CCDev to CCiCAP to CCtCAP Discussion Thread

[woods170]

Meanwhile... in other news...

http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/37916mango-steps-down-as-commercial-crew-manager

Mango Steps Down As Commercial Crew Manager

                        WASHINGTON ­— Edward Mango, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida has stepped down from his position and will be replaced on an acting basis by his deputy Kathryn Lueders, a NASA spokesman confirmed Oct. 29.

[A_M_Swallow]

Meanwhile... in other news...

http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/37916mango-steps-down-as-commercial-crew-manager

Mango Steps Down As Commercial Crew Manager

                        WASHINGTON ­— Edward Mango, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida has stepped down from his position and will be replaced on an acting basis by his deputy Kathryn Lueders, a NASA spokesman confirmed Oct. 29.

We have had half a crash but otherwise CCiCap appears to be progressing well.  So any scandal here?

[QuantumG]

Too well for some?

[yg1968]

NASA Administrator Bolden to Hail Success of Commercial Cargo Program

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will discuss the success of the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiative during a televised news briefing at 11:30 a.m. EST Wednesday, Nov. 13.

Through COTS, NASA's partners Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corp., developed new U.S. rockets and spacecraft, launched from U.S. soil, capable of transporting cargo to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station.

A successful Orbital Sciences demonstration mission to the space station was completed in October, signifying the end of COTS development. SpaceX made its first trip to the space station in May 2012 and completed its COTS partnership with NASA the same year. The agency now contracts space station cargo resupply missions with both companies.

The briefing will be held in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters at 300 E St. SW in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website.

The participants will be:

-- Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator
-- Alan Lindenmoyer, Manager of Commercial Crew and Cargo Program, NASA
-- Gwynne Shotwell, President, SpaceX
-- Frank Culbertson, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Orbital Sciences Advanced Programs Group
-- Frank Slazer, Vice President of Space Systems, Aerospace Industries Association
-- Phil McAlister, Director of Commercial Spaceflight Development, NASA

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2013/november/nasa-administrator-bolden-to-hail-success-of-commercial-cargo-program/#.Un8CuuLjU7Y

See above.

[Elmar Moelzer]

Too well for some?

Yepp, certain elements hate commercial crew and the fact that it is such a success. It makes their pet programs look inefficient and outdated.

[edkyle99]

Too well for some?

Yepp, certain elements hate commercial crew and the fact that it is such a success. It makes their pet programs look inefficient and outdated.

Who would be these "certain elements" and what would be their "pet programs"? 

There are three primary commercial crew efforts and there is MPCV.  Is MPCV a "pet program"?  Is it not a success?  All four of these are NASA funded.  MPCV and commercial crew have differing goals - deep space versus ISS resupply - so one is not at odds with the other.  The only live-or-die competition is going to be among the three commercial crew alternatives.

 - Ed Kyle 

[Lurker Steve]

Too well for some?

Yepp, certain elements hate commercial crew and the fact that it is such a success. It makes their pet programs look inefficient and outdated.

Who would be these "certain elements" and what would be their "pet programs"? 

There are three primary commercial crew efforts and there is MPCV.  Is MPCV a "pet program"?  Is it not a success?  All four of these are NASA funded.  MPCV and commercial crew have differing goals - deep space versus ISS resupply - so one is not at odds with the other.  The only live-or-die competition is going to be among the three commercial crew alternatives.

 - Ed Kyle

It is also too early to call either commercial crew or MPCV a success or failure. Commercial CARGO is a success, although the program missed the target dates and needed a boost of a couple hundred million over it's initial budget figure. It succeeded despite one of the original vendors (Kistler) failing.
We have yet to see whether the crew version or MPCV will succeed. The only factions that want to see either program fail are the folks who would rather grab that share of NASA's budget for their own pet programs. And of course, if NASA can't succeed with their Mars program, another vendor will ask for full funding for his Mars program, because he thinks he can do it better....
 

[Elmar Moelzer]

Who would be these "certain elements" and what would be their "pet programs"? 

Certain politicians and their pork rockets.

[edkyle99]

Who would be these "certain elements" and what would be their "pet programs"? 

Certain politicians and their pork rockets.

I wish things would not be presented this way.  It should not be one or the other.  It should be both, and more.

 - Ed Kyle

[Elmar Moelzer]

I wish things would not be presented this way.  It should not be one or the other.  It should be both, and more.

Tell that to these politicians.

[beancounter]

The milestones are:

• Boeing Spacecraft Safety Review. NASA's investment is $20 million and the milestone is planned to be
   accomplished in July 2014.
• SpaceX Dragon Parachute Tests. NASA's investment is $20 million and the milestone is planned to be
   accomplished over several months culminating in November 2013.
• SNC Incremental Critical Design Review #1. NASA's investment is $5 million and the milestone is planned
   to be accomplished in October 2013.
• SNC Incremental Reaction Control System Testing #1. NASA's investment is $10 million and the milestone
   is planned to be accomplished in July 2014.

These milestones each reduce risks, advance the partners' development efforts or accelerate schedules consistent with the goals of CCiCap. NASA plans to use fiscal year 2014 funding for the total government investment of $55 million. Funding these optional milestones does not alter or affect NASA's acquisition strategy for the agency's Commercial Crew Program.

http://www.nasa.gov/content/four-milestones-added-to-commercial-crew-agreements

I thought Dragon Crew was going to use the SuperDraco for landing not parachutes or is it chutes first evolving to the SDs?
Thanks.

[Jason1701]

The milestones are:

• Boeing Spacecraft Safety Review. NASA's investment is $20 million and the milestone is planned to be
   accomplished in July 2014.
• SpaceX Dragon Parachute Tests. NASA's investment is $20 million and the milestone is planned to be
   accomplished over several months culminating in November 2013.
• SNC Incremental Critical Design Review #1. NASA's investment is $5 million and the milestone is planned
   to be accomplished in October 2013.
• SNC Incremental Reaction Control System Testing #1. NASA's investment is $10 million and the milestone
   is planned to be accomplished in July 2014.

These milestones each reduce risks, advance the partners' development efforts or accelerate schedules consistent with the goals of CCiCap. NASA plans to use fiscal year 2014 funding for the total government investment of $55 million. Funding these optional milestones does not alter or affect NASA's acquisition strategy for the agency's Commercial Crew Program.

http://www.nasa.gov/content/four-milestones-added-to-commercial-crew-agreements

I thought Dragon Crew was going to use the SuperDraco for landing not parachutes or is it chutes first evolving to the SDs?
Thanks.

Chutes + SDs for the first few flights at least.

[manboy]

The milestones are:

• Boeing Spacecraft Safety Review. NASA's investment is $20 million and the milestone is planned to be
   accomplished in July 2014.
• SpaceX Dragon Parachute Tests. NASA's investment is $20 million and the milestone is planned to be
   accomplished over several months culminating in November 2013.
• SNC Incremental Critical Design Review #1. NASA's investment is $5 million and the milestone is planned
   to be accomplished in October 2013.
• SNC Incremental Reaction Control System Testing #1. NASA's investment is $10 million and the milestone
   is planned to be accomplished in July 2014.

These milestones each reduce risks, advance the partners' development efforts or accelerate schedules consistent with the goals of CCiCap. NASA plans to use fiscal year 2014 funding for the total government investment of $55 million. Funding these optional milestones does not alter or affect NASA's acquisition strategy for the agency's Commercial Crew Program.

http://www.nasa.gov/content/four-milestones-added-to-commercial-crew-agreements

I thought Dragon Crew was going to use the SuperDraco for landing not parachutes or is it chutes first evolving to the SDs?
Thanks.

Is this what the nominal mission looks like?

Retro burn,
Heat shield deceleration
Parachute deceleration
Parachute release
Draco soft landing ...

The eventual goal is to skip parachutes completely and only have them as back-up. But they might start with what you suggest.

Here's some relevant videos. The was from late July 2012. The is from early August 2012.

[Occupymars]

This is very interesting you have to wonder how Spacex plans to get to SuperDraco only landings. It's obviously though that we will see them dropping dragons from skycrane helicopter's and testing it that way many times before they will risk putting people in them.
Will the cargo version of dragon eventually become the crew dragon without the seat's having it's own set of SuperDracos, legs and or NDS so that the two versions are as common as possible as too share the benefits of capability and economies of scale?. If so could we see the cargo version updated to this more capable dragon before the Dragonrider ever carries people or would CRS contract, NASA and lack of ports not agree. This is even more interesting when you consider Bigelow's modules may well just have NDS on them.

[Falcon H]

I thought Dragon Crew was going to use the SuperDraco for landing not parachutes or is it chutes first evolving to the SDs?
Thanks.

Dragon v2 was originally supposed to use parachutes only in an emergency, but this CCICAP video shows Dragon landing on both rockets and chutes, similar to Soyuz. [urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW3K3TfQbSI][/url] 

[dcporter]

I thought Dragon Crew was going to use the SuperDraco for landing not parachutes or is it chutes first evolving to the SDs?
Thanks.

Dragon v2 was originally supposed to use parachutes only in an emergency, but this CCICAP video shows Dragon landing on both rockets and chutes, similar to Soyuz. [urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW3K3TfQbSI][/url]

The general assumption, and I believe the explicit statement from SpaceX somewhere, was that this video represents an initial capability, sort of a test run of the system, while the full-SD-landing mode would happen on later flights. NASA will probably have a lot to say about this progression.

[clongton]

Interesting video - thanks. I was struck by the statement "Exploration is what this business is all about". That's refreshing and is what sets SpaceX apart from all the other companies even, apparently, present day NASA. Everyone is in it for the profit. NASA's supporting massive jobs programs by way of the funding it gets from Congress. That funding is all about jobs, votes, jobs, votes, etc, and definitely not about exploration, in spite of the titles of the various divisions and departments. Human exploration with NASA won't happen unless the congressional legislators see a means to increase their votes by supporting various big-ticket jobs programs with public funding.

So that's the difference between SpaceX and everybody else.
SpaceX really does want to explore.
Everybody else just wants to make money.


There's nothing wrong with making money, I just want to be clear on the basic motivations.

[QuantumG]

So long as you define "explore" as settlement, sure.

Last I heard, SpaceX isn't planning an exploration program, although they'd love to sell rockets and spaceships to NASA.

[clongton]

So long as you define "explore" as settlement, sure.

Last I heard, SpaceX isn't planning an exploration program, although they'd love to sell rockets and spaceships to NASA.

Read Elon's own words. He wants to open up Mars for settlement.
That's his driving goal.
All the profit he makes along the way is to fund that goal.

[QuantumG]

So long as you define "explore" as settlement, sure.

Last I heard, SpaceX isn't planning an exploration program, although they'd love to sell rockets and spaceships to NASA.

Read Elon's own words. He wants to open up Mars for settlement.
That's his driving goal.
All the profit he makes along the way is to fund that goal.

Yes, I agree, but "exploration" is not the goal. It's a means to an end - settlement - and SpaceX expects government - NASA and others - to do that exploring.

Whereas there's plenty of people who support "space exploration" but think settlement isn't the goal.