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #638 on: 04/09/2022 03:24 am »
Interesting thread: https://twitter.com/KarenSBernstein/status/1512454357865963528

Quote
SpaceX benefited tremendously from our NASA collaboration as part of @Commercial_Crew. Their spacecraft design succeeded because of their smart and hard work, but also because top JSC engineers partnered with them all the way.



Boeing did not allow collaboration in the same way. I was the spacecraft struc mech system manager on the nasa side. These 2 companies had very different relationships with my team.



Boeing believed it had all the answers, did not appear to understand the nature of a fixed price contract, and treated my team like people they hardly needed. SpaceX welcomed wisdom and guidance and fully partnered with our engineers.



To be clear, by “Boeing” I mean mgmt. the engineers we worked with were just as frustrated as we were.

Offline Coastal Ron

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Re: Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3
« Reply #639 on: 04/09/2022 04:04 am »
Interesting thread: https://twitter.com/KarenSBernstein/status/1512454357865963528
Quote
SpaceX benefited tremendously from our NASA collaboration as part of @Commercial_Crew. Their spacecraft design succeeded because of their smart and hard work, but also because top JSC engineers partnered with them all the way.

Boeing did not allow collaboration in the same way. I was the spacecraft struc mech system manager on the nasa side. These 2 companies had very different relationships with my team.

Boeing believed it had all the answers, did not appear to understand the nature of a fixed price contract, and treated my team like people they hardly needed. SpaceX welcomed wisdom and guidance and fully partnered with our engineers.

To be clear, by “Boeing” I mean mgmt. the engineers we worked with were just as frustrated as we were.

I'm reminded of the saying "Standing on the shoulders of giants", which is attributed to Isaac Newton, and Wikipedia explains as:
Quote
The phrase Standing on the shoulders of giants is a metaphor which means "Using the understanding gained by major thinkers who have gone before in order to make intellectual progress".

Elon Musk has always been very open about the help SpaceX has received from NASA, and in general SpaceX appears to have benefited from a culture of "Hey, grab good ideas from wherever you can!"

On the Commercial Crew program Boeing has always seemed to have had an air of "we stand on our own history, so of course we know better." So I guess these tweets seem to confirm that...
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

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