Author Topic: Commercial Hubble Repair  (Read 44569 times)

Offline Danderman

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #60 on: 09/24/2012 06:13 pm »
If NASA had an unlimited budget, building and flying a new telescope would be great.

But, in this world of fixed budgets, I believe that a "batteries and gyros" commercial mission to HST would be the most cost effective approach to maintaining our optical capability.

Offline Jim

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #61 on: 09/24/2012 06:37 pm »
I believe that a "batteries and gyros" commercial mission to HST would be the most cost effective approach to maintaining our optical capability.


Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.

Offline Arb

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #62 on: 09/24/2012 06:41 pm »
Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.
Why?

Offline Jim

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #63 on: 09/24/2012 07:43 pm »
Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.
Why?

It is not made to handle EVA's

Offline jongoff

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #64 on: 09/24/2012 10:19 pm »
Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.
Why?

It is not made to handle EVA's

Of the EVA related capabilities that Dragon lacks, which do you think are the biggest deals? Some sort of airlock? An RMS? Handholds of some sort? or something else? 

Just curious, because I know some companies trying to solve some of those issues....

~Jon

Offline Danderman

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #65 on: 09/24/2012 11:49 pm »
Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.
Why?

It is not made to handle EVA's

Of the EVA related capabilities that Dragon lacks, which do you think are the biggest deals? Some sort of airlock? An RMS? Handholds of some sort? or something else? 

Just curious, because I know some companies trying to solve some of those issues....

~Jon

Well, either they need an airlock, or the avionics (and everything else in the cabin) need to be vacuum-rated.

If they have an RMS, they can mitigate the need for handholds on the Dragon capsule by putting the EVA crew in RMS foot restraints. Handholds on the trunk would still be a good idea, I think.

This is all true.

The question is whether these capabilities would cost more than alternates, including building a new HST or some sort of robotic repair mission.

Offline vulture4

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #66 on: 09/24/2012 11:57 pm »
It's not the orbit that will decay on Hubble first; it's the gyros. Hubble uses CMGs exclusively for pointing, and they are in theory triple-redundant. However, they already have lost one since the last servicing...

And extented missions can mean different things. At the moment Hubble is fully funded to provide a lot of support to the astronomers who use it (including 50% of my time). It's not impossible that this will go away in the future, much like it already has for Kepler. If that happens, the desire in the community for a new UV/Optical telescope will be considerably louder.

As far as replacement, NASA is exploring the option of launching one of the two donated NRO sats as a UV/Optical successor to Hubble (with the other as WFIRST). It's all very nebulous at the moment, but some recent (two weeks ago) talks on the subject are here: http://www.princeton.edu/astro/news-events/public-events/new-telescope-meeting/program/NEW-Telescope-Meeting-Sept-2012-Program.pdf The presentaions from Gehrels, Kruk, and Scowen are especially relevant. Note that Kruk brings up the idea of putting NRO/WFIRST at GSO (rather than SEL2) to allow servicing.

Good points. Without funding to do research, instruments can do nothing.

Whether servicing Hubble is practical would depend on the total servicing mission cost. With the Shuttle servicing missions this was very high and periodic replacement might well have been less expensive.

But the original idea (in the late 70's) was for astronomy instruments to co-orbit near the Space Station (or be mounted on it (in vacuum) where possible). This would reduce design complexity, launch and servicing cost since instruments could be reached via EVA or docked with the station for servicing. Currently there is only the AMS and one camera inside the cupola for earth observation.

Offline jongoff

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #67 on: 09/25/2012 12:10 am »
Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.
Why?

It is not made to handle EVA's

Of the EVA related capabilities that Dragon lacks, which do you think are the biggest deals? Some sort of airlock? An RMS? Handholds of some sort? or something else? 

Just curious, because I know some companies trying to solve some of those issues....

~Jon

Well, either they need an airlock, or the avionics (and everything else in the cabin) need to be vacuum-rated.

If they have an RMS, they can mitigate the need for handholds on the Dragon capsule by putting the EVA crew in RMS foot restraints. Handholds on the trunk would still be a good idea, I think.

Cool. Those problems are potentially solvable. I was curious if there were any showstoppers I hadn't already been thinking about.

~Jon

Offline jongoff

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #68 on: 09/25/2012 12:16 am »
Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.
Why?

It is not made to handle EVA's

Of the EVA related capabilities that Dragon lacks, which do you think are the biggest deals? Some sort of airlock? An RMS? Handholds of some sort? or something else? 

Just curious, because I know some companies trying to solve some of those issues....

~Jon

Well, either they need an airlock, or the avionics (and everything else in the cabin) need to be vacuum-rated.

If they have an RMS, they can mitigate the need for handholds on the Dragon capsule by putting the EVA crew in RMS foot restraints. Handholds on the trunk would still be a good idea, I think.

This is all true.

The question is whether these capabilities would cost more than alternates, including building a new HST or some sort of robotic repair mission.

I guess a lot depends on how expensive a crew flight with Dragon actually ends up being. If it's closer to their current $130M for a cargo flight, then it could very well be possible to have some sort of an airlock module that you could bring up on the trunk, and a stowable RMS arm like what Altius is investigating with NASA LaRC that could attach that to the LIDS ring on the front of the Dragon after launch, for instance. My guess is that the marginal cost of adding those capabilities will be relatively small compared to the say ~$500M that SpaceX took to build Falcon 9 and Dragon...

So even if the hardware designs only got used once for this mission, I still think you'd be talking about a mission competitive with robotic servicing (unless you were just trying to deorbit Hubble) or a Hubble replacement. If you could amortize the development over multiple missions of different sorts, I think you'd be able to get the costs of the RMS and airlock system down into an even more competitive range.

~Jon

Offline robertross

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #69 on: 09/25/2012 12:29 am »
I can see a Hubble replacement mission following the same path as many other missions: cost creep where they develop new capabilities and/or incorporate new technologies to reduce mass/size & improved performance.

They have a working platform that will certainly fail at some point. Keeping existing capabilites (in this situation) offers the least risk (imo)

Offline Jim

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #70 on: 09/25/2012 01:09 am »
Not with the dragon.  It is ill-suited for such a task.
Why?

It is not made to handle EVA's

Of the EVA related capabilities that Dragon lacks, which do you think are the biggest deals? Some sort of airlock? An RMS? Handholds of some sort? or something else? 

Just curious, because I know some companies trying to solve some of those issues....

~Jon

Well, either they need an airlock, or the avionics (and everything else in the cabin) need to be vacuum-rated.

If they have an RMS, they can mitigate the need for handholds on the Dragon capsule by putting the EVA crew in RMS foot restraints. Handholds on the trunk would still be a good idea, I think.

Room for EMU's and support equipment.  Gases for repressurization.  Potentially hatch size.
Resign and requalify the avionics? 
« Last Edit: 09/25/2012 01:14 am by Jim »

Offline beancounter

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #71 on: 09/25/2012 01:21 am »
As I noted above, build a new one on the existing spec's.  If the f9 can't handle it, then the FH will likely be on line by then.  Currently there's no way of doing an EVA mission to the existing HST.
Some of you seem hung up on a refurbishment mission whilst ignoring all the practical issues.
Perhaps if you're so keen on it, you could work up a funding model along the following lines:
Base HST escalate to today's dollars assuming no specification changes.
LV cost
Integration, handling, support, etc, costs
Total Cost of new unit
versus
- well, how much do you suppose a full up refurbishment mission will cost since we have no vehicle currently capable of undertaking it?
Beancounter from DownUnder

Offline robertross

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #72 on: 09/25/2012 01:30 am »
As I noted above, build a new one on the existing spec's.  If the f9 can't handle it, then the FH will likely be on line by then.  Currently there's no way of doing an EVA mission to the existing HST.
Some of you seem hung up on a refurbishment mission whilst ignoring all the practical issues.
Perhaps if you're so keen on it, you could work up a funding model along the following lines:
Base HST escalate to today's dollars assuming no specification changes.
LV cost
Integration, handling, support, etc, costs
Total Cost of new unit
versus
- well, how much do you suppose a full up refurbishment mission will cost since we have no vehicle currently capable of undertaking it?


The problem which I have learned on this site, is that the original suppliers likely no longer exist, or no parts are no longer available, which means re-design & re-certification (likely).

One problem I thought of, of my thoughts on refurbishment, is that the SpaceX document (but it wouldn't matter which vehicle) shows a robotic arm for instrument replacement. That's fine, but you have to get those doors opened first, and then you have to close them; remember the fun they once had on an EVA?

A manned EVA might be the better bet (still).

Offline beancounter

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #73 on: 09/25/2012 01:52 am »
As I noted above, build a new one on the existing spec's.  If the f9 can't handle it, then the FH will likely be on line by then.  Currently there's no way of doing an EVA mission to the existing HST.
Some of you seem hung up on a refurbishment mission whilst ignoring all the practical issues.
Perhaps if you're so keen on it, you could work up a funding model along the following lines:
Base HST escalate to today's dollars assuming no specification changes.
LV cost
Integration, handling, support, etc, costs
Total Cost of new unit
versus
- well, how much do you suppose a full up refurbishment mission will cost since we have no vehicle currently capable of undertaking it?


The problem which I have learned on this site, is that the original suppliers likely no longer exist, or no parts are no longer available, which means re-design & re-certification (likely).

One problem I thought of, of my thoughts on refurbishment, is that the SpaceX document (but it wouldn't matter which vehicle) shows a robotic arm for instrument replacement. That's fine, but you have to get those doors opened first, and then you have to close them; remember the fun they once had on an EVA?

A manned EVA might be the better bet (still).

Yes but with no current vehicles capable of such a mission, manned or otherwise, how much would it cost to develop that capability versus simply building and launching a new one.  I take the point on suppliers etc, but I think that would be less of an effort compared with the vehicle, manned mission.

It's all blowing in the wind speculation anyway.  Unless I see some numbers either way, then the whole things mute.  And besides which, there's no funding for either of these options.
Beancounter from DownUnder

Offline Danderman

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #74 on: 09/25/2012 02:06 am »

I guess a lot depends on how expensive a crew flight with Dragon actually ends up being. If it's closer to their current $130M for a cargo flight, then it could very well be possible to have some sort of an airlock module that you could bring up on the trunk,

Herein lies the rub.

An "airlock module" would have to mate with the Dragon via the nose docking adapter (as opposed to somehow attaching to the side hatch), and the nose docking adapter would be occupied by the Hubble docking system. 

The only way around this would be to stow the airlock module in the Dragon trunk, and then somehow re-position it to the front of Dragon, where it would then serve as the interface between Dragon and HST. The RMS required for all those maneuvers would be extremely expensive to develop.

It would be much cheaper to vacuum-rate the Dragon interior avionics.

Offline QuantumG

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #75 on: 09/25/2012 02:11 am »
Or put a hatch in the heat shield.

PICA-X is a seamed ablative anyway.

.. and that's assuming you actually want to throw away your airlock before reentry.. otherwise just add an egress hatch to the side of the Dragon and make the airlock internal.



« Last Edit: 09/25/2012 02:12 am by QuantumG »
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #76 on: 09/25/2012 02:14 am »

I guess a lot depends on how expensive a crew flight with Dragon actually ends up being. If it's closer to their current $130M for a cargo flight, then it could very well be possible to have some sort of an airlock module that you could bring up on the trunk,

Herein lies the rub.

An "airlock module" would have to mate with the Dragon via the nose docking adapter (as opposed to somehow attaching to the side hatch), and the nose docking adapter would be occupied by the Hubble docking system. 

The only way around this would be to stow the airlock module in the Dragon trunk, and then somehow re-position it to the front of Dragon, where it would then serve as the interface between Dragon and HST. The RMS required for all those maneuvers would be extremely expensive to develop.

It would be much cheaper to vacuum-rate the Dragon interior avionics.

Jongoff's firm makes RMS.

To move the docking module the RMS may have to act as a foot.  A pair could be needed.

Offline Jim

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #77 on: 09/25/2012 02:27 am »
Quote from: Danderman link=topic=28805.msg957519#msg957519

It would be much cheaper to vacuum-rate the Dragon interior avionics.

A. that is only one of many issues.
B.  Cheaper does not enter into the conversation.  It may not even be feasible to do.
« Last Edit: 09/25/2012 02:27 am by Jim »

Offline jongoff

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #78 on: 09/25/2012 02:37 am »
Herein lies the rub.

An "airlock module" would have to mate with the Dragon via the nose docking adapter (as opposed to somehow attaching to the side hatch), and the nose docking adapter would be occupied by the Hubble docking system. 

The only way around this would be to stow the airlock module in the Dragon trunk, and then somehow re-position it to the front of Dragon, where it would then serve as the interface between Dragon and HST.

Yes, if you did it that way, the airlock module would need an NDS/LIDS on both ends. If you did it that way. There are other ways it could be done of course. And making a docking adapter that could attach to a side hatch isn't entirely out of the question either.

Quote
The RMS required for all those maneuvers would be extremely expensive to develop.

It would be much cheaper to vacuum-rate the Dragon interior avionics.

I'm always impressed by the certainty levels expressed by people on this forum.

~Jon


Offline jongoff

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Re: Commercial Hubble Repair
« Reply #79 on: 09/25/2012 02:40 am »
Or put a hatch in the heat shield.

PICA-X is a seamed ablative anyway.

.. and that's assuming you actually want to throw away your airlock before reentry.. otherwise just add an egress hatch to the side of the Dragon and make the airlock internal.

That's actually not a bad idea. From talking with some former SpaceX alums they mentioned that making structural modifications to Dragon was something they looked at a lot, and something that sounded relatively straightforward.  That said, it would probably be preferable to find a modification that could be done as an add-on "kit" to existing Dragons. Maybe an inflatable airlock that could be attached internally to the side hatch during the mission, but could be removed and stowed before reentry? It's a direction I hadn't really been thinking, to be honest.

~Jon

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