Commercial Crew: On Course to Purposeful Flight - ISPCS

[Lar]

These vehicles will find other uses to be sure.

[Khadgars]

These vehicles will find other uses to be sure.

Agreed.  But what impacts will sea water have on re-use of Dragon 2?

[guckyfan]

These vehicles will find other uses to be sure.

Agreed.  But what impacts will sea water have on re-use of Dragon 2?

Land landing would sure be better but it hasn't stopped reuse of Dragon 2. I am sure they have learned since then.

[Lar]

These vehicles will find other uses to be sure.

Agreed.  But what impacts will sea water have on re-use of Dragon 2?

Land landing would sure be better but it hasn't stopped reuse of Dragon 2. I am sure they have learned since then.

There hasn't been any reuse of Dragon 2 yet, I think you mean Dragon 1 . Sadly the reuse of Dragon1 so far seems to be tear down to the pressure vessel and rebuild

[yg1968]

So... umm... are Boeing still intending for Starliner to land on land with airbags or are they also being directed by NASA to only work water landings?

The hearings yesterday indicated Boeing land landings and ten reuses of capsule -- SpaceX all water landings and new capsule each time.  This is the problem of forgoing (innovative) land landings... and who pays for the new capsules?

Gerst made it clear that this was the initial plan for SpaceX but that it could change.

Incidentally, Gerst said that parts of Orion might also be reused.

[Jcc]

So... umm... are Boeing still intending for Starliner to land on land with airbags or are they also being directed by NASA to only work water landings?

The hearings yesterday indicated Boeing land landings and ten reuses of capsule -- SpaceX all water landings and new capsule each time.  This is the problem of forgoing (innovative) land landings... and who pays for the new capsules?

Gerst made it clear that this was the initial plan for SpaceX but that it could change.

Incidentally, Gerst said that parts of Orion might also be reused.

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

Certainly SpaceX will work on certifying refurbishment of Crew Dragon so those can be reused, the same way they have certified Cargo Dragon refurbishment.

I think SpaceX funded the development of the refurbishment process for Dragon1, and they can do so for Dragon2 even if NASA doesn't make it a funded milestone.

[yg1968]

I just watched the ISPCS video, one interesting question that was asked was about space tourism. Mulholland from Boeing said that the CST-100 seats 5 astronauts, so there was an extra seat available for a spaceflight participant and they mentioned their partnership with Space Adventures. Lueders said that NASA was open about to these types of arrangements. SpaceX was less committal on this question, Reed said that SpaceX and all of the industry still had to figure out how to train a spaceflight participant. The strange thing is that he had several opportunity to talk about their circumlunar flight but did not do so.  I suspect that this flight is no longer part of SpaceX's plans.

[Robotbeat]

...or H from SpaceX didn't want to make Congress upset. That's Elon's job.

[envy887]

A Commercial Crew hearing before Congress with NASA leadership present is the worst time and place to bring up the lunar Dragon mission. NASA wants SpaceX to focus on the team at hand of getting Crew going, and both NASA and most of Congress would prefer that Orion be the first to fly back around the moon.

As long as the customer's money is good, lunar Dragon will be part of SpaceX plans.

[deruch]

Even when they planned to transition to propulsive, land landings, SpaceX bid single-use capsules for the Commercial Crew missions.  What the water landings limits isn't their CC contract, they were always planning to build 6 new capsules for the full set of 6 PCMs.  The questions start to arise with respect to how they plan to meet CRS2 and commercial non-NASA missions (e.g. circumlunar, Red Dragon [now cancelled], etc.).  Have they already started working through with NASA refurbing and reusing capsules from the crew missions for cargo?  Or is their build capacity large enough to support both contracts simultaneously. 

[yg1968]

...or H from SpaceX didn't want to make Congress upset. That's Elon's job.

I was talking about the ISPCS presentation that I linked above, not the Congresionnal hearing.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44009.msg1773620#msg1773620

[yg1968]

A Commercial Crew hearing before Congress with NASA leadership present is the worst time and place to bring up the lunar Dragon mission. NASA wants SpaceX to focus on the team at hand of getting Crew going, and both NASA and most of Congress would prefer that Orion be the first to fly back around the moon.

As long as the customer's money is good, lunar Dragon will be part of SpaceX plans.

I would like to hear SpaceX reaffirm that (it doesn't have to be in front of Congress). Elon also called Dragon 2 a dead end system and that makes me wonder if it has any future beyond ISS.

P.S. I was talking about the ISPCS presentation that I linked above, not the Congresionnal hearing.

[AncientU]

A Commercial Crew hearing before Congress with NASA leadership present is the worst time and place to bring up the lunar Dragon mission. NASA wants SpaceX to focus on the team at hand of getting Crew going, and both NASA and most of Congress would prefer that Orion be the first to fly back around the moon.

As long as the customer's money is good, lunar Dragon will be part of SpaceX plans.

I would like to hear SpaceX reaffirm that (it doesn't have to be in front of Congress). Elon also called Dragon 2 a dead end system and that makes me wonder if it has any future beyond ISS.

Until certification of Dragon 2 by NASA, there won't be much more talk about Dragon 2's future.  Certainly there won't be any 'tourist' flights or land landing advances before crew reaches ISS on Dragon 2... that would be too much in the face for NASA.

[OM72]

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

This seems like a ridiculous statement.  Source?

[Lar]

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

This seems like a ridiculous statement.  Source?

Value of bid divided by number of missions? Starliner bid was a lot higher, IIRC.

[yg1968]

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

This seems like a ridiculous statement.  Source?

The price of the CCtCap contract for Boeing ($4.2B) was almost twice as much as SpaceX ($2.6B) but that includes the price of an Atlas V 422 which is much more expensive than a F9. CCtCap includes 2 demo flights and 6 post-certification missions.

[OM72]

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

This seems like a ridiculous statement.  Source?

Value of bid divided by number of missions? Starliner bid was a lot higher, IIRC.

That's not a source though.  That is an assumption based on a bid that is used for book keeping.  None of the PCM flights are on contract yet. 

[AncientU]

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

This seems like a ridiculous statement.  Source?

'One use Starliner being cheaper than ten use Starliners', and
'One use Dragons being cheaper than ten use Dragons' are ridiculous statements.

One use Dragon being cheaper than ten use Starliners (full flight expenses included) is plausible. 

I think that's what the $2.6B to SpaceX vs. $4.2B to Boeing awards showed -- each included a couple crew rotation missions along with two demo launches for each vendor plus one in-flight abort for Dragon 2 only.

[yg1968]

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

This seems like a ridiculous statement.  Source?

Value of bid divided by number of missions? Starliner bid was a lot higher, IIRC.

That's not a source though.  That is an assumption based on a bid that is used for book keeping.  None of the PCM flights are on contract yet.

It's actually the maximum value of the CCtcap contract which implies 8 flights (2 demo and 6 post-certification missions). NASA announced last year that all 6 post-certification flights were awarded to each of the providers.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/mission-awards-secure-commercial-crew-transportation-for-coming-years

[OM72]

One-use Dragon missions are still cheaper than Starliner used up to 10 times, so who pays the extra cost for Starliner?

This seems like a ridiculous statement.  Source?

Value of bid divided by number of missions? Starliner bid was a lot higher, IIRC.

That's not a source though.  That is an assumption based on a bid that is used for book keeping.  None of the PCM flights are on contract yet.

It's actually the maximum value of the CCtcap contract which implies 8 flights (2 demo and 6 post-certification missions). NASA stated last year that all 6 post-certification flights have been awarded to each of providers.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/mission-awards-secure-commercial-crew-transportation-for-coming-years

Which is essentially what I just said.  While NASA does not have oversight here, they do have extensive insight.  To blindly state the you can build a new Dragon every time for less than 10 reused Starliners, and NASA will just fork over the cash, is false.