SpaceX Dragon 2 Updates and Discussion - Thread 3

[dondar]

Why not burn the fuel of the Super Draco's during re-entry to lower wear on the heat shield.  Then you could go back to 3 parachutes. 

Not about heat shield wear or parachute configuration necessarily, but why don't they use available fuel and engines for a re-entry burn? Is a slower, steeper re-entry bad for some reason, or just no real benefit?

From Woodz quote:

Use of Super Dracos in case of parachute failure runs into exactly the same Mount Everest-sized stack of requirements as use of Super Dracos for propulsive landing.
Hence why it is the path not followed by SpaceX.

Substitute "parachute failure" with anything you would like SpaceX to implement in Dragon 2 and you will get your answer.
GAO reports  say the same thing.
Just some key quotes from some random year offered by Google random god (2017 this time). But you will see the same words in any other reports.

..The early upfront investment in time may ultimately make the certification process go smoother, but the program office could face difficult choices as the program progresses about how to maintain the level of visibility into contractor efforts it feels it needs without adding to the program’s schedule pressures. Further, the program faces potential workload challenges as it works to complete upcoming oversight activities, while completing others that were already behind schedule....

.. Multiple independent review bodies—including the program’s standing review board, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, and the NASA Advisory Council-Human Exploration and Operations committee—also noted the aggressiveness of the contractors’ schedules as they move toward certification....

Adding any additional element in your design (say a subroutine allowing to use Superdracos outside of abort scenario) would require to add another headache to all this^^^^.

i.e. SpaceX has to make a proposal. This proposal has to be approved, milestone added, schedule changes to all relevant reviewing boards and inspections have to be agreed and applied and the schedules correspondingly moved to the right, yet another time.
To clarify I quote some more jucy details from the same report about what implementing CCP implies:

Regulation Supplement, which contemplates NASA conducting inspections and other quality assurance requirements through “insight” and “oversight.” In the supplement,•insight is defined as the monitoring of contractor quality data and government-identified metrics and contract milestones, and any review of contractor work procedures and records; and•oversight is defined as the government’s right to concur or non-concur with the contractor’s decisions affecting product conformity, and non-concurrence must be resolved before the contractor can proceed

...the Commercial Crew contracting officer told us that one such expectation is that the contractors will provide the program access to virtually all data produced under or relevant to the contract, including subcontractor data...

the standing review board found, and both contractors told us, that the program has requested high levels of visibility on most items and there are signs that the contractors’ patience is waning. Both contractors expressed concerns that the program requests more interaction and data than they originally anticipated at the time of the contract award. For example, Boeing and SpaceX officials told us that the program often requests additional in-person engagement with their engineers, such as repeat presentations to multiple boards on the same technical issue, and has also asked for the same data in multiple formats or from multiple stakeholders.

Program officials told us that one of their greatest upcoming challenges will be to keep pace with the contractors’ schedules so that the program does not delay certification. Specifically, they told us they are concerned about an upcoming “bow wave” of work because the program must complete two oversight activities—phased safety reviews and verification closure notices—concurrently in order to support the contractors’ ISS design certification reviews, uncrewed and crewed flight test missions, and final certification.

The Commercial Crew Program’s review and approval of the contractors’ hazard reports have taken longer than planned. The program originally planned to complete phase two in early 2016 but currently does not expect to complete this phase until June 2017.

[clongton]

I see the administrators comment in this view: yes, 95% of the resources are being applied to Falcon and Dragon, but those resources were cut at the beginning of the year with layoffs, which I see the savings as contributing to starship development.  So it's 95% of a smaller portion or resources / personnel.  Dragon crew might be further along had those people not been let go.

What is your source that it was Dragon2 people that was cut and not Falcon9 manufacturing people? Remember, Falcon 9 is designed for many reuses, so production of them was always intended to decrease, requiring less people on the floor.

A layoff of x number of people is always trade specific. Dragon2? Falcon9? Factory Maintenance? Landscape workers? How do you know who was layed off?

[Coastal Ron]

I see the administrators comment in this view: yes, 95% of the resources are being applied to Falcon and Dragon, but those resources were cut at the beginning of the year with layoffs, which I see the savings as contributing to starship development.

That is an assumption without evidence.

So it's 95% of a smaller portion or resources / personnel.

Elon Musk stated 95% of SpaceX were working NOT on Starship just a week ago, so what happened in the layoff 10 months ago would not apply.

Dragon crew might be further along had those people not been let go.

An allegation without any evidence, and there are plenty of us here on NSF (including myself) that understand how much work is needed at the different stages of a program, and that no one would layoff someone that is needed for the final stages of a program BEFORE that part is complete.

The major design work for the Dragon Crew was likely completed years ago, production has been going for a while (which is why they can move up new vehicles to replace the one lost in the accident), and what is left is the test and operational work.

Usually the initial team of designers are the first to leave a program once the product has passed it's final design review, and I'm sure some of the Dragon Crew employees moved over to Starship and Super Heavy. But there are plenty of people within SpaceX that could have been laid off that were not related at all to Dragon Crew.

I see no reason at all that SpaceX President Shotwell, who runs SpaceX day-to-day operations, would do anything that would slow down the progress of the Dragon Crew. PR wise it has no upside, and everyone has to remember that with the Commercial Crew Program, which is a Firm Fixed Price contract, that they only get paid for the COMPLETION of tasks, not for starting them. See the contract here, with the relevant section being:

B.3 Design, Development, Test and Evaluation (DDTE)/Certification (Core Contract) (CLIN 001)
NASA Certification under CLIN 001 is complete when the Contractor’s Crew Transportation System (CTS) has met NASA’s requirements for safely transporting crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS) in accordance with documents identified in Section C.1, Specifications/Statement of Work.

A "CLIN" is a contract line item, or in other words, it is what is being paid for. There are sub-CLIN's too that allow progress payments for work accomplished before the Dragon is certified for operations, but otherwise the financial incentive is to GET DRAGON OPERATIONAL AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

So no, I don't see why they would have laid off anyone that was needed for the Dragon Crew vehicle effort.

[Comga]

I had asked Hans about the unused propellant on D2 many months ago. He said it returns with it.

Yes, that is what SpaceX sources tell me as well. But some folks here don't seem to be able to accept that and keep asking the question "Well why can't SpaceX just simply burn off the excess propellant prior to EDL?"

People should NOT be asking that question. There are very valid reasons why the excess propellant is not burned off and comes all the way down to splash down. I've tried to show the logic behind some of those reasons.

Don’t tell me what questions to ask
We KNOW Dragon 2 returns with all the abort fuel.
The question was why.
Someone above (you?) provided a calculation that it might take an hour and a half to burn the fuel through the regular Draco’s. (Engineering is done with numbers. Everything else is opinion [except when it’s political.])
There may be other reasons.

There is a better arrangement, but that’s for another, more speculative thread.

[philw1776]

I see the administrators comment in this view: yes, 95% of the resources are being applied to Falcon and Dragon, but those resources were cut at the beginning of the year with layoffs, which I see the savings as contributing to starship development.  So it's 95% of a smaller portion or resources / personnel.  Dragon crew might be further along had those people not been let go.

What is your source that it was Dragon2 people that was cut and not Falcon9 manufacturing people? Remember, Falcon 9 is designed for many reuses, so production of them was always intended to decrease, requiring less people on the floor.

A layoff of x number of people is always trade specific. Dragon2? Falcon9? Factory Maintenance? Landscape workers? How do you know who was layed off?

I'd say it's most certain that the carbon fiber design and manufacturing specialists and Long Beach staff were let go.

[gongora]

Not all of the CF specialists would be jettisoned, they still use CF (including on Dragon).

[Navier–Stokes]

This is relevant to the layoff discussion: https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-layoffs-jobs-terminated-list-california-headquarters-2019-1

[jak Kennedy]

Seriously, it doesn’t matter if only 10% of SpaceX employees are working on Falcon/Dragon if they have it covered. What does a percentage tell you? Are 95% of Boeing employees working on their capsule?

Thinking here some forum members “could do better”

*Rant over

[Orbiter]

Why not burn the fuel of the Super Draco's during re-entry to lower wear on the heat shield.  Then you could go back to 3 parachutes. 

You'll lose velocity but you also change the angle of re-entry to be more steep, leading to more wear on the heat shield.

[Comga]

Why not burn the fuel of the Super Draco's during re-entry to lower wear on the heat shield.  Then you could go back to 3 parachutes. 

You'll lose velocity but you also change the angle of re-entry to be more steep, leading to more wear on the heat shield.

That is not always the consequence.
The Dracos can be burned in opposition or normal to the velocity and R-bar so that the delta-V changes the targeting but not the entry angle.

But spacenuts question implies that a slower entry would be better, which is backwards. And there is no problem with the current heat shields. Your response is correct that slower would be steeper, which would be worse, creating a problem for the heat shields.

But there are other reasons SpaceX does not do this.
Most of us agree that they are probably good reasons, from either an engineering or oversight basis. 
My question is to what those reasons are.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

twitter.com/joroulette/status/1181215644802523136

SpaceX's Hans Koenigsmann, at National Academy of Engineering's annual meeting, says Crew Dragon "will perform the mission as soon as possible" and hardware going to Cape Canaveral "pretty soon."

https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1181217717656928256

Former NASA admin Charles Bolden, lauding SpaceX and Boeing's commercial crew efforts: NASA never tested the escape system on KSC launchpad until after the Challenger accident. "We should have done that. [SpaceX and Boeing] have now done that."

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Lots of 360-views inside Hawthorne:

In Part 2 of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program VR 360 Tour, NASA Communications Specialist Joshua Santora takes you on a tour of SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California. This immersive, Virtual Reality experience exhibits the design and manufacturing of the SpaceX Crew Dragon. Visit nasa.gov/stem/ccp for more STEM educational resources featuring NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

[Johnnyhinbos]

Lots of 360-views inside Hawthorne:

In Part 2 of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program VR 360 Tour, NASA Communications Specialist Joshua Santora takes you on a tour of SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California. This immersive, Virtual Reality experience exhibits the design and manufacturing of the SpaceX Crew Dragon. Visit nasa.gov/stem/ccp for more STEM educational resources featuring NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Um, during the 360 tour of Hawthorne (pretty cool - can steer the video all around in YouTube) is a section within the Dragon 2 vehicle. What gives here? Guessing the commode, but those icons are by the docking hatch...

[gaballard]

Lots of 360-views inside Hawthorne:

In Part 2 of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program VR 360 Tour, NASA Communications Specialist Joshua Santora takes you on a tour of SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, California. This immersive, Virtual Reality experience exhibits the design and manufacturing of the SpaceX Crew Dragon. Visit nasa.gov/stem/ccp for more STEM educational resources featuring NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

Um, during the 360 tour of Hawthorne (pretty cool - can steer the video all around in YouTube) is a section within the Dragon 2 vehicle. What gives here? Guessing the commode, but those icons are by the docking hatch...

That panel with the icons on them pulls down (think overhead storage bin), and no doubt some kind of tubing business for your business comes out... there's going to be a curtain for crewed flights, at least.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Oct. 7, 2019
MEDIA ADVISORY M19-105

NASA Administrator to Visit SpaceX Headquarters

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will tour SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, on Thursday, Oct. 10, to see the progress the company is making to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station from American soil as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

Following the tour, SpaceX will host a media availability with Bridenstine, SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk, and NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley – the crew for the Demo-2 flight test to the space station.

The media availability will be streamed live on Bridenstine’s Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/jimbridenstine?lang=en

Members of the media who would like to attend must fill out a SpaceX media accreditation request form by no later than 2 p.m. PDT Tuesday, Oct. 8.

Members of the media who are foreign nationals must also provide a photocopy of their passport to [email protected] by that time.

SpaceX will carry NASA astronauts to the space station on the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, and help return the ability to fly American astronauts on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil. This is an important step toward sending the first woman and the next man to the Moon by 2024, as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

In March, SpaceX completed Crew Dragon’s first demonstration mission, Demo-1, sending the uncrewed spacecraft to and from the International Space Station. NASA and SpaceX currently are preparing for an upcoming in-flight abort test of Crew Dragon’s launch escape system and the company’s second demonstration mission, Demo-2, which will send NASA astronauts to and from the station aboard Crew Dragon.

SpaceX may not be able to accommodate all who request accreditation, as space is very limited, and outlets may be asked to cap the number of representatives they request to send.

SpaceX will provide additional logistical details for credentialed media closer to the visit.

-end-

Bettina Inclan / Matthew Rydin
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-4503
[email protected]/ [email protected]

Eva Behrend
SpaceX, Hawthorne, Calif.
310-363-6247
[email protected]

Last Updated: Oct. 7, 2019
Editor: Sean Potter

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-administrator-to-visit-spacex-headquarters

[woods170]

Um, during the 360 tour of Hawthorne (pretty cool - can steer the video all around in YouTube) is a section within the Dragon 2 vehicle. What gives here? Guessing the commode, but those icons are by the docking hatch...

That panel with the icons on them pulls down (think overhead storage bin), and no doubt some kind of tubing business for your business comes out... there's going to be a curtain for crewed flights, at least.

Correct. The Crew Dragon rudimentary toilet facilities are located behind that panel.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

NASA’s just released 360 video at Hawthorne appears to be old ...

https://twitter.com/liammack0/status/1181316561510027265

Pretty sure this is a pre-block 5 interstage, not a second stage. Wonder why they’ve still got it kicking around? 🤔

twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1181317943336026112

Pretty sure this video was filmed a while ago. And yes, that is a flight-proven pre-block 5 interstage.

https://twitter.com/13ericralph31/status/1181478984636190721

The presence of an Iridium adaptor confirms that it's probably at least 10-12 months old. So weird.

[QuantumG]

Can anyone summarize what SpaceX is working on for Dragon 2? and where?

My understanding is that the in-flight abort hardware is done, sitting at the Cape, awaiting the next test.

The DM-2 hardware is "done" awaiting results from the in-flight abort test - and may be at the Cape already, but it probably in holding at Hawthorne.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1181579173388673025

For what it’s worth, the SpaceX schedule, which I’ve just reviewed in depth, shows Falcon & Dragon at the Cape & all testing done in ~10 weeks

[whitelancer64]

The subsequent tweet is worth including as well.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1181584415362707456

We had to reallocate some resources to speed this up & received great support from Airborne, our parachute supplier. I was at their Irvine factory with the SpaceX team on Sat and Sun. We’re focusing on the advanced Mk3 chute, which provides highest safety factor for astronauts.