Commercial Crew - Discussion Thread 3

[DanClemmensen]

Considering the odds of Starliner surviving past the ISS contract are getting increasingly tenuous, all the CLD providers are looking nervously at a SpaceX monopoly in the short term, which suggests crew dragon by definition will need to fly beyond 2030 for at least a few years.

Why? SpaceX will be trying very hard to crewed Starship operational by then. If they succeed, they have little incentive to try to extend the life of Crew Dragon, and IMO they won't unless NASA insists. There is substantial overlap  between crewed Starship and Starship CLD.

The big unknown for me is the structure of the Commercial Crew Program in the crewed Starship era.

[Asteroza]

Considering the odds of Starliner surviving past the ISS contract are getting increasingly tenuous, all the CLD providers are looking nervously at a SpaceX monopoly in the short term, which suggests crew dragon by definition will need to fly beyond 2030 for at least a few years.

Why? SpaceX will be trying very hard to crewed Starship operational by then. If they succeed, they have little incentive to try to extend the life of Crew Dragon, and IMO they won't unless NASA insists. There is substantial overlap  between crewed Starship and Starship CLD.

The big unknown for me is the structure of the Commercial Crew Program in the crewed Starship era.

SpaceX would like a lot of things, but getting Starship certified for CCP to ISS/CLD by 2030 may be deemed a risky stance by CLP operators, since they need to lock in launch services (and long lead items) before 2030, probably around 2028 or earlier at a guess. So that's only 4 years, I can understand why some people might want to hedge their bets. SpaceX may be accommodating in that contracting for crew dragon launch services may be transferable to Starship without much penalty in this occurance.

[Asteroza]

https://twitter.com/jenakuns/status/1697442574099947530

Cool fact: the CSCC2 SAA's have listed near term planned Starship milestones such as:
- First Starship launch with payload Q1 2024
- Successful Starship Recovery Q3 2024
- Starship LEO crewed space station PDR Q4 2028
Also details to the Blue Origin orbital crew capsule timeline.

I think this is the SAA mentioned in the previous post?

Edit to add: a few years before we get to the more interesting milestones

In light of what appears to be BO aspirations to certify their own capsule by 2028 at ISS, that becomes an interesting gating point for CLD decision trees.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

Interesting article about how the commercial crew program nearly didn’t start, due to the NASA 2010 Appropriations Act prohibiting the starting of any  new program in FY2010:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-did-commercial-crew-dodge-bullet-phil-mcalister-onxne

How Did Commercial Crew Dodge That Bullet?

Phil McAlister
Director, Commercial Space Division at NASA -…
Published Feb 28, 2024

[The following article was written by Phil McAlister, Director of NASA’s Commercial Space Division.  The views reflected here are those of Phil McAlister and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA.]

TL;DR - they called it CCDev2 and argued it was a continuation of the existing (largely) cargo program.

[DigitalMan]

Interesting article about how the commercial crew program nearly didn’t start, due to the NASA 2010 Appropriations Act prohibiting the starting of any  new program in FY2010:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-did-commercial-crew-dodge-bullet-phil-mcalister-onxne

How Did Commercial Crew Dodge That Bullet?

Phil McAlister
Director, Commercial Space Division at NASA -…
Published Feb 28, 2024

[The following article was written by Phil McAlister, Director of NASA’s Commercial Space Division.  The views reflected here are those of Phil McAlister and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA.]

TL;DR - they called it CCDev2 and argued it was a continuation of the existing (largely) cargo program.

There was an option D in the CoTS contract, it would have been a very short argument

[DanClemmensen]

If SpaceX and NASA agree on the new 15-mission lifetime, they probably don't really need the fifth Crew Dragon, but it's good insurance.

Apart from the NASA/ISS, Axiom/ISS and Polaris Dawn missions, there's also missions to the proposed VAST space station and maybe others. This will be offset somewhat if Starliner becomes operational.

They have 4 Crew Dragons rated for 5 flights apiece, for a total of 20: 14 have already flown and 6 remain. But at 15 apiece, they would have 60 total or 46 remaining, and the fifth capsule would push that up to 61. Current flight rate is about 3 per year even without Starliner. NASA has contracted for a total of 14 CCP missions of which 8 have flown, so 6 remain. NASA might need to add one or two more to get to the ISS end-of-life, and up to 6 more if Starliner were not available. That gets you to 2030. I think Crewed Starship will be available by then. In fact, I think that at most one CLD will be available before Crewed Starship. We'll see.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1806762658122895651

NASA's Steve Stich says they are preparing Starliner-1 and Crew-10 in parallel for the Feb 2025 crew rotation mission to the ISS, so some time before they have to decide which one they fly as they work on Starliner certification. (Unclear how much time, though.)

Does this mean potentially training two crews in parallel and which flys first depends on whether Starliner is certified in time?

Personally I can’t see Starliner being certified for February.

[Eagandale4114]

SpaceX was awarded $266,678 to study an emergency response.

[DanClemmensen]

SpaceX was awarded $266,678 to study an emergency response.

A thread for this has been started at:
     https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=61199.0