SpaceX Falcon 9 / Dragon 2 : SpX-DM2 : May 27, 2020 : DISCUSSION

[SDSmith]

What are the Blue Thing and the Skeletal Thing visible in https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=46109.msg2045432#msg2045432?

Images cropped from SpaceX twitter.

The bottom picture the shape of the object looks like half of a fairing. It might be a mold to produce a fairing. The top one I want to say it is a tape laying machine (used to build a trunk or the fairing). That is just a WAG.

[ZachS09]

There’s been some talk about tungsten as if there’s an issue with it.

If it had to do with the Dragon static fire failure, I’m confused about it because I thought that investigation was officially completed and they verified the new propulsion system upgrades during IFA.

[woods170]

No pretence from NASA here about who’ll be first with crew:

Apparently that wasn't supposed to be official yet.  Post now has two key words changed:

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for its first crew launch from American soil has arrived at the launch site. NASA and SpaceX are preparing for the company’s first flight test with astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2020/02/14/spacex-crew-dragon-arrives-for-demo-2-mission/

Ooh!
How to walk it back, NASA PR!

Unfortunately this is not the first time this has happened with NASA PR releases. Something similar happened just last week when a NASA blog post preceded the Starliner investigation conference call. Just minutes after the call had ended the NASA blog post was altered in a few crucial places to make Boeing look less bad.

In that particular case someone was unhappy with what he read, contacted the CCP office and had the post altered.


Good to see that the internet community this time was faster than the NASA and Boeing folks.

[jak Kennedy]

The number of crew on the first flight is a factor from a risk standpoint.  This came up when Boeing announced a crew of three instead of two.  They're not just going to stick four people on the first crewed flight.  It's still a test flight.

And there I was thinking that if the plan for Artemis 2 would be 4 astronauts flying on what? the second flight of SLS? then NASA might be chill.

[CraigLieb]

Two opinions maybe conflict with each other...
First (a bit of sour grapes):
 Are we going to see equally timid pressers after the launch? ... “they launched but haven’t docked yet.” ... “they docked but haven’t completed the mission yet.“

When is the victory complete? When SpaceX is executing full operational status missions and the other party is not?

Second (uplifting and unifying):
I think NASA got the press release right the first time. It’s a proud moment for all of us that any crewed US launch system is being prepped to go. The brand name on the side matters less, but credit is due the party that is ready to go now.
We will all cheer when the other capsule is also successful, and we have operational independent  US systems to launch crew to LEO and get them home safely.

[cebri]

No pretence from NASA here about who’ll be first with crew:

Apparently that wasn't supposed to be official yet.  Post now has two key words changed:

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for its first crew launch from American soil has arrived at the launch site. NASA and SpaceX are preparing for the company’s first flight test with astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2020/02/14/spacex-crew-dragon-arrives-for-demo-2-mission/

Ooh!
How to walk it back, NASA PR!

Unfortunately this is not the first time this has happened with NASA PR releases. Something similar happened just last week when a NASA blog post preceded the Starliner investigation conference call. Just minutes after the call had ended the NASA blog post was altered in a few crucial places to make Boeing look less bad.

In that particular case someone was unhappy with what he read, contacted the CCP office and had the post altered.


Good to see that the internet community this time was faster than the NASA and Boeing folks.

To be honest, saying first wasn't a good idea either, anything can happen between now and May.

[woods170]

No pretence from NASA here about who’ll be first with crew:

Apparently that wasn't supposed to be official yet.  Post now has two key words changed:

The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft for its first crew launch from American soil has arrived at the launch site. NASA and SpaceX are preparing for the company’s first flight test with astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2020/02/14/spacex-crew-dragon-arrives-for-demo-2-mission/

Ooh!
How to walk it back, NASA PR!

Unfortunately this is not the first time this has happened with NASA PR releases. Something similar happened just last week when a NASA blog post preceded the Starliner investigation conference call. Just minutes after the call had ended the NASA blog post was altered in a few crucial places to make Boeing look less bad.

In that particular case someone was unhappy with what he read, contacted the CCP office and had the post altered.


Good to see that the internet community this time was faster than the NASA and Boeing folks.

To be honest. Saying first wasn't a good idea either, anything can happen between now and May.

Absolutely.

But proof-reading and altering your blog-post AFTER it has been posted is the perfect recipe for a PR disaster.

(as well as attracting conspiracy-theory idi*ts and other irrational folks).

[Comga]

 
Whatever
If Loverro can say “there was no anomaly” and allude to a “tungsten” problem on Dragon without apologizing, NASA PR can allude to SpaceX being first without lawyerly editing after the fact.
Being overly enthusiastic when things are going well is preferable to being boastful when things are failing or prissily critical when things are fine.

[spacenut]

So, does anyone know a date of Dragon 2 manned launch, or at least narrowed down time frame.  Q2 could be from April 1 to June 20.  Long time. 

[Vettedrmr]

May 7 is the most recent working date.

[launchwatcher]

There’s been some talk about tungsten as if there’s an issue with it.

If it had to do with the Dragon static fire failure, I’m confused about it because I thought that investigation was officially completed and they verified the new propulsion system upgrades during IFA.

I'm wondering if whoever it was that said tungsten actually meant titanium..

[PM3]

So, Sputnik News isn't exactly an unbiased source. I wonder if it means Russia knows that this particular date is difficult to make, or perhaps just that they *think* it's difficult to achieve (so they can embarrass the US if the date's missed).

It usually means that NASA has told Roskosmos some date, which has been leaked to the media.

Hovever, those NASA "working dates" are no launch schedule, but rather a placeholder for "we don't know yet when it will launch, but must fill in some date in this form, so let's guess".

Could launch in May, June, July... whatever.

There is a nice analysis by Comga in the Crew Schedule thread: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37802.msg2046543#msg2046543

[Steven Pietrobon]

Hovever, those NASA "working dates" are no launch schedule, but rather a placeholder for "we don't know yet when it will launch, but must fill in some date in this form, so let's guess".

Surely NASA and SpaceX are using PERT charts to work out a "no earlier than" date. Of course, many of the parameters are random variables, but they can be modelled with probability distributions and an average "expected" date can also be worked out.

[CorvusCorax]

Hovever, those NASA "working dates" are no launch schedule, but rather a placeholder for "we don't know yet when it will launch, but must fill in some date in this form, so let's guess".

Surely NASA and SpaceX are using PERT charts to work out a "no earlier than" date. Of course, many of the parameters are random variables, but they can be modelled with probability distributions and an average "expected" date can also be worked out.

So how would you typically model the probability distribution of the "date by which committee X has signed of technical report Y in respect to risk mitigation/analysis Z" ?

I'd assume you could try to model it based on the names of who is in the committee. You could cross reference how long other committee's the same people were involved took to complete their paperwork, calculate the full covariance matrix. But that assumes a simple Gaussian distribution, which is likely not be the case. Also there's external variables (like who submitted the paperwork the committee is reviewing) so there could be multiple clusters. The relationship to the volume of paperwork might be more linear, if you assume the committee is actually reading the texts, which might or might not be the case. But I'm no statistics expert. If there's enough data I'd probably go with the hype and try to train a deep neural predictor network

On the other hand, if you have a broad enough database, you could solve for interesting questions such as "which committee members do actually read the reports" and see if there's a bias between specific members and approval rates for specific external contractors.

That might not only help SpaceX better model launch dates, it would be a great scientific base to study systematic corruption within the agency

Edit: It would also help guide political decisions. Such as "which members do I need to assign to committee X under goals such as"
"project should keep getting delayed until eventual cancelling due to cost overruns"
"project is approved no matter what before date X (which where X might be modulo a 4 year interval)"
"project should actually meet its design/safety criteria"
etc...
Edit edit: Although the people who make these decisions likely don't need the data since they know the members in question personally anyway

[cebri]

This is a launch I'd really like to attend to, but booking the flights so early and knowing the chance this can get delayed just a few days prior to the launch... 

[Comga]

May 20 per Pietrobon
http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/uscom-man.txt

There is little value added by this UNLESS you asked Stephen if he got this independent of the Russian “leak”.
Otherwise it’s just an echo chamber in here. 😊

PS: Hi cebri. Welcome to the wacky world of launch viewing! It’s not for the faint of heart. Things in Commercial Crew seem to take almost four times as long as projected, until they lock into the ISS Visiting Vehicles schedule.

[Comga]

May 20 per Pietrobon
http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/uscom-man.txt

There is value added by this ONLY IF you asked Steven and he confirmed that he got this independent of the Russian “leak”.
Otherwise it’s just an echo chamber in here.

PS: Hi cebri. Welcome to the wacky world of launch viewing! It’s not for the faint of heart. Events in Commercial Crew seem to take almost four times as long as projected, until they lock into the ISS Visiting Vehicles schedule. (See my recent post in the Commercial Crew Schedule thread.)  If you do go, be prepared for a few delay days, even if you book at the last minute. There should be a pinned thread about viewing DM-2 to help you.

edit:spelling

[Comga]

NASA is not expressing confidence in those dates for DM-2 and USCV-1.

https://twitter.com/katlinegrey/status/1229289185376374784

The source says, that the new contract between @Roscosmos  and @NASA  includes buying of two seats in #SoyuzMS17 and #SoyuzMS18 and NASA will pay $170 million for it. The contract can be signed in April.

The new contract between @NASA  and @Roscosmos  to buy additional seats in #Soyuz spaceships can be signed in April, when NASA delegation will come to Baikonur for the Soyuz MS-16 launch. The number of seats in contract has not been announced yet.

Alternatively, this gives SpaceX and Commercial Crew until around April 9 to build that confidence with preparations for DM-2.

[Alexphysics]

NASA is not expressing confidence in those dates for DM-2 and USCV-1.

https://twitter.com/katlinegrey/status/1229289185376374784

The source says, that the new contract between @Roscosmos  and @NASA  includes buying of two seats in #SoyuzMS17 and #SoyuzMS18 and NASA will pay $170 million for it. The contract can be signed in April.

The new contract between @NASA  and @Roscosmos  to buy additional seats in #Soyuz spaceships can be signed in April, when NASA delegation will come to Baikonur for the Soyuz MS-16 launch. The number of seats in contract has not been announced yet.

Alternatively, this gives SpaceX and Commercial Crew until around April 9 to build that confidence with preparations for DM-2.

NASA is buying those seats to cover their backs not because they don't have confidence in DM-2 happening on Q2 2020 and USCV-1 on Q3 2020. This is something they have been considering for a long time and would remove pressure from both SpaceX and Boeing so they get things right and safe (specially Boeing IMO).

[Comga]

Alexphysics:  Is there a difference?
But others at NASA are expressing confidence:

twitter.com/carbon_flight/status/1230481429596921856

There haven't been Health Stabilization posters in Mission Control since 2011. @Commercial_Crew is getting really close to flying people to orbit from the US again!

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1230514716658847744

Seems like Demo-2 is not far off when you’re warning people not to get the astronauts sick.