LON mission concept: Before flight, prep a FH/Dragon-2 for flight with propulsion pallet in HIF. On emergency, prepare/validate for flight, erect, launch.If no emergency, remove propulsion pallet from free return commercial flight that would fly in a week.Now, its likely that Orion flights would never need this. However, the public is very unforgiving of "Marooned" astro's, out there suffocating. And at the moment, Dragon-2 would be the "best bet". Cheap contingency.Don't you think?
You misunderstand the point of such testing.Testing always delivers confidence. Especially if it fails, because you bring on such a failure in the context of well-planned and on the scene contingencies. You won't have these during actual missions.Always think "belt and suspenders". As to certification process, it either finds holes for Starliner/Orion, or it confirms the process with actual flight data. There's nothing bad. And its cheaper than EFT-2.
Quote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 05/20/2017 05:06 pmLON mission concept: Before flight, prep a FH/Dragon-2 for flight with propulsion pallet in HIF. On emergency, prepare/validate for flight, erect, launch.If no emergency, remove propulsion pallet from free return commercial flight that would fly in a week.Now, its likely that Orion flights would never need this. However, the public is very unforgiving of "Marooned" astro's, out there suffocating. And at the moment, Dragon-2 would be the "best bet". Cheap contingency.Don't you think?I think cheap contingency could also equal cheap replacement so yeah sounds like a good plan to me.
The Apollo limitation of monthly launch windows was driven by the constraint to land shortly after lunar dawn at the landing site, so you're looking down-sun and there are elongated shadows to show obstacles in the landing field. If you're just doing a fly-by, you could launch almost any day - and with a preliminary parking orbit in LEO, with wide launch windows.
Quote from: obi-wan on 05/19/2017 03:28 amThe Apollo limitation of monthly launch windows was driven by the constraint to land shortly after lunar dawn at the landing site, so you're looking down-sun and there are elongated shadows to show obstacles in the landing field. If you're just doing a fly-by, you could launch almost any day - and with a preliminary parking orbit in LEO, with wide launch windows.If I were the tourist paying for the flight, I think I'd want a low sun angle at the point of closest approach.
I really don't think it's likely at all that SpaceX would change the demo mission into one that tests long-term crewed free-flight by Dragon like that. NASA wouldn't like it, and it also brings unnecessary risk for SpaceX.
Quote from: ChrisWilson68 on 05/21/2017 09:29 amI really don't think it's likely at all that SpaceX would change the demo mission into one that tests long-term crewed free-flight by Dragon like that. NASA wouldn't like it, and it also brings unnecessary risk for SpaceX.This has been debated quite a bit in the FH Demo thread. The main reason that SpaceX is unlikely to launch a dragon on the demo flight is that the demo flight is an important step for FH certification of DoD satellite missions. So the payload (likely dummy) needs to be in a fairing and go to GTO.
Quote from: rockets4life97 on 05/21/2017 09:42 amQuote from: ChrisWilson68 on 05/21/2017 09:29 amI really don't think it's likely at all that SpaceX would change the demo mission into one that tests long-term crewed free-flight by Dragon like that. NASA wouldn't like it, and it also brings unnecessary risk for SpaceX.This has been debated quite a bit in the FH Demo thread. The main reason that SpaceX is unlikely to launch a dragon on the demo flight is that the demo flight is an important step for FH certification of DoD satellite missions. So the payload (likely dummy) needs to be in a fairing and go to GTO.You're confusing the Falcon Heavy test flight with the Crewed Dragon 2 Demo.
I doubt they will make the December 2018 'deadline'. Other Apollo 50th anniversaries they could aim for would be March 2019 for Apollo 10, July 2019 for Apollo 11, December 2019 for Apollo 12 and April 2020 for Apollo 13...
Basically I was wondering what other "destinations" were possible with a crewed Dragon on the Falcon Heavy, that would also be a stepping stone for Mars exploration plans.
Quote from: MATTBLAK on 06/25/2017 12:15 pmI doubt they will make the December 2018 'deadline'. Other Apollo 50th anniversaries they could aim for would be March 2019 for Apollo 10, July 2019 for Apollo 11, December 2019 for Apollo 12 and April 2020 for Apollo 13...I hope they don't try for apollo 13...
This got me to wondering about seeing a total solar eclipse... but with Earth as the occluding body.
“We’ll be flying Arabsat to [geostationary transfer orbit] on the second Falcon Heavy flight, and then we’ll be flying STP-2, an Air Force mission,” she said.