Commercial Crew Schedule Analysis

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1211497049906196480

Crew Dragon should be physically ready & at the Cape in Feb, but completing all safety reviews will probably take a few more months

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Some good news for SpaceX from today’s ASAP meeting:

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1225495522460553221

NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel chair Patricia Sanders, at start of its quarterly meeting: not a question of whether SpaceX will be ready to fly crew in the near term, but when.

For Boeing, not so much:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47917.msg2042885#msg2042885

[cebri]

We want to make sure we have a comprehensive understanding of what happened so that we can fully explain the root causes and better assess future work that will be needed. Most critically, we want to assure that these necessary steps are completely understood prior to determining the plan for future flights. Separate from the anomaly investigation, NASA also is still reviewing the data collected during the flight test [OFT] to help determine that future plan. NASA expects a decision on this review to be complete in the next several weeks.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2020/02/07/nasa-shares-initial-findings-from-boeing-starliner-orbital-flight-test-investigation/

[Comga]

Directly to the schedule, I have been keeping track of the projected launch of DM-2.
Whenever I see a new projection (and remember) I put it and the date in a spreadsheet.
The most pessimistic perspective is used.  If they say "2017" it gets entered as Dec 31, 2017.  Etc.
Going back to the beginning, chosen to be CCtCap (IIRC) the time-to-launch is extrapolated.
It says that the projected launch date is generally 2.9 times as long as it is projected.
(For DM-1 it was 2.6 days/day.)
The current extrapolation for DM-2 is October.
YMMV from this simplistic approach.

These are the dates as recorded
Date                DM-2        Day to launch

2/15/2020       20-May-20    95
2/1/2020        7-May-20    96
1/19/2020       5-May-20   107
12/5/2019      29-Feb-20    86
10/31/2019    31-Mar-20   152
7/4/2019       17-Dec-19   166
6/17/2019      30-Nov-19   166
1/3/2019       20-Sep-19   260
11-Jan-18      31-Dec-18   354
15-Oct-17      31-Aug-18   320
5/15/2016      12/31/2017   595

Does anyone have additional projections between May 2016 and January 2019?

[smoliarm]

...

Does anyone have additional projections between May 2016 and January 2019?

Yes, I did a similar graph, although I focused on "DM-1 SpX" and "OFT Boeing".
I used simple (*lazy*) approach:
I just went through old pages of "US Launch Schedule" with about 1-2 month steps and made the table (attached below)/
First column (B) - date of particular list in "US Launch Schedule";
Second column (C) - launch interval for DM-1 (usually a month);
Third Column (D) - middle of this launch interval;
Last column ("days left") = D - B

The second attachment shows these data in the same form as your graph ("days left" versus "current date")
Also I showed dashed lines with 3 different slopes:
Light blue: slope = -1 meaning "schedule stays firm"
Light gray: slope = -0.38 which equals to your best fit line
Dark red: slope = -0.49 which corresponds to the final period before DM-1 flight, which was ~ 100 day by plan and ~ 200 days actual.

So, if we assume similar "schedule behavior" for DM-2 flight (which is right now about 3 months away - by plan) - then one can expect actual launch in August-September.
However, I suspect that the "schedule delaying things" for DM-1 and for DM-2 are QUITE DIFFERENT in nature.
Therefore the above assumption is pretty flimsy.

The bottom line is - there is a good chance for more delays of DM-2 launch.
Which is admittedly trivial

===============
When I did this analysis last spring, I did not do it for predicting the date of the first crew flight.
I had another thing in mind: I wanted to compare "delay modes" for SpaceX and Boeing.
The result was surprising to me: it hinted that Boeing's delay mode is worse, and one should expect more delays from them.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1291179132676722689

Commercial Crew notional dates:
- SpaceX Crew 1 - NET 9/27/20
- OFT-2 - 11/18/20 (Under review)
- SpaceX Crew 2 - 3/30/21
- CFT - 4/21
- SpaceX Crew 3 - 8/12/21
- SpaceX Crew 4 - 2/4/22
- Boeing Crew 1 - 2/24/22
- Boeing Crew 2 - 4/21/22
- Boeing Crew 3 - 12/14/22

Via NASA SMSR

https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1291179455214493699

Schedule planning seems to represent the earliest that each mission could be ready and needed, as launching two Commercial Crew missions in February 2022, seems unlikely to happen, for instance. Will likely end being only one of those.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1398347286959190018

Not sure how set in stone this planning manifest is, but it shows SpaceX Crew-3 and Crew-4 in FY 2022 along with CFT. That would mean no operational Starliner missions until FY 2023.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2022_budget_summary.pdf

[deadman1204]

https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1398347286959190018

Not sure how set in stone this planning manifest is, but it shows SpaceX Crew-3 and Crew-4 in FY 2022 along with CFT. That would mean no operational Starliner missions until FY 2023.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy2022_budget_summary.pdf

Don't forget the calendar you linked is fiscal year - which starts Oct 1. Lucy is launching in 2021, but in fiscal year 2022.