Tweet from Emre Kelly:QuoteUpdated commercial crew slide from KSC Director Cabana's presentation today; appears to be as expected. Uncrewed Boeing and SpaceX flights in August, crewed in November and December, respectively. More details in photo.Boeing pad abort in April.SpaceX in-flight abort in May?
Updated commercial crew slide from KSC Director Cabana's presentation today; appears to be as expected. Uncrewed Boeing and SpaceX flights in August, crewed in November and December, respectively. More details in photo.
Quote from: gongora on 03/20/2018 04:02 pmTweet from Emre Kelly:QuoteUpdated commercial crew slide from KSC Director Cabana's presentation today; appears to be as expected. Uncrewed Boeing and SpaceX flights in August, crewed in November and December, respectively. More details in photo.Boeing pad abort in April.SpaceX in-flight abort in May?I guess it may be time to start a mission thread for this. If that slide is correct the date has moved up quite a bit from the previously expected slot between DM-1 and DM-2.Let's try not to get too wild with the speculation here, it is a mission thread. If that is the real schedule then we should start seeing more information soon. Maybe we'll hear a little more next week at the NAC HEOMD meeting.
I wonder which pad they will use.
Two questions:1. Is this the first time we've seen Boeing forecasting an earlier crew flight than SpaceX?2. I can understand Sierra Nevada being listed on the slide for a cargo vehicle, but can someone remind me why Blue Origin is listed on a Commercial Crew slide?
2. I can understand Sierra Nevada being listed on the slide for a cargo vehicle, but can someone remind me why Blue Origin is listed on a Commercial Crew slide?
Quote from: gongora on 03/20/2018 04:02 pmTweet from Emre Kelly:QuoteUpdated commercial crew slide from KSC Director Cabana's presentation today; appears to be as expected. Uncrewed Boeing and SpaceX flights in August, crewed in November and December, respectively. More details in photo.Boeing pad abort in April.SpaceX in-flight abort in May?Slide is not accurate. In-flight abort is still slated to occur between Demo-1 and Demo-2. Someone just forgot to update the slide. In-flight abort was May 2018 when Demo-1 was April 2018. Now that Demo-1 has slipped to August, in-flight abort has moved concurrently.
After CRS-15, which will also see its booster expended in the Atlantic, just one flightworthy Block 4 rocket will remain in SpaceX’s fleet, and that Falcon 9 booster is understood to be undergoing refurbishment for its final reflight. That mission, however, is a suborbital demonstration designed to prove that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft can wrest its human passengers out of harm’s way in the event of a launch vehicle failure during flight
Why in the world would they use a Block 5 booster? This is not a "test as you fly" issue.
Despite the rumours that a Block IV (specifically B1042) would be used for the in-flight abort, NexxusWolf on Reddit dropped in some info he got from a tour.This includes that the in-flight abort will be performed by a Block V booster and it will be the 3rd flight for that booster.
Maybe customers have been reluctant to book 4th flight (3rd reuse) yet on block V, and doing so for the abort Demo helps show these block V are, as advertised, capable of many reuses.