Back in Monday's piece on how the Russia-Ukraine war would affect space businesses and operations, an example I referred to was Dmitry Rogozin's response saying that without Russia how could we prevent the International Space Station from de-orbiting in an unplanned way? For the benefit of those readers coming to this post in the months or years from now, I'll include a little.
With regard to ISS de-orbiting, what he said was.
Which sounds a lot like he thinks the US is incapable of supplying a rocket that could correct the slow decay of the ISS' orbit, and thinks his modules that are docked to the ISS are indispensable."If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from an unguided de-orbit to impact on the territory of the US or Europe?" Rogozin asked. "There's also the chance of impact of the 500-ton construction in India or China. Do you want to threaten them with such a prospect? The ISS doesn't fly over Russia, so all the risk is yours. Are you ready for it?"
As commenter Beans said almost immediately,
Musk and SpaceX have already said the current version of Dragon can be used for attitude and altitude correction.
Musk answered Rogozin's tweets directly on Twitter. To the question "... who will save the ISS from an unguided de-orbit...?" Musk responded simply:
It turns out it's even better than that, and the story needs a little explanation. When they refer to "the
current version of Dragon," they mean both the Crew and Cargo implementations
of Dragon spacecraft.
NASA signed its first major contract with SpaceX in 2008, awarding the company $1.6 billion (and up to $3.5 billion) to launch a dozen Cargo Dragon supply missions to the ISS. Aside from effectively pulling SpaceX back from the brink of dissolution, those funds also covered a large portion of the development of its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft and simultaneously funded Orbital Science’s (later Orbital ATK and now Northrop Grumman) Cygnus cargo spacecraft and Antares rocket.
...
Out of sheer coincidence, on February 19th, mere days before Russia’s act of war, Northrop Grumman launched the first Cygnus spacecraft designed to help ‘re-boost’ (raise the orbit of) the International Space Station.
Consequently, we have three options that are capable of maintaining the ISS in its desired orbit: Cygnus, Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon. All American. That next generation Cygnus is currently docked on the ISS, but I believe only one Dragon, a Crew version, is at the station now.
This rendering, created and Tweeted by NASASpaceflight.com shows the ISS with three Dragons docked to it. The one at the upper right is in place of the Russian Zvezda module.
A potential gotcha here is that the Cygnus module is affected by a law passed by congress after Russia's 2014 taking of the Crimea. That law mandated American launch providers can no longer buy Russian rocket engines. That law is the reason that ULA is no longer selling Atlas V launches and retires "sometime in the mid-2020s" - when ULA's stock of Russian RD-180 engines is used up. Cygnus' Antares booster uses a similar engine: the Energomash RD-181.
We don't know how many engines Northrup Grumman has for their Antares rockets or their long range plans. We don't know when Boeing's Starliner capsule is going to fly and if it has the same capabilities as the Dragon. Boeing could conceivably be the third American capsule that could reposition the ISS.
It's also getting to be time for the European Space Agency to decide if they hire SpaceX to launch their Galileo satellites and other payloads they had used the Soyuz for.
The Angry Astronaut had a very good rant regarding Starliner and Dragon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2GBma3PmRs
ReplyDeleteSeems the current version of Dragon really isn't optimized for ISS altitude and attitude adjustment due to the arrangements of the thrusters. It will need a redesign of the trunk. But since SpaceX is a master of fast prototyping and manufacture, it shouldn't be a problem. But even as fast as SpaceX moves, that's 3-6 months (or significantly more if NASA gets involved) down the road.
Cygnus, as you pointed out, is perfect for this. But that relies on, as you pointed out, Russian tech. Which has now become a no-go situation.
Then there's... Sierra Nevada's Dreamchaser and it's service module, which are designed for altitude and attitude adjustment of the ISS. But... NASA has cut the legs out from under SN for a long time as they support Boeing and Lock-Mart over upstarts. And then there's that pesky reliance on Russian tech, or even worse, on Blue Origin's BE4 and ULA's Vulcan.
Russia has been holding the ISS over all our heads for far too long. We've been keeping Roscosmos and the Russians in business when we should have let them rise or fall on their own.
Now... there's the other international prospects. JAXA (Japan's NASA) has the launch capacity (barely) and delivery vehicles equivalent (somewhat) to Cygnus, but can they do it in time?
Europe has nothing, as they've been relying on the Russians also.
But India? They have launch capability, maybe not as great as most people do, but they could conceivably launch a purpose-built vehicle just for maneuvering. Though the issue there is they've never launched anything that's been attached to the ISS before (whereas Japan has.)
And then there are the... ChiComs. Those slimy bastard. They have the lift, the vehicles already, basically a better (supposedly) version of Progress/Soyuz and have been doing a (unfortunately) good job of servicing and maintaining their current space station. And they are opportunistic bastards.
I don't trust the Russians to not shut down their portions of the ISS and withdraw their Progress and Soyuz vehicles.
And I don't trust the ChiComs to not screw anybody over if they offer to help. Just look at what they've done to so many small countries over mineral rights and One Road.
Right now would be a perfect time for Starship, but NASA and the FAA have been slow-rolling SpaceX for soooo long. I guess SpaceX isn't greasing Bill Nelson's palms enough.
Excellent summary, Beans.
DeleteOne of the things that stands out to me was that when Russia was preparing to launch their Nauka module last summer there was talk that they were planning to abandon ISS in favor of launching their own space station by '25. Accompanied by talk that it was all bluster to get the US to keep funding Roscosmos. Since Crew Dragon came on the scene, NASA payments to Roscosmos were drying up and that's what was keeping them going.
It's hard to imagine the even Bill Nelson would be stupid enough to push a deal with China, but maybe my imagination isn't good enough. When you ask "what's the worst that could happen" to Bill, I end up thinking that since he's one of the Elites, any real punishment is out of the question. Which says the worst is that he gets fired and loses his pension but if he gets a big pile of money out of China, so what?
The pretty much leaves JAXA, and India (in that order) as potential "partners". Behind SpaceX, which has to be the leader by default and track record.
I don't completely understand the apparent bad blood between the administration and SpaceX, but there's a couple of obvious stories that come to mind. First is the reason that when Brandon invited "Electric Vehicle manufacturers" to the White House and snubbed Tesla, the commonality is everyone they invited is unionized. The heads of the companies they invited are already pretty much in their pockets. Second is the Commie-leftist hate for anyone richer than they are, as evidenced by the attack Fauxcahontas carried out on Elon over unfair taxes and his responses to her.
Bad blood is due to lack of Payola to the power-elite, and SpaceX resisting the Legacy Aerospace pattern of a 5 year study to create a 10 year plan for something to launch 20 years down the way.
DeleteAnd as you pointed out, SpaceX is rabidly anti-union. Musk wants the ability to say "You are doing good, you're promoted" and "You're a poophead, don't let the door hit you on your arse on the way out."
Then there's the whole Justice Department lawsuit over Musk not hiring minorities from other countries. And Musk pointing out that there are arms restrictions that don't allow him to hire people from other countries, that whole ITAR thingymabob and other stuffs.
They hate Musk because he attacks their cash machine, he makes profit in an unprofitable world, he moves too fast and he points out when he does the right thing. He's very Trumpian in that respect.
As to Russia pulling out of the ISS, let them. Their equipment has been shoddy and outright dangerous to any and all. How much fuel was expended in repositioning and aligning the ISS when Russky equipment failed, twice, and pushed the ISS out and around?
DeleteYeah... Seriously,
Yeah, seriously, empty threat. They need us far more than we need them.
DeleteNow if only Bozos would get his BE4 up and running...