SpaceX Falcon 9 / Dragon 2 : SpX-DM1 : March 2, 2019 : DISCUSSION

[wjbarnett]

We also heard earlier that ISS ops scheduling (like for HTV and battery replacement) was a part of the delay for DM1, so perhaps now DM1 and other CC activities will get higher priority in that schedule. Don't know if at this point that could move anything left though.

[clongton]

The Implications of Soyuz MS-10 launch failure on ISS, crew rotation,Commercial Crew thread might be a more appropriate place for today's discussions.

Bumping this post.
Hoping more people see it and take heed.

[theinternetftw]

Interesting talk coming from a Boeing employee at IAC.  Here's a snippet from a report by a reddit user who went to the conference:

I also talked with a guy from Boeing for a bit, including talking about SpaceX. He said that he thinks that SpaceX will reach the ISS first, with their uncrewed demo mission, but that they will not dock, due to not all paperwork being done, and NASA not allowing them to dock, and that while they do paperwork, Boeing will reach the station first with humans on board.

That's, um, pretty specific.

[jpo234]

Interesting talk coming from a Boeing employee at IAC.  Here's a snippet from a report by a reddit user who went to the conference:

I also talked with a guy from Boeing for a bit, including talking about SpaceX. He said that he thinks that SpaceX will reach the ISS first, with their uncrewed demo mission, but that they will not dock, due to not all paperwork being done, and NASA not allowing them to dock, and that while they do paperwork, Boeing will reach the station first with humans on board.

That's, um, pretty specific.

Isn't DM-1 a NASA mission? Why would NASA launch a mission that it knows will not accomplish all the desired results?

[woods170]

Interesting talk coming from a Boeing employee at IAC.  Here's a snippet from a report by a reddit user who went to the conference:

I also talked with a guy from Boeing for a bit, including talking about SpaceX. He said that he thinks that SpaceX will reach the ISS first, with their uncrewed demo mission, but that they will not dock, due to not all paperwork being done, and NASA not allowing them to dock, and that while they do paperwork, Boeing will reach the station first with humans on board.

That's, um, pretty specific.

Isn't DM-1 a NASA mission? Why would NASA launch a mission that it knows will not accomplish all the desired results?

DM-1 is a CCP mission. And NASA would not allow it to launch when it doesn't stand a chance to accomplish all mission objectives, such as docking.
It would be a complete waste of the mission.

IMO, the quoted Boeing employee did some substantial "wishful thinking".

[woods170]

Interesting talk coming from a Boeing employee at IAC.  Here's a snippet from a report by a reddit user who went to the conference:

I also talked with a guy from Boeing for a bit, including talking about SpaceX. He said that he thinks that SpaceX will reach the ISS first, with their uncrewed demo mission, but that they will not dock, due to not all paperwork being done, and NASA not allowing them to dock, and that while they do paperwork, Boeing will reach the station first with humans on board.

That's, um, pretty specific.

Wishful thinking on part of the Boeing employee and loaded with (incorrect) assumptions.
From the same Reddit thread the same user mentioned the arguments the Boeing employee used to support his wishful thinking:

He mentioned SpaceX launching on the same day as they got the faa license (was Iridium 1) (against industry practices). them having only recently installed the CAA (might not be ready yet) and really early launch abort test (to catch media attention).

This goes to show just how out-of-touch-with-reality this supposed Boeing employee is. Just another s*cker who can't get his head around the fact that SpaceX does things very different from the rest of the industry.


1. Launching on the same day as getting the FAA license is not agains the law.
2. Just In Time (JIT) availability of the CAA is common to the way SpaceX is operating (based on Agile practices used in the IT industry).
3. Early launch abort test (which was in fact almost 2 years AFTER the originally planned date btw) is again common to the way SpaceX is operating (fail early to learn soonest - this is again based on Agile practices used in the IT industry).

The basic problem with this supposed Boeing employee is that he assumes that everybody in his industry must do the same things in the same way. And that is a massively stupid assumption on his part.

[gongora]

Moved the recent posts on various abort tests to Commercial Crew discussion thread.

[Roy_H]

There was a discussion a while back about the parachute cutters (releasing the parachute I think) on DM1 being manufactured by the same company as cargo versions but the crew versions starting with DM2 will be by a different manufacturer. There was some speculation that these would be changed out on DM1 to be the new manufacturer version. Was this done?

[gongora]

There was a discussion a while back about the parachute cutters (releasing the parachute I think) on DM1 being manufactured by the same company as cargo versions but the crew versions starting with DM2 will be by a different manufacturer. There was some speculation that these would be changed out on DM1 to be the new manufacturer version. Was this done?

I haven't heard any further news on it, but the cutters were for the reefing lines on the parachutes.

[gongora]

1829-EX-ST-2018 Launch from 39A NET Dec. 10, 2018

1831-EX-ST-2018 ASDS Landing
North  31  43  23   West  76  58  47

These appear to be the launch and landing communications permits for DM-1.  The date is very much a NET, I would still expect January.

[Scylla]

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1055978878043181056

[Chris Bergin]

Full commercial crew (latest round up) update article.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/commercial-crew-training-prepares-flight-hardware/ - By Thomas Burghardt

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1056924799447064578

[AbuSimbel]

Kinda surprised nobody here has picked this update from this recent Gwynne interview, but she stated that DM-1 will be vertical on the pad by the end of the year.

[biosehnsucht]

Which I take to mean almost certainly not launching before 2019..

[Tomness]

Which I take to mean almost certainly not launching before 2019..

Fit Checks with Crew Dragon & F9. This thread has said its been January for awhile b/c ISS Vehicle Visition Schedule, Elon & Gwyne have said the Hardware would be ready by End Of Year. With Soyuz mishap just push every thing back.

[Alexphysics]

Which I take to mean almost certainly not launching before 2019..

Fit Checks with Crew Dragon & F9. This thread has said its been January for awhile b/c ISS Vehicle Visition Schedule, Elon & Gwyne have said the Hardware would be ready by End Of Year. With Soyuz mishap just push every thing back.

Let's not forget we saw a FH on the pad in 2017 even though the launch was a month or so later. This obviously won't be the same in that sense but I'm leaned to think she refered to fit checks or even the static fire for DM-1 before this year ends which I'm sure it could be done.

[Chris Bergin]

Jan 8, 2019 is the current placeholder per the L2 side.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1060973553414275072

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Jan 8, 2019 is the current placeholder per the L2 side.

NASA now saying something similar publicly:

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1062738385884905472

[litton4]

Looking at this picture from the Es'hail launch - doe it look like the crew arm doesn't clear the top of the TEL?

It it just an illusion, or will they remove that top part of the TEL for crew Dragon launches?

[kevinof]

I'm sure SpaceX know how to measure the height of the arm, and no they will not remove anything from the TEL.

Looking at this picture from the Es'hail launch - doe it look like the crew arm doesn't clear the top of the TEL?

It it just an illusion, or will they remove that top part of the TEL for crew Dragon launches?