Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3

[mn]

The point is that there is nothing in the short to medium term that indicates that SpaceX could become a threat or cause a problem for the Commercial Crew Program. Currently, many former NASA employees work at SpaceX, and this can represent a safety net for the Agency itself. In any case, I might be talking nonsense, but I believe I'm right in thinking that the Starliner is no longer necessary for redundancy.

The majority of SpaceX's shares are controlled by a single individual who is also the company's chief technology officer and chief visionary. This represents a single point of failure.  This is an objective fact and is independent of whether you love him, hate him, or are somewhere in between. Like any other single point of failure in your supply chain, you should evaluate backup strategies.

No, Starliner is not  a viable backup strategy for CCP. NASA is stuck with Crew Dragon on F9 for the foreseeable future.

Elon might be a single point of failure for realizing future plans, but F9/Dragon does not need Elon anymore.

[Comga]

From the Bergers's article on Axiom financial issues referencing Forbes story:

The publication reveals that Axiom is due to pay $670 million to SpaceX for four Crew Dragon missions, each of which includes a launch and ride for four astronauts to and from the station encompassing a one- to two-week period. This equates to $167.5 million per launch, or $41.9 million per seat.

Because NASA requires a ex-NASA “guide” on each mission,  leaving three passengers, the net launch and landing cost to Axiom, per paying passenger, is $55.8M.
This is surprisingly high, yet does not include the cost to the passenger of NASA charges for ISS resources or Axiom’s profit.

Wouldn’t that total be three times what Dennis Tito paid in 2001?

[DanClemmensen]

The point is that there is nothing in the short to medium term that indicates that SpaceX could become a threat or cause a problem for the Commercial Crew Program. Currently, many former NASA employees work at SpaceX, and this can represent a safety net for the Agency itself. In any case, I might be talking nonsense, but I believe I'm right in thinking that the Starliner is no longer necessary for redundancy.

The majority of SpaceX's shares are controlled by a single individual who is also the company's chief technology officer and chief visionary. This represents a single point of failure.  This is an objective fact and is independent of whether you love him, hate him, or are somewhere in between. Like any other single point of failure in your supply chain, you should evaluate backup strategies.

No, Starliner is not  a viable backup strategy for CCP. NASA is stuck with Crew Dragon on F9 for the foreseeable future.

Elon might be a single point of failure for realizing future plans, but F9/Dragon does not need Elon anymore.

I fervently hope that you are correct, but do you know what is going to happen to SpaceX if Elon is suddenly struck by a meteor? I don't, and NASA may not be privy to that information either. Some person or legal entity will suddenly inherit control of SpaceX.

[deltaV]

I fervently hope that you are correct, but do you know what is going to happen to SpaceX if Elon is suddenly struck by a meteor? I don't, and NASA may not be privy to that information either. Some person or legal entity will suddenly inherit control of SpaceX.

If Elon dies Falcon and Dragon will almost certainly be fine since they're presumably profitable hence unlikely to be canceled by new owners and it doesn't take a genius to run existing systems. I'm more concerned with Elon getting Alzheimer's or a mental health issue that leads to Elon still in control but making poor decisions.

[Asteroza]

I think we're past the point of having two providers because of redundancy. SpaceX has a fleet of spacecraft, rockets and now operates manned flights from two platforms. The redundancy in this case is SpaceX providing to NASA/Boeing.

3 separate F9 anomalies just this year could be a counterpoint to your argument.

Ironically, the continued effort to certify Starliner in the name of dissimilar redundancy has been far more disruptive than the three F9 anomalies. NASA should have terminated Starliner no later than 2022.

Dissimilar redundancy has proven spectacularly successful at the program level. If NASA had funded only one CCP vendor, it almost certainly would have been Boeing. But after Crew Dragon flew its fourth operational mission, the cost for continuing Starliner was too high and the benefit was too low.

The program level redundancy is an interesting point here. NASA structured things so they were effectively paying for a human delivery service only. There were other opportunities to add other redundancies, such as requiring EELV payload adapter compatibility (to the extent of preparing appropriate fairing adapter segments for other CCrew launcher participants) to provide launcher redundancy in the form of capsule fungibility (though that would greatly complicate the crew access arm design of the launchpad to be "universal"). There was another lost opportunity for IVA suit interface compatibility. Another could have been required alternate berthing mode, as well as requiring a CBM port with a demountable IDSS adapter plate on the front. Hell, requiring the IDSS port to be active/passive capable.

[meekGee]

Redundancy covers multiple fronts. You are all focusing on technological, operational, and geographical redundancy. There's also organizational redundancy. Entity risk. Roscosmos was a reliable, dependable partner to NASA until non-technological considerations changed that. Private companies are no different; they may make decisions inconsistent with NASA's goals for human spaceflight.

There's no end to this.  What if NASA itself turns evil? Shall we have two space agencies? What if the president decides to play into the hands of the Ruskies?

You can't eliminate risk, but you can certainly guarantee failure by trying too hard to eliminate it.

I'm going to ignore the irrelevant hyperbolic rhetoricals.

You cannot eliminate risk. You can eliminate your concentration of risk.

See https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/diversification.asp

there's a limit.  by trying to spread risk, at some point, you're just adding a fixed penalty.  It's a lot like redundancy.  You double and triple systems, and at some point you're just suffering from systemic risk that doesn't show in your redundancy charts.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2024/10/15/nasa-updates-2025-commercial-crew-plan/

NASA Updates 2025 Commercial Crew Plan

NASA and its industry partners Boeing and SpaceX continue planning next year’s missions to the International Space Station for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. While significant work remains to prepare for these flights, the agency expects a busy year of in-orbit activities and is planning windows of opportunity for mission teams to target, pending operational readiness and station traffic.

Crew-10

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 mission is targeting no earlier than February 2025. The mission will carry NASA astronauts Anne McClain, commander, and Nichole Ayers, pilot, along with mission specialists JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov to the space station to conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. This mission will be the second spaceflight for McClain and Onishi, and the first for Ayers and Peskov.

Crew-9, which arrived at the space station on Sept. 29, carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Grubonov, will return to Earth with NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore accompanying Hague and Gorbunov, following a short handover with Crew-10.

Crew-11

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 will be the second crew rotation flight of 2025 and is targeted for no earlier than July to benefit the space station needs, including accommodating resupply flights and other operations aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA will announce the four-person crew at a later date.

Next Starliner Flight

The timing and configuration of Starliner’s next flight will be determined once a better understanding of Boeing’s path to system certification is established. This determination will include considerations for incorporating Crew Flight Test lessons learned, approvals of final certification products, and operational readiness.

Meanwhile, NASA is keeping options on the table for how best to achieve system certification, including windows of opportunity for a potential Starliner flight in 2025.

NASA will provide more information when available.

For more on NASA’s Commercial Crew Program missions to the orbiting laboratory follow the commercial crew blog and the program’s social media accounts via @commercial_crew on X and commercial crew on Facebook.

Author Elyna Niles-Carnes
Posted on October 15, 2024
Categories Commercial Crew, Commercial Crew Program, International Space Station, Kennedy Space Center, NASA, NASA AstronautsTags anne McClain, Boeing Starliner, NASA's SpaceX Crew-10, NASA's SpaceX Crew-11, NASA's SpaceX Crew-9, Nichole Ayers