EFT-1 Orion General Discussion and Questions Thread

• #200 by Helodriver on 07 Dec, 2014 23:02
• All right, got the notice from NASA PAO that I'm on the list and will be attending the Orion arrival and offload at the San Diego Naval base tomorrow night.
  
  I will have the opportunity to one on one interview the USS anchorage captain, NASA Astronaut Suni Williams, and NASA Recovery Director Jeremy Graeber. Any specific burning questions any NSFer has that they'd like answered by any of these fine folks?
  
  I will do my best at pictures given that its happening at night and closest stated distance to the vehicle is 50 to 100 feet.
• #201 by heinkel174 on 08 Dec, 2014 01:07
• Quote from: Helodriver on 07 Dec, 2014 23:02

  All right, got the notice from NASA PAO that I'm on the list and will be attending the Orion arrival and offload at the San Diego Naval base tomorrow night.
  
  I will have the opportunity to one on one interview the USS anchorage captain, NASA Astronaut Suni Williams, and NASA Recovery Director Jeremy Graeber. Any specific burning questions any NSFer has that they'd like answered by any of these fine folks?
  
  

  
  The capsule exterior looks surprisingly intact after the ‘trial by fire’.  It is well known that Orion was always envisioned to be partially reusable, and we’ve been told that the EFT-1 capsule will be recycled for the ascent abort test. How much refurbishment do they expect in order to ready it for the next test? Some quick plumbing, a complete rebuild, or something in between?
  
  I understand the schedule is budget driven and they’re probably not very concerned with the turnaround, so this is just a hypothetical question. Thanks very much.
  
• #202 by Dalhousie on 08 Dec, 2014 04:40
• Quote from: guckyfan on 07 Dec, 2014 07:01

  Quote from: SpinGravity on 07 Dec, 2014 05:49

  
  Greetings all.
  
  Please forgive my ignorance, but I have seen numerous reports stating Orion is the capsule that will go to Mars and Back. The latest launch was to test the heat shield for very high speed re-entry?
  
  Why?
  
  How is it more efficient to take an Earth re-entry vehicle to Mars and Back?
  
  I was under the impression that that the mission would be assembled at ISS. Launched from ISS. Recovered to ISS.
  
  Leave the ride home in LEO.
  

  
  If you leave the ride home in LEO then you need to brake into LEO instead of direct reentry. That takes a LOT of delta-v. Much easier to come in directly.
  
  Using electric propulsion changes the equation though. But that brings its own set of brandnew problems.
  
  The other alternative is leaving from and/or returning to some earth-moon L point. But that increases mission complexity also.
  

  
  Or you simply enter directly from a Mars-Earth trajectory, leaving your crew transfer vehicle in solar orbit.
  
• #203 by Steven Pietrobon on 08 Dec, 2014 06:51
• Quote from: Avron on 06 Dec, 2014 18:04

  Now that the propaganda machine has run out of steam, time to reflect, compare and face reality.
  
  http://www.americaspace.com/?p=72662
  

  
  I'm not sure why the author is comparing EFT-1 with Apollo 4, which used a Saturn V. A better comparison would have been with AS-201 and AS-202 (the first and third Apollo flights) which used Saturn IB's to launch Block I Apollo CSM's into a suborbital trajectories. These flights achieved peaks of 492 km and 1,143 km, respectively. Re-entry speeds were 8.3 km/s and 8.69 km/s, respectively.  EFT-1 had a peak of 5800 km and a speed of 9 km/s, so its doing pretty well compared to these flights.
• #204 by woods170 on 08 Dec, 2014 07:00
• Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 08 Dec, 2014 06:51

  Quote from: Avron on 06 Dec, 2014 18:04

  Now that the propaganda machine has run out of steam, time to reflect, compare and face reality.
  
  http://www.americaspace.com/?p=72662
  

  
  I'm not sure why the author is comparing EFT-1 with Apollo 4, which used a Saturn V. A better comparison would have been with AS-201 and AS-202 (the first and third Apollo flights) which used Saturn IB's to launch Block I Apollo CSM's into a suborbital trajectories. These flights achieved peaks of 492 km and 1,143 km, respectively. Re-entry speeds were 8.3 km/s and 8.69 km/s, respectively.  EFT-1 had a peak of 5800 km and a speed of 9 km/s, so its doing pretty well compared to these flights.
  

  
  Agreed. As observed here as well.
• #205 by sdsds on 08 Dec, 2014 07:02
• Quote from: ncb1397 on 07 Dec, 2014 10:50

  I'm of the opinion that any NASA Mars architecture will have 2 crew return vehicles for redundancy
  

  
  I too would like to see this, but the difficulty is that the Orion CSM is a lot of mass for not much habitable volume. The propellant cost for transferring two of them from cis-lunar space to high Mars orbit, and then back onto a trajectory that reaches Earth, seems almost unsupportable. (I say "almost" because an abundant chemical propulsion architecture, relying on e.g. lunar propellant production, would make this much less of an issue.)
  
  So I think if NASA goes "Mars before Moon" the failure of the (single) Orion contingency is covered by some other means, likely having the crew stay with the habitat until it can be reached by a freshly launched rescue Orion....
• #206 by gbaikie on 08 Dec, 2014 07:23
• Quote from: guckyfan on 07 Dec, 2014 09:38

  Quote from: pagheca on 07 Dec, 2014 08:19

  Do someone knows exactly why aerobraking a la MRO is not a viable option?
  
  Too much time to ~ circularize the orbit that, in turn, would require more resources on board, so that as the technology allows it, it's better to build an high-performance shield?
  
  Or maybe because is a risky operation open for disaster?
  

  
  I just looked up MRO in Wikipedia. It is as I expected. The arrival speed was quite low. Arrival at earth will be much faster. Then MRO was braked into an elliptical orbit that was circularized by aerobraking.
  
  Doing that at earth will require much higher delta-v expended for capture. Then a lot of time for aerobraking with many passes through the vanAllen Belt. Or you build a vehicle that is designed for aerocapture with aerodynamic shape and a massive heatshield. But then you can land it back on earth. Why brake into LEO? It would require a much larger effort than MRO aerobraking that was done slowly, not requiring strict aerodynamic shape, just protecting some instruments.
  
  Edit: fixed quote
  

  
  Could start at EML-1 and end at Mars L-1. Then go back from Mars L-1 to Earth/Moon L-1.
  
  With L-1 to Mars L-1 do the trip in 7 months or less. And from Mars L-1 to surface go directly to the Surface.
  And going directly from Earth surface to EML-1. And on return go directly from EML-1 to Earth surface.
  And from Earth get to L-1 in about 3 days [only once thru Van Allen, and same from L-1 to Earth surface].
  
  Now in terms Mars L-1, it could be L-2 and/or Lissajous orbits. Or simply a highly elliptical orbit which is traveling at low velocity at apogee but still within Mars gravitational sphere of influence- or say less than 500,000 km from Mars.
  So Earth's EML-1 is a  region say, 270,000 to 340,000 km from Earth. And the middle point ["the point"] at about 310,000 . Earth's other L-1 [Earth/Sun L-1] point is about 1.5 million km from Earth, though region is say within 1 to 2 million km from Earth. Mars/Sun L-1  middle point is about 500,000 km from Mars but the Zone could "start"  say 250,000 from Mars.
  
  So you park stuff in Mars L-1, the crew arrive at Mars, and go into large elliptical orbit going in direction of L-1, With whatever assets in L-1 already at mars be position, so as to meet incoming spacecraft as going outward to the L-1.
  Such orbit may be a week in duration, but docking occurs say after two days from the insertion burn at Mars [periapsis]. Or it's not going back to Mars [which could take a week to do [because much of week of time is going very slowly near and at the apoapsis]. 
  So this means one is going brake somewhere on way to the apoapsis so as to dock. And dock with the spacecraft already there and in L-1 halo orbit/Lissajous orbit. Obviously one would most of braking at periapsis, but one also want to get to +200,000 km distance in a short period of time.
  
  Here is article about putting comm sat at Mars L1/2:
  http://www.agi.com/downloads/support/productSupport/literature/pdfs/whitePapers/0201_sun_mars_lib_pts.pdf
  
  An advantage of this is the craft going to Mars and back doesn't even need a heat shield- just as MRO didn't have one. Though if you want skip or do something like aerocapture and not use rocket power for the orbital insertion, you would need the heat shield.
  And since a bigger elliptical orbit, you use a bit less delta-v for orbital insertion than normally done for say 50,000 km apoapsis orbit.
  
• #207 by ChrisWilson68 on 08 Dec, 2014 08:08
• Quote from: guckyfan on 07 Dec, 2014 11:43

  Quote from: pagheca on 07 Dec, 2014 10:22

  right, Guckyfan. However, MRO wasn't designed for a real re-entry.
  
  Also, I wonder if there are limits for actual aerobraking. I mean: given a speed, an angle, a planet atmosphere, which are the limits for aerobraking efficiency? It is not completely intuitive that you cannot aerobrake in such a way that the system directly aims to a given trajectory.
  

  
  All true. And I did mention all of it in my post. At least I intended to, maybe I was not clear enough. My point is that when you design a vehicle capable of that you can very likely go just one step further and land it directly instead of going to LEO. MCT! ;D
  
  The heatshield will have to take more for landing though. A lot more, another 8km/s to brake.
  

  
  Yeah, the heatshield would need to be more serious for landing.  Also, anything you land you have to launch again if you want to reuse it.  And, there are other things involved in landing, such as parachutes and airbags and such, none of which you need if you're just doing serious aerobraking but not direct landing.
  
• #208 by pagheca on 08 Dec, 2014 09:57
• Bit off topic: From what I read (but I'm not so sure) at some point you go one way (orbit) or the other ("bouncing" over the atmosphere). Problem is that the line discriminating the two outcomes is so thin that randomness at some point take over with very high risk of catastrophic results.
  
  
  
• #209 by Prober on 08 Dec, 2014 12:47
• Quote from: rayleighscatter on 07 Dec, 2014 22:37

  Quote from: Ike17055 on 07 Dec, 2014 21:44

  Ok. I have seen several views in the photos of a great display model of the orion/ delta IV stack ( yes, including Elmo holding it, i think.)  Is this model available somewhere, or a custom build for the NASA pr effort surrounding this launch? This is the most handsome space vehicle i have seen in a long time.
  

  ULA is selling one.
  http://www.ulalaunchstore.com/120th-scale-delta-iv-heavy-with-orion-capsule/
  

  
  $280 ridiculous.  Some of my 3D Printer friends could whip out a cad model in less than an hour, if they haven't all ready.
   
• #210 by Yeknom-Ecaps on 08 Dec, 2014 13:36
• Heard from SANSA that the station at Hartebeesthoek was not involved ..... any other guesses at what South Africa station was involved?
• #211 by Jim on 08 Dec, 2014 13:42
• Quote from: Yeknom-Ecaps on 08 Dec, 2014 13:36

  Heard from SANSA that the station at Hartebeesthoek was not involved ..... any other guesses at what South Africa station was involved?
  

  
  There is no other station then
• #212 by sghill on 08 Dec, 2014 14:04
• Quote from: jtrame on 04 Dec, 2014 22:56

  I find it completely absurd that American people can not grasp the need for a hab module on such a long journey.  Why not be upfront about it?  You might be surprised.
  

  
  
  
  Google-fu.  It is powerful.
  
  http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-seeks-proposals-to-develop-capabilities-for-deep-space-exploration-journey/#.VIW18jHF94k
  
  "Orion is the first component of human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and will be capable of sustaining a crew of four for 21 days in deep space and returning them safely to Earth. NASA seeks proposals for concept studies, technology investigation, and concepts of operations to enable extended space habitation as the next foundational cornerstone of a future deep space transit capability. The studies will help define the architecture and subsystems of a modular habitation capability, which will be used to augment planned missions around the moon as well as to provide initial operations and testing in the proving ground for future systems in support of human exploration in deep space. Studies can address transportation, habitation, operations or environmental capabilities of a habitation system."
• #213 by MattMason on 08 Dec, 2014 14:31
• Quote from: sghill on 08 Dec, 2014 14:04

  Quote from: jtrame on 04 Dec, 2014 22:56

  I find it completely absurd that American people can not grasp the need for a hab module on such a long journey.  Why not be upfront about it?  You might be surprised.
  

  
  
  
  Google-fu.  It is powerful.
  
  http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-seeks-proposals-to-develop-capabilities-for-deep-space-exploration-journey/#.VIW18jHF94k
  
  "Orion is the first component of human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and will be capable of sustaining a crew of four for 21 days in deep space and returning them safely to Earth. NASA seeks proposals for concept studies, technology investigation, and concepts of operations to enable extended space habitation as the next foundational cornerstone of a future deep space transit capability. The studies will help define the architecture and subsystems of a modular habitation capability, which will be used to augment planned missions around the moon as well as to provide initial operations and testing in the proving ground for future systems in support of human exploration in deep space. Studies can address transportation, habitation, operations or environmental capabilities of a habitation system."
  

  
  Thanks for this. For us astrophiles, it confirms in general that, of course, NASA knows that Orion is only a crew transporter, albeit far more robust and versatile than the Apollo CM. But as others recently clarified with pithy detail, NASA also knows how to groom the general message to the less-informed populace so that they can understand the basics as well as aid the agency in gaining their support.
  
  It's a hard line to balance. Gene Roddenberry had this issue in the making of "Star Trek" (the original) in talking about too much science for an entertainment program. He summed it up with an analogy from the long-running show "Gunsmoke." He said that sheriff Matt Dillon could spend some time talking about the caliber and other technical stats about his gun--or just shoot the bad guy.
  
  NASA has to talk tech and talk in general terms and try satisfy both audiences. I didn't give them enough credit. Thanks to all for the clarifications.
• #214 by Raj2014 on 08 Dec, 2014 18:04
• Quote from: sghill on 08 Dec, 2014 14:04

  Quote from: jtrame on 04 Dec, 2014 22:56

  I find it completely absurd that American people can not grasp the need for a hab module on such a long journey.  Why not be upfront about it?  You might be surprised.
  

  
  
  
  Google-fu.  It is powerful.
  
  http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/october/nasa-seeks-proposals-to-develop-capabilities-for-deep-space-exploration-journey/#.VIW18jHF94k
  
  "Orion is the first component of human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and will be capable of sustaining a crew of four for 21 days in deep space and returning them safely to Earth. NASA seeks proposals for concept studies, technology investigation, and concepts of operations to enable extended space habitation as the next foundational cornerstone of a future deep space transit capability. The studies will help define the architecture and subsystems of a modular habitation capability, which will be used to augment planned missions around the moon as well as to provide initial operations and testing in the proving ground for future systems in support of human exploration in deep space. Studies can address transportation, habitation, operations or environmental capabilities of a habitation system."
  

  
  Apparently NASA already had the habitation technology, then they sold it to Bigelow Aerospace, which they have continued research with NASA. Also with electric propulsion, VASIMR, which Franklin Chang Diaz invented, NASA was working on it then decided to stop in 2007. Bigelow is going to test an inflatable habitat on the ISS also VASIMR was going to be tested on the ISS except now they may not have enough funding to do it.
• #215 by Jim on 08 Dec, 2014 18:09
• Quote from: Raj2014 on 08 Dec, 2014 18:04

  
  Apparently NASA already had the habitation technology, then they sold it to Bigelow Aerospace, which they have continued research with NASA. Also with electric propulsion, VASIMR, which Franklin Chang Diaz invented, NASA was working on it then decided to stop in 2007. Bigelow is going to test an inflatable habitat on the ISS also VASIMR was going to be tested on the ISS except now they may not have enough funding to do it.
  

  
  Huh?  There isn't any " habitation technology" that NASA has given up.   There are many hab designs currently on the ISS.   VASMIR isn't a given. 
  
  So what is your point?
• #216 by sghill on 08 Dec, 2014 18:38
• Quote from: Jim on 08 Dec, 2014 18:09

  Quote from: Raj2014 on 08 Dec, 2014 18:04

  
  Apparently NASA already had the habitation technology, then they sold it to Bigelow Aerospace, which they have continued research with NASA.
  

  
  Huh?  There isn't any " habitation technology" that NASA has given up.   
  

  
  Bigelow purchased the patent rights to the TransHab inflatable space habitation modules (which, themselves started life as a Mars transport habitation module) from NASA in the early 2000's.
  http://www.thespacereview.com/article/686/1 - a nice little interview with Bill Schneider, TransHab's inventor.
  and
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransHab
  
  
  
• #217 by Herb Schaltegger on 09 Dec, 2014 00:32
• Quote from: sghill on 08 Dec, 2014 18:38

  Quote from: Jim on 08 Dec, 2014 18:09

  Quote from: Raj2014 on 08 Dec, 2014 18:04

  
  Apparently NASA already had the habitation technology, then they sold it to Bigelow Aerospace, which they have continued research with NASA.
  

  
  Huh?  There isn't any " habitation technology" that NASA has given up.   
  

  
  Bigelow purchased the patent rights to the TransHab inflatable space habitation modules (which, themselves started life as a Mars transport habitation module) from NASA in the early 2000's.
  http://www.thespacereview.com/article/686/1 - a nice little interview with Bill Schneider, TransHab's inventor.
  and
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransHab
  

  
  Pfft. Don't trust Wiki if it says the idea was started as a Mars module in the early 2000's. In actuality, some at JSC were pushing inflatables as a replacement for the pressurized modules on Space Station Freedom in the early 90's - typical inter-center B.S. because a LOT of folks at JSC were frakked that Work Package 1 (the pressurized elements and overall station integration) was being managed by MSFC instead of there in Houston. I was working space station at the time and I remember it all very well.
• #218 by Yeknom-Ecaps on 09 Dec, 2014 02:10
• The Orion spacecraft's forward bay cover, drogue chutes and pilot chutes -- which were expected to be retrieved from the ocean -- were not able to be recovered.
  
  Any word on why these were not able to be recovered - they had practiced recovery of them.
• #219 by Jim on 09 Dec, 2014 03:08
• Quote from: Yeknom-Ecaps on 09 Dec, 2014 02:10

  The Orion spacecraft's forward bay cover, drogue chutes and pilot chutes -- which were expected to be retrieved from the ocean -- were not able to be recovered.
  
  Any word on why these were not able to be recovered - they had practiced recovery of them.
  

  
  They were to recover them if they could, but they were likely to sink.