SpaceX COTS Demo 2/3 Updates (THREAD 2)

[Ben the Space Brit]

Imagine if things were rushed and SpaceX had an accident in January, either on ascent or in orbit. That's it! The end. Game over. Airlines (albeit morbidly) rate themselves in number of crashes to extinction. Smaller ones are one-crash airlines. Larger organizations are two or maybe three. Private rocket companies? ONE and DONE.

I disagree. Orbital has had many failures with its commercial rockets and survived them all.

Orbital has other revenue streams (most notably spacecraft construction) to keep their heads above water.  If SpaceX's space launch business pancakes due to lack of customer confidence then it's game over for them.

Have Orbital seen their customers lose confidence and lost out on LV business? No.

I'm not sure you can make that statement.  AFAIK, Orbital's troubled light LV division is almost entirely made up of USG payloads.  I'm not sure they could go anywhere else even if they wanted to at the moment.

The point I was making is that Orbital makes enough money from elsewhere to be able to fund troubleshooting.  I'm not sure if SpaceX could do the same if serious design flaws emerged with Falcon-9.

[ugordan]

I'm not sure you can make that statement.  AFAIK, Orbital's troubled light LV division is almost entirely made up of USG payloads.

Because others who can build small payloads can't afford a dedicated launch. There's not much demand for small launchers and Orbital up until now didn't have vehicles capable of carrying lower-end comsats to GTO.

[Robotbeat]

Imagine if things were rushed and SpaceX had an accident in January, either on ascent or in orbit. That's it! The end. Game over. Airlines (albeit morbidly) rate themselves in number of crashes to extinction. Smaller ones are one-crash airlines. Larger organizations are two or maybe three. Private rocket companies? ONE and DONE.

I disagree. Orbital has had many failures with its commercial rockets and survived them all.

Orbital has other revenue streams (most notably spacecraft construction) to keep their heads above water.  If SpaceX's space launch business pancakes due to lack of customer confidence then it's game over for them.

Have Orbital seen their customers lose confidence and lost out on LV business? No.

I'm not sure you can make that statement.  AFAIK, Orbital's troubled light LV division is almost entirely made up of USG payloads.  I'm not sure they could go anywhere else even if they wanted to at the moment.

The point I was making is that Orbital makes enough money from elsewhere to be able to fund troubleshooting.  I'm not sure if SpaceX could do the same if serious design flaws emerged with Falcon-9.

It already flew twice quite successfully (even though on the first flight the second stage had never been vacuum tested before and wasn't able to restart because of that, though it reached orbit just fine which was the primary objective... restarted fine on the second flight). Thus, the possibility of serious design flaws in their current Falcon 9 is basically eliminated.

Process flaws are another story.

[ugordan]

Thus, the possibility of serious design flaws in their current Falcon 9 is basically eliminated.

I'd defer that conclusion until after the next one or perhaps two flights. Just like some issues not seen on 01 cropped up on 02, the same could be true for the subsequent flight, albeit with a decreased probability. F9 is still a new vehicle.

One interesting sidenote is that SpaceX seem to have learned the lesson and not declared the F9 operational like they had after F1-02.

[Robotbeat]

We're talking about SERIOUS design issues. There isn't much margin in this business, and if there are serious design issues, it's not likely to reach orbit at all, let alone twice in a row. Even overlooking small things can cause the whole thing to fail, which is why I highly doubt there are any "serious" design issues (doesn't mean it's necessarily up to snuff for manned launch, yet).

[ugordan]

We're talking about SERIOUS design issues.

Yes, and I stand by what I said.

There isn't much margin in this business, and if there are serious design issues, it's not likely to reach orbit at all, let alone twice in a row. Even overlooking small things can cause the whole thing to fail, which is why I highly doubt there are any "serious" design issues (doesn't mean it's necessarily up to snuff for manned launch, yet).

Is the STS foam or o-ring problem a "serious" design issue? How long did it take for each to bring down a flight?

[Robotbeat]

We're talking about SERIOUS design issues.

Yes, and I stand by what I said.

There isn't much margin in this business, and if there are serious design issues, it's not likely to reach orbit at all, let alone twice in a row. Even overlooking small things can cause the whole thing to fail, which is why I highly doubt there are any "serious" design issues (doesn't mean it's necessarily up to snuff for manned launch, yet).

Is the STS foam or o-ring problem a "serious" design issue? How long did it take for each to bring down a flight?

If STS wasn't manned, it wouldn't be so serious (which is the context of my statement... we were talking about their commercial customers, all of which are unmanned payloads). If there was a capsule with an LAS riding the STS stack instead of the orbiter, neither of those flaws would have been fatal. Those were also process failures.

EDIT:Don't get me wrong, those sorts of flaws will need to be addressed for manned flights, but they currently have no commercial customers for manned flights.

[ugordan]

If STS wasn't manned, it wouldn't be so serious

O-ring by itself was a design flaw. It directly led to a LOM, manned or unmanned I wouldn't call that "not serious". We're talking about the launch vehicle, LAS is irrelevant.

My point is serious design issues can surface later than the first two flights and yet be left undetected by then. There is nothing magical about the first two flights to make them special in that regard, it's just the probability of finding serious flaws goes down rapidly as time goes by.

[Kaputnik]

If STS wasn't manned, it wouldn't be so serious

O-ring by itself was a design flaw. It directly led to a LOM, manned or unmanned I wouldn't call that "not serious". We're talking about the launch vehicle, LAS is irrelevant.

My point is serious design issues can surface later than the first two flights and yet be left undetected by then. There is nothing magical about the first two flights to make them special in that regard, it's just the probability of finding serious flaws goes down rapidly as time goes by.

You could argue all day about whether something is 'serious' or not.
The O-Ring brought down one flight out of 135. That's about as reliable as a LV can be, especially if the flaw is then detected and resolved.

[Robotbeat]

If STS wasn't manned, it wouldn't be so serious

O-ring by itself was a design flaw. It directly led to a LOM, manned or unmanned I wouldn't call that "not serious". We're talking about the launch vehicle, LAS is irrelevant.

My point is serious design issues can surface later than the first two flights and yet be left undetected by then. There is nothing magical about the first two flights to make them special in that regard, it's just the probability of finding serious flaws goes down rapidly as time goes by.

A launch vehicle with a LOM of 3-4% is commercially viable for satellite payloads. STS even with that flaw reaches that LOM probability, which is roughly what the R7 family (Soyuz) has (and is quite commercially viable).

It was also a process flaw that they were allowed to launch in cold weather at all. NASA changed the design AND the process, wearing a belt and suspenders (which I agree is an appropriate response in the case of a loss of crew event).


And yeah, this could go on and on, but generally, it's process flaws that rear their heads after the first few flights.

[Chandonn]

Hey can we please move this discussion about STS and Orbital to a discussion thread and keep this "UPDATES" thread for updates?

[manboy]

Has it been confirmed that the Demo 2 Dragon doesn't have any windows?

[Ben the Space Brit]

Has it been confirmed that the Demo 2 Dragon doesn't have any windows?

All the pictures have shown the window appatures filled in.

[spectre9]

Right now Space X is still flying demo F9s.

One of the demo A5s blew up and they now claim to be the most reliable rocket in the world.

All indications are the F9 is solid technology and was done right the first time.

There's no reason to want to be dis'in' Space X 

[hyper_snyper]

Right now Space X is still flying demo F9s.

One of the demo A5s blew up and they now claim to be the most reliable rocket in the world.

All indications are the F9 is solid technology and was done right the first time.

There's no reason to want to be dis'in' Space X 

When did an Atlas V blow up?

[Oberon_Command]

Right now Space X is still flying demo F9s.

One of the demo A5s blew up and they now claim to be the most reliable rocket in the world.

All indications are the F9 is solid technology and was done right the first time.

There's no reason to want to be dis'in' Space X 

When did an Atlas V blow up?

I think he was referring to Ariane 5.

[spectre9]

Atlas V is AV I thought.

Difficult to abbreviate sometimes. 

[hyper_snyper]

Oh right.  How could I forget the famous software bug failure.  Too much turkey...

[manboy]

Has it been confirmed that the Demo 2 Dragon doesn't have any windows?

All the pictures have shown the window appatures filled in.

Looks like you're correct

[joertexas]

I find it amusing that the thruster covers are marked "Remove Before Flight". As a private pilot, I understand the purpose, but there are upwards of 50 people who are checking every detail, and I seriously doubt the markings are really necessary.

JR