USCV Crew Rotation Question

[king1999]

I thought the Boeing naming system is CTS 1, CTS 2, etc. Don't know what CTS stands for though.

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/2409

Crew Transport Service?

[king1999]

Space Shuttle flights used to fly out of numerical order all the time, didn't they? Once you define a mission and give it a designation I think that would carry through until the mission flies.

I have no special knowledge, but the way I understand the commercial crew nomenclature is as follows:

1) USCV-N are mission designations for NASA long distance planning. They occur in sequence every 6 months.
2) As the USCV missions firm up they are assigned to one of the certified commercial crew providers and
    at that point they become Crew-M for a SpaceX assignment or Starliner-M for a Boeing assigned flight.
3) My impression is that Crew-N will be sequential with SpaceX and Starliner-N will be sequential within
    Boeing crew flights. Similar to the way Commercial Cargo missions were numbered.
4) So my understanding is that USCV-1 will become Crew-1 assuming DM-2 completes its mission
    successfully and certification of SpaceX occurs so that USCV-1 can fly on a dragon in September 2020.
5) Assuming USCV-1 does fly as crew-1 in September 2020 that says crew-1 will return in March 2021
    and since there will be an overlapping handover that means that USCV-2 needs to be assigned
    to a certified provider in time for launch about the beginning of March 2021. I don't know how much
    notice is required but I suspect this means that the USCV-2 provider will have to be certified probably
    no later than early January 2021 - or at least NASA was very confident of certification at that time.
6) If I had to guess, this probably means that Boeing CFT won't fly in time to get certified before NASA
    has to assign USCV-2 to a certified provider, i.e USCV-2 may well be assigned to SpaceX to fly Crew-2
    and the 1st Boeing certified flight would be Starliner 1 launching around the beginning of September 2021
    before Crew-2 returns from the ISS later in September 2021.
7) After that they would probably alternate with Boeing launches in September and SpaceX launches
    in March of each year.

Hope that makes sense

Carl

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

[vp.]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

So, why not dragon 1, dragon 2 ...

[kdhilliard]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

So, why not dragon 1, dragon 2 ...

Because there are cargo Dragon flights to enumerate, crew Dragon flights to enumerate, and Dragon Capsule versions to enumerate.

Typically, Dragon 1 refers to the original cargo capsule design (which first flew in 2010 and was used for all 20 CRS1 Space Station resupply missions from 2012 through 2020), while Dragon 2 refers to the updated capsule design which comes in both a crew variant (which first flew orbitally in 2019, though it did fly the Pad Abort Test way back in 2015!) and a cargo variant (which will fly in 2020Q4 for the first CRS2 Space Station resupply mission).

Early on, Dragon 2 was referred to as Dragon v2, but that was determined to be an unfortunate moniker for a modern spacecraft.

^{"I Aim at the Stars, but sometimes I hit London."}

[Jorge]

... in which case Crew-2 (Suni Williams' crew) ...

2) As the USCV missions firm up they are assigned to one of the certified commercial crew providers and
    at that point they become Crew-M for a SpaceX assignment or Starliner-M for a Boeing assigned flight.

I thought the Boeing naming system is CTS 1, CTS 2, etc. Don't know what CTS stands for though.

All post-certification Starliner missions are numbered PCM-<n>, and Suni's crew is PCM-1.

<meme>Always has been.</meme>

[Hog]

Space Shuttle flights used to fly out of numerical order all the time, didn't they? Once you define a mission and give it a designation I think that would carry through until the mission flies.

STS-1 through STS-9 flew in numerical/manifested order, then the system was changed for STS-41B which was the 10th STS mission.
KSC launches were designated-1 and Vandenberg launches-2, the first Vandenberg launch was to be STS-62-A (6=fiscal year 1986, 2=Vandenberg and A= the first scheduled launch from that launchsite of that specific fiscal year

It's all explained better under the "Flight numbering" section of this Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Space_Shuttle_missions#Flight_numbering

For the programs first RTF, STS-26 Vandenberg Polar launches were cancelled, "(UN)lucky STS-13 was left in history, so the decision to return to conventional mission numbering was made.
 It wasn't until 2009 that the manifested flights and the correct numerical order finally coincided.  The 127th Space Transportation System mission, STS-127, was actually the 127th launch of a space shuttle which occurred on July 15, 2009 using OV-105 Endeavour.

The Dragon-2 spacecraft named Endeavour, remains docked to ISS currently demonstrating safe haven and crew-escape/rotation capabilities for NASA, under contract from Space-X.  Commercial Crew Development is a huge step in the right direction for the United States of America and all her "space friends".

C'mon Boeing, we're waiting for you to relegate the Russian Soyuz to American ISS tertiary redundancy duty.  IMO It's embarrassing that Soyuz was ever allowed to provide primary crew rotation duty for the US astronaut corps to get to the US portion of the ISS.  Perhaps it was the ultimate expression of "international co-operation" but it sure felt/smelled like something else.

[Cherokee43v6]

I thought the Boeing naming system is CTS 1, CTS 2, etc. Don't know what CTS stands for though.

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/2409

It is CST and it stands for Commercial Space Transport

[AnalogMan]

I thought the Boeing naming system is CTS 1, CTS 2, etc. Don't know what CTS stands for though.

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/2409

It is CST and it stands for Commercial Space Transport

Boeing have said that CST stands for Crew Space Transportation

See this Boeing Blog article from April 2011:

https://web.archive.org/web/20111113111953/http://boeingblogs.com/bds/as-we-see-it/2011/04/boeing-supporting-next-phase-of-us-space-journey.html

[king1999]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

So, why not dragon 1, dragon 2 ...

You need to have meaningful short names. Demo-1 and Crew-1 are very straightforward and convey the primary goal of the mission. Dragon 1 and Dragon 2 do not have any specific meaning except that they have been used for different versions of the Dragon.

[king1999]

I thought the Boeing naming system is CTS 1, CTS 2, etc. Don't know what CTS stands for though.

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/2409

It is CST and it stands for Commercial Space Transport

Yep those acronyms are getting out of hand, mainly because C=Cargo/Crew/Commercial.

[NX-0]

The flight order will be, by my reckoning:
Demo-2
Crew-1 -SpX
Crew-2 -Spx
CFT
Crew-3 -SpX (because this will be a warm hand-off and Starliner can't be certified until after it lands)
Crew-4 -Boe (Williams, Casada, Epps +1)

[Ronsmytheiii]

The flight order will be, by my reckoning:
Demo-2
Crew-1 -SpX
Crew-2 -Spx
CFT
Crew-3 -SpX (because this will be a warm hand-off and Starliner can't be certified until after it lands)
Crew-4 -Boe (Williams, Casada, Epps +1)

I'd switch Demo-2 (for Boeing) with Crew-1, it will help the crew workload to have extra astronauts on ISS to assist (5 USOS astronauts vs 1 before Crew-1)

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/spaceflightnow/status/1298602979105415170

Boeing says it's “making excellent progress” toward launching a second unpiloted test flight of its Starliner capsule to the space station by the end of this year or in early January, paving the way for the first Starliner crew test flight in mid-2021. spaceflightnow.com/2020/08/25/boe…

Quote from Boeing:

“After a successful OFT-2, Boeing and NASA will fly Starliner’s first crewed mission, the Crew Flight Test, in the summer of 2021, with the first post-certification mission, Starliner-1, tentatively scheduled for the following winter.”

Boeing demo 2 is now NET December, so definitely Crew-1 SpaceX first. Crew-2 SpaceX before Boeing CFT and I guess then SpaceX Crew-3 in 2021 Fall. Boeing Crew-1 currently winter 2021/22 but I could easily see that becoming spring 22 to be about 6 months after SpaceX Crew-3.

[yg1968]

... in which case Crew-2 (Suni Williams' crew) ...

2) As the USCV missions firm up they are assigned to one of the certified commercial crew providers and
    at that point they become Crew-M for a SpaceX assignment or Starliner-M for a Boeing assigned flight.

I thought the Boeing naming system is CTS 1, CTS 2, etc. Don't know what CTS stands for though.

All post-certification Starliner missions are numbered PCM-<n>, and Suni's crew is PCM-1.

<meme>Always has been.</meme>

Incidentally, PCM stands for post-certification mission which is the generic name that was given to these missions in the CCtCap RFP.

[yg1968]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

I agree with Elon, I hate acronyms too. I try to avoid them when ever I can.

[soltasto]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

I agree with Elon, I hate acronyms too. I try to avoid them when ever I can.

Yeah, they are quite unnecessary. Starliner-1, -2... would be just fine.

I came to the conclusion that a lot of times people just try very hard to come up with acronyms just to complicate things up. As an Electronics engineer, VITAL is the perfect example: an acronym that contains two other acronyms (VHDL Initiative Towards ASIC Libraries), and when expanded it spells to 15 words (Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language Initiative Towards Application-Specific Integrated Circuit Libraries). You either have to be insane or sadistic to come up with something like that.

[kdhilliard]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

I agree with Elon, I hate acronyms too. I try to avoid them when ever I can.

Yeah, they are quite unnecessary. Starliner-1, -2... would be just fine.  ...

Now I'm really confused.  I thought Crew-1, Crew-2, etc. weren't SpaceX designations, but were provider-agnostic NASA designations of Commercial Crew Post Certification Missions, ordered by flight date.  Thus it was appropriate to say, "SpaceX will fly Crew-1 and Crew-2, and with news that the first Starliner PCM is NET December 2021, it appears SpaceX will fly Crew-3 as well, with Boeing flying Crew-4."  Is that incorrect?

Where is the official definition of these designations?

Edit: Thanks Jorge!  So it's Boeing: PCM-n, SpaceX: Crew-n, & provider-agnostic NASA designation: USCV-n.

[Jorge]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

I agree with Elon, I hate acronyms too. I try to avoid them when ever I can.

Yeah, they are quite unnecessary. Starliner-1, -2... would be just fine.  ...

Now I'm really confused.  I thought Crew-1, Crew-2, etc. weren't SpaceX designations, but were provider-agnostic NASA designations of Commercial Crew Post Certification Missions, ordered by flight date.  Thus it was appropriate to say, "SpaceX will fly Crew-1 and Crew-2, and with news that the first Starliner PCM is NET December 2021, it appears SpaceX will fly Crew-3 as well, with Boeing flying Crew-4."  Is that incorrect?

It's incorrect. The answer is just one page back in this very thread.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51199.msg2096094#msg2096094

[Jorge]

SpaceX chose simple Demo-1, Demo-2, Crew-1, Crew-2... because Elon hates acronyms. CFT, USCV, CTS are all too confusing.

I agree with Elon, I hate acronyms too. I try to avoid them when ever I can.

Yeah, they are quite unnecessary. Starliner-1, -2... would be just fine.  ...

Now I'm really confused.  I thought Crew-1, Crew-2, etc. weren't SpaceX designations, but were provider-agnostic NASA designations of Commercial Crew Post Certification Missions, ordered by flight date.  Thus it was appropriate to say, "SpaceX will fly Crew-1 and Crew-2, and with news that the first Starliner PCM is NET December 2021, it appears SpaceX will fly Crew-3 as well, with Boeing flying Crew-4."  Is that incorrect?

It's incorrect. The answer is just one page back in this very thread.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51199.msg2096094#msg2096094

Of course, having said all that, I note that in the announcement of Jeanette Epps joining Suni Williams' crew, NASA used the term Starliner-<n> instead of PCM-<n>. Since Boeing's public press release used the same term, it's possible that Starliner-<n> is now the official term for Boeing post-certification missions, at least for public consumption.

[Zed_Noir]

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/future.html
page content dated: September 14th

Future Expeditions
Expedition 64
Launch: Oct. 14, 2020
Land: Spring 2021

SpaceX Crew-1
Launch: NET Oct 23, 2020

SpaceX Crew-2
Launch: Spring 2021

Boeing Orbital Flight Test (OFT) Crewed Flight Test (CFT)
Launch: NET June 2021

Boeing Starliner-1
Launch: NET Dec 2021

The chances that Starliner Crew-1 is ready by December 2021 is not high. Since it appears that the OTF-2 might not fly until January 2021 at the earliest. NASA should not compressed the review processes which is at least 6 months each for OFT-2 and CFT so that Starlliner-1 can fly in 2021. Especially after the OFT-1 mission.