Bigelow BEAM as Dragonrider Orbital module

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

In general it would just be easier to use a Sundancer module (~9mt)launched on a prior F9 and cheaper since it is mostly designed already.

That is where concepts for using such modules have been disscussed before the only new item is stowing a much smaller module in the Trunk so that it would go up with the DragonRider instead of before it on a seperate launch. The small size of the module and how usefull just extra space without any other extras like long term ECLSS, supplies, power generation, and thermal control is in doubt. Which is where a true HAB/Space station module like Sundancer is more appropriate.

Sundancer is also capable of being a free flyer or providing all the services it needs so that once you reach a destination like Lunar orbit it can be docked permanantly with others to create a ever increasing hab space Deep Spacestation. Everything that is needed that BEAM does not have to make a usefull long term hab space. A BEAM or BEAM like module would be for extra space for a few week mission possibly 4. It would only double the space provided by just the Dragon.

This concept of using a BEAM sized module would have uses in a GS scenario where the crew goes up first and needs to wait on the EDS being launched after them in a dual launch EOR scenario where there is no depot's and the long term storage of cryo's is only partially succesful. Not good enough for an EDS to last a couple of weeks proir to use. So the crew goes first followed by the EDS. A BEAM sized extra space would make waiting in LEO a couple of weeks bearable and possibly enabling increase of crew size from 2 to 4 in such scenarios. Also launch slips of the EDS can be managed giving a higher mission succes capability. Such as being able to have a max on orbit stay time of 4 weeks where the nominal time would be 2 or less. The BEAM sized module would be a one mission only throw away item. BTW the EDS could carry a pressurized small container with the NDS so that additional consumables would be available for the rest of the mission plus once the EDS has finished its burns the "trash" (a 1 to 1 swap by weight of supplies for trash) would be loaded into this container then the container and EDS detached and discarded.

[go4mars]

The BEAM sized module would be a one mission only throw away item.

Which might still make sense in the near term for Zond-style missions if they are about $20M each.  If (modified) dragon has life support for a couple weeks, just toss a bunch of powerbars, juice boxes, and toilet baggies with baby wipes into the inflatable module.              In the near term, assuming F9 could do it, 2 launches is $120 million for rockets (plus dragon ($73 million) and a module (if sundancer, probably $50 million?).  There`s $243/7 = $35 million bucks each. 

By contrast, if done with a dumb trunk module, and an Altius arm, 1 launch is $60 million, $83? for dragon, $20M for the BEAMing  thing.  So $163M/7 might get to $23 million per ticket around the moon and back. 

That all assumes that crew dragon with multi-day life support costs the same as cargo dragons do now (probably unlikely) and that Goff's Trogdor arm is $10 million (I pulled that number out of my trunk; feel free to constrain that number Jon).   But the point in general, is that a luxury trip with a sundancer (which is a lot heavier) needs 2 launches, one of which will likely need to be a FH.  The minimalist dragon and trunk module trip might need a FH as well.  But the general idea stands that it would be cheaper if it can be done. 

Though Jim's point about draco plumes seems uncomfortably relevent, there might be a way to mitigate the concern (shielding or very careful thruster-use planning where worst-case = everyone is stuck in the dragon for a week because the inflatable module needed to get popped)...

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

Questions about BEAM. Does the $17M include development costs as well as manufacturing?

If it does then how much recurring cost per unit? $10M? Less?

Would it be cheap enough that being a throw away would not cause much of a per seat cost increse? $140M +$10M for BEAM $150M with only 5 seats filled = $30M/seat vs $140M and only 4 seats filled = $35M. What the math says is that per seat costs could decrease using a BEAM add-on concept. BEAM would make lengthy missions more cost effective with a capability to add an additional person.

BEAM here is a BEAM size module not the exact same BEAM as NASA is buying.

[sdsds]

Does the $17M include development costs as well as manufacturing? [...] Would it be cheap enough that being a throw away would not cause much of a per seat cost increase?

That's an excellent line of questioning! Consider a short duration, seven person LEO tourist flight. Could the addition of a disposable BEAM-like inflatable (maybe with a viewing port on the surface where BEAM has grapple fixtures) put the overall experience at a price-to-value point that's easier to sell?

(This somewhat assumes tourists will want about 24 hours in space, not a week....)

[jongoff]

That all assumes that crew dragon with multi-day life support costs the same as cargo dragons do now (probably unlikely) and that Goff's Trogdor arm is $10 million (I pulled that number out of my trunk; feel free to constrain that number Jon).

We wouldn't mind getting paid $10M for an arm, though we don't have firm numbers yet (cause we're still in the early design phase).

BTW, I'm now going to have to have my interns come up with a backronym that works out to Trogdor, and it's all y'alls fault...

~Jon

[jongoff]

Had the same idea, but it will be much easier if you start with BEAM in the trunk and after orbit insertion, you use some robotic to get it out of the trunk and put it on top of the docking adapter. I see no problem at all to add a multipurpose robotic arm to dragon. As we see with the outside attached solar panels, there's plenty of room.

Yes it could be done with a robot arm or something as well and the BEAM in the trunk. My unsubstantiated feeling is just the it would require more development, and therefor cost.

However a robot arm on dragon rider could also have other valuable uses and allow interaction with experiments being done in the trunk.

As an aside, Altius is independently working on a compactly stowable robot arm for applications like this on Dragon, Dreamchaser, Orion, etc. We're not directly working with SpaceX on this, but we're definitely interested in talking with them.

~Jon

Don't forget the consummate V's.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't get how Trogdor fit into this until someone started calling the CSM an Altius Trogdor arm. I guess that's what I get for suggesting putting an arm on a Dragon. And yes, you'll be pleased to know that there will definitely be consummate V's.

~Jon

[jongoff]

Extended trunk or upper-stage mounted inflatable hab?  Altius Trogdor arm?  These are all fine ideas. 

Jon, do you have any sketches you could post here or on your thread of potential stickyboom arms or their stowage size per length at some assumed strength?  Would these be jointed?  Rolled?

To be honest, we're still in early design work, particularly focused on the joint design, and on gathering actual use modes from end-users to back out the required length/strength etc. Here's some concept-art we did for a recent SBIR proposal of a CSM on Orion doing backshell TPS inspection. It entirely glosses over the joint designs, which is where we're putting a lot of our limited internal R&D budget into right now, but gives the general idea. Basically we'd be building a series of 3-DOF elements consisting of 2-DOF articulated joints and a 1-DOF STEM-boom (or STEM Truss) extendable/retractable element, with the tip of one boom attaching to the base of the next 3-DOF element. Power and data would be built into the STEM boom layup, and each joint would have a local control node for distributed control to keep the wire-harness issues sane.

While they're not ready for prime-time yet (and we may want to patent them before we publish them) I think that with some of the 2-DOF joint design ideas we're developing in conjunction with NASA LaRC under our Space Act Agreement we can beat the pants off of the torque-to-weight ratio of joints used traditional RMS arms, and the stowability-to-length, overall dexterity, and definitely strength-to-weight of traditional RMS arms like CANDARM (at the cost of a little extra complexity and a lot of extra weirdness-looking).

Is this still on-topic for this thread, or should we take further discussion over to the Altius thread?

~Jon

[dcporter]

Triaxis Rotatable/Opposable Grip Device & Orbital Receiver

[go4mars]

Triaxis Rotatable/Opposable Grip Device & Orbital Receiver

Nice!     Then  hyphen,   Articulated Rollable Manipulator.

Thanks for the replies Jon,  I'll try to get some follow-up questions to you (on your thread), probably Tuesday. 

[Elmar Moelzer]

Extended trunk or upper-stage mounted inflatable hab?  Altius Trogdor arm?  These are all fine ideas. 

Jon, do you have any sketches you could post here or on your thread of potential stickyboom arms or their stowage size per length at some assumed strength?  Would these be jointed?  Rolled?

To be honest, we're still in early design work, particularly focused on the joint design, and on gathering actual use modes from end-users to back out the required length/strength etc. Here's some concept-art we did for a recent SBIR proposal of a CSM on Orion doing backshell TPS inspection. It entirely glosses over the joint designs, which is where we're putting a lot of our limited internal R&D budget into right now, but gives the general idea. Basically we'd be building a series of 3-DOF elements consisting of 2-DOF articulated joints and a 1-DOF STEM-boom (or STEM Truss) extendable/retractable element, with the tip of one boom attaching to the base of the next 3-DOF element. Power and data would be built into the STEM boom layup, and each joint would have a local control node for distributed control to keep the wire-harness issues sane.

While they're not ready for prime-time yet (and we may want to patent them before we publish them) I think that with some of the 2-DOF joint design ideas we're developing in conjunction with NASA LaRC under our Space Act Agreement we can beat the pants off of the torque-to-weight ratio of joints used traditional RMS arms, and the stowability-to-length, overall dexterity, and definitely strength-to-weight of traditional RMS arms like CANDARM (at the cost of a little extra complexity and a lot of extra weirdness-looking).

Is this still on-topic for this thread, or should we take further discussion over to the Altius thread?

~Jon

Very cool stuff, Jon!

[Robotbeat]

Had the same idea, but it will be much easier if you start with BEAM in the trunk and after orbit insertion, you use some robotic to get it out of the trunk and put it on top of the docking adapter. I see no problem at all to add a multipurpose robotic arm to dragon. As we see with the outside attached solar panels, there's plenty of room.

Yes it could be done with a robot arm or something as well and the BEAM in the trunk. My unsubstantiated feeling is just the it would require more development, and therefor cost.

However a robot arm on dragon rider could also have other valuable uses and allow interaction with experiments being done in the trunk.

As an aside, Altius is independently working on a compactly stowable robot arm for applications like this on Dragon, Dreamchaser, Orion, etc. We're not directly working with SpaceX on this, but we're definitely interested in talking with them.

~Jon

Don't forget the consummate V's.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't get how Trogdor fit into this until someone started calling the CSM an Altius Trogdor arm. I guess that's what I get for suggesting putting an arm on a Dragon. And yes, you'll be pleased to know that there will definitely be consummate V's.

~Jon

I am very pleased! It's looking pretty good sticking out of Dragon's neck there.

Seriously, this made my night!

[manboy]

Look how much room there is under the nose cone.

Would it be possible to design the inflatable to fit under the nosecone?

You could eliminate the CBM and just have a man hatch.

That's a very outdated image. Here's a current one.

[guckyfan]

Now for berthing Dragon and relocation modules use Canadarm. What equipment do you need to put on the launch vehicle for maneuvering as Apollo?

The second stage already has attitude control. Probably it needs additional batteries for a sufficiently long activity time.

If it is for a free return trajectory to the moon do it after lunar injection. After all if it fails it is not critical for crew survival.

But how has this discussion spilled back to the Bigelow Aerospace Update thread from the Dragon with Bigelow module thread? I put my reply where it seems to belong.

[MP99]

Questions about BEAM. Does the $17M include development costs as well as manufacturing?

If I'm reading this right, not even close:-

A geographic search of the NASA acquisition database yields this:
<snip>
Total Award Value $17,865,903
<snip>THIS EFFORT IS FOR PHASE 2 OF THE BEAM ISS DEMONSTRATION MODULE PROJECT, AND ESTABLISHES THE REQUIREMENTS, PERFORMANCE METRICS, COSTS, AND MANAGEMENT OF THE EFFORT THAT WILL BE USED TO DESIGN, DELIVER, AND OPERATE THE BEAM.

(My highlight)

cheers, Martin

[jongoff]

Triaxis Rotatable/Opposable Grip Device & Orbital Receiver

I think our newest engineer at Altius wins this one:

Tele-Robotic Operations Granting Dragons Outstanding Reach

~Jon

[Lurker Steve]

That all assumes that crew dragon with multi-day life support costs the same as cargo dragons do now (probably unlikely) and that Goff's Trogdor arm is $10 million (I pulled that number out of my trunk; feel free to constrain that number Jon).

We wouldn't mind getting paid $10M for an arm, though we don't have firm numbers yet (cause we're still in the early design phase).

BTW, I'm now going to have to have my interns come up with a backronym that works out to Trogdor, and it's all y'alls fault...

~Jon

Do you really think $10M will cover the development and manufacturing costs for an arm like this ? Self-powered, or do you envision a grapple-fixture that would provide power and control signals to the arm ?

[Robotbeat]

"An" arm, as in singular. But Altius is a pretty small company, and $10 million may actually be enough for development, given what they've already done so far. But I think Jon is just talking about per-unit price. And I don't think he's giving much information out. $10 million for an arm would be a substantial portion of the overall cost of a Dragon spacecraft, and I think Jon was implying $10 million would be really nice profit for his company for one arm.

[jongoff]

"An" arm, as in singular. But Altius is a pretty small company, and $10 million may actually be enough for development, given what they've already done so far. But I think Jon is just talking about per-unit price. And I don't think he's giving much information out. $10 million for an arm would be a substantial portion of the overall cost of a Dragon spacecraft, and I think Jon was implying $10 million would be really nice profit for his company for one arm.

Bingo. I have no intention of only making one of these arms. :-)

~Jon

[Lurker Steve]

I was thinking that the number of missions that required an arm was fairly small. Obviously, the ARM is exterior to the capsule, so there is no re-use like we had with the SSRMS. I just don't see more than 1 of these per year.

Of course, for a small company, that's decent revenue if you pay for development on the first one, and then can just build more copies.

[Robotbeat]

And Altius would be doing more than just TROGDOR.