SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 - Jason 3 - SLC-4E Vandenberg - Jan 17, 2016 - DISCUSSION

[AJW]

Falcon 9 currently has 5 flights under its belt, and there appear to be 15 F9 flights on the manifest ahead of Jason 3, so v1.1 should have opportunity to prove itself before this flight.

F9R may also be operational by this point but I don't know how the folks at Vandenberg would feel about incoming rockets.  There is an old Naval field on one of the Channel islands that might make a fine landing zone.

[Antares]

How much of a change is a change? If they change the supplier for one small unimportant capacitor in some circuit board that's a lot less change than a major engine redesign.

Small changes happen all the time in the consumer product arena...

In the space industry, supplier change or even a process change at the same supplier warrants a review of the design and qualification of the component or system affected.  The cost and uniqueness of payloads and inability to fix systems in flight drive this cautiousness.

[Sohl]

 Just because v1.0 is specified in the original contract, that is not set in stone.  Government contracts with their suppliers are modified all the time.  If the Contracting Offiicer and Contracting Officer's Techical Representative (COTR) feel that it is in the interests of the government agency to amend the contract in some way (either from their own initiative or from the supplier's prompting), they can negotiate the change with the supplier and make it official. Depending on circumstances,   negotiations might get ugly for a bit, but that's business.

The real question is which version of the Falcon 9 makes the most sense to the interests of both sides when the vehicle assembly and other early launch preps need to start.  They'll sort it out and make the contract language match the reality, if necessary.  So don't get hung up on "the contract says ..." 

[Lar]

How much of a change is a change? If they change the supplier for one small unimportant capacitor in some circuit board that's a lot less change than a major engine redesign.

Small changes happen all the time in the consumer product arena...

In the space industry, supplier change or even a process change at the same supplier warrants a review of the design and qualification of the component or system affected.  The cost and uniqueness of payloads and inability to fix systems in flight drive this cautiousness.

Quite true...

I stumbled across this excellent article about the huge impact of what seemed like VERY small changes

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2256/1

after reading the Falklands one there. It totally reinforces your point. Still, how DOES one change things, even small things? This is a nut to crack since SpaceX comes from the "continuous improvement, iterate something that sort of works till it is awesome" Silicon Valley Startup culture...

[Antares]

Systems engineering.  Both the rote management of requirements and the need for savvy people who can think about how changes in one piece or system affect others if at all.  Elon once said he thinks systems engineering is an artifact of the DoD.

[yg1968]

I'm really curious to see something more about M1D-Vac.
Six months and still a single tweet with a lone picture...

You know why this is? Because they used to be a lot more open, but people (some legitimately and others with an ax to grind) would latch on to any information about any sort of (even just perceived) problem and it ends up being a negative-nancy article in the WSJ editorial section.

The silence could also be interpreted as a sign of trouble.  That's how the company has responded in the past when issues cropped up during missions.  Video goes blank and the talking stops. 

Or maybe there's simply nothing to report.  Merlin 1D is ready and waiting for Falcon 9 v1.1, which in turn is waiting for its new static test stand to be completed.

 - Ed Kyle

The latter is much closer to correct. Due to the engine failure on CRS 1, the v1.0 first stages for CRS-2 and Jason-3 flights were fired through another round of static tests in Texas before they were prepared for shipment, which has delayed V1.1 modifications to the v1.1 test stand a bit more. The test stand height has already umbilical height has already been extended. Likely all that remains to modify is the aft launch mount on the stand. Video evidence in previously posted points towards this.

The post above implies that the Falcon 9 for Jason 3 should be version 1.0.

[dcporter]

NASA has some leverage on Spacex and might use it to their advantage.  Slipping the launch 3 months immediately didn't help either

I certainly hope so! That commercial thing swings both ways.

[mlindner]

F9R may also be operational by this point but I don't know how the folks at Vandenberg would feel about incoming rockets.

Nuff' said.

Vandenberg:

[llanitedave]

Wow.

[Prober]

The question I haven't seen answered is: did they already build a F9 1.0 core, including the set of 1Cs that would be used for this mission before switching production over to the 1.1/1D? At one point I seem to recall a mention of six flight cores, which would leave one if CRS3 is a 1.1.

I suggested a guess that the 6th core is currently the Grasshopper testbed in the SpaceX Grasshopper thread.

this might be true, and SpaceX might wish to stop testing Grasshopper and use the core for Jason or ULA gets another Delta II launch.
 
Edit: put something in before this gets out of hand.

[pippin]

And where would they launch it from?

[strangequark]

Systems engineering.  Both the rote management of requirements and the need for savvy people who can think about how changes in one piece or system affect others if at all.  Elon once said he thinks systems engineering is an artifact of the DoD.

That's a little frightening. Do you have source on that quote?

[Kabloona]

Systems engineering.  Both the rote management of requirements and the need for savvy people who can think about how changes in one piece or system affect others if at all.  Elon once said he thinks systems engineering is an artifact of the DoD.

That's a little frightening. Do you have source on that quote?

There must be a little more than that to Elon's comment. SpaceX would not have gotten as far as they have without some good systems engineering and configuration management.

Maybe he was talking about some specific things he doesn't like about the way DoD does it.

[pippin]

Well, it's a pretty old statement. Given their lousy original track record me thinks Elon might have learned a few things on the way, too.

His statement came from a Silicon Valley'esque attitude towards incremental engineering and focusing on components. I believe this is a very ill-fated attitude when transferred to other industries, I've seen more than one project fail when trying to apply these principles.
As you say: I don't believe SpaceX wouldn't have come as far if they were still looking at things this way.

[Kabloona]

Well, it's a pretty old statement. Given their lousy original track record me thinks Elon might have learned a few things on the way, too.

His statement came from a Silicon Valley'esque attitude towards incremental engineering and focusing on components. I believe this is a very ill-fated attitude when transferred to other industries, I've seen more than one project fail when trying to apply these principles.
As you say: I don't believe SpaceX wouldn't have come as far if they were still looking at things this way.

Furthermore, NASA would not be allowing Dragon near ISS if they didn't have a basic level of confidence in things like Dragon hardware and software config mgmt, for example.

[pippin]

There is one thing where Elon certainly has a point and that is in the project management cycle usually used by DoD projects (V model at al) which is based in the idea of driving a design process through a systems engineering and requirements management process that is essentially top-down.
That whole approach indeed does have severe flaws and is horribly outdated. Maybe that's where he's been coming from. But you still need systems engineering even with agile development processes. Actually one could argue that you might even need more of it.

[LouScheffer]

It's a serious allegation that SpaceX has won a contract with a rocket that they don't have in stock.

Disclaimer: I've never been involved in a rocket contract, but I've worked for many years in software and semiconductors, where obsolete products get bid all the time.  The process goes like this:

Step 1:  NASA requests a rocket launch with a set of specifications:  K kg to an orbit of so-and-so, not more than N db of noise, V gees of vibration, S gees of shock, T variation in temperature, and so on.

Step 2:  SpaceX bids a 1.0 rocket to do the job.  They do this either because the contract states it must be an existing rocket, or they think the buyer will not take seriously a PowerPoint rocket.  They have no intention of using a 1.0, and the customer knows it, but it still makes both sides feel better.  It proves they have the technology, already in production, that can do the job.  If the 1.1 development falls behind, or gets cancelled, then they *could* continue to build 1.0 rockets and get the job done.

Step 3: Now SpaceX builds and tests version 1.1.  If it works, and it meets the specs of Step 1, they propose to substitute it (or they may be allowed do so by default, if it meets the specs, depending on the contract).  If they can't get 1.1 to work, then they have a choice - restart 1.0 production, or refund the contract, perhaps with penalties.  Both of these choices are bad, and any work done on 1.0 is a dead end, so they will work *very* hard to get 1.1 working.

Step 4:  If 1.1 is at all reasonable, the customer will accept the change.  After all, the new product is usually an improvement, and it's not in their interest to force a vendor to expend a lot of work on an obsolete technology.  If they really needed a 1.0 rocket, they would have made that clear in the beginning, and SpaceX would have had to choose between extending production or not bidding.  Since this did not happen I'd think it unlikely.

[Sohl]

Lou:  That's exactly what I expect to happen.  I suppose there could be a v 1.0 sitting in storage that us in peanut gallery don't know about, but I doubt it. I fully anticipate the contract to be amended to allow v. 1.1 after a few good launches, if the wording does not currently permit it.

[simonbp]

this might be true, and SpaceX might wish to stop testing Grasshopper and use the core for Jason or ULA gets another Delta II launch.

I don't think they can; hasn't the Delta II production line already been shut down?

Antares would seem the more likely alternative.

[wkann]

this might be true, and SpaceX might wish to stop testing Grasshopper and use the core for Jason or ULA gets another Delta II launch.

I don't think they can; hasn't the Delta II production line already been shut down?

Antares would seem the more likely alternative.

There are a few more Delta II's left in storage, waiting for a mission.