Several little stories going on; here's a couple that caught my eye.
Booster 9 Moved Back to Production Area
After last weekend's static fire test, SpaceX rolled Booster 9 back to the shipyard. There's some debate over exactly why but one side seems to be saying it's because of the four engines that didn't fire or shut down prematurely, or that the whole test apparently went wrong by not running for the intended full five seconds. The other side is saying that it's due to needing to install the hot staging extension for B9. My opinion is they need to do both things and if it's better to do them in the high bay, it's not a question. Just move the booster and get them done.
The hot staging extension is at the Massey's test area to be put on the “Can Crusher,” which can apply vertical forces onto the ring as it would experience during flight. Hot staging is the biggest change to the Starship system in a quite a while and that hardware needs to be proven to the level of everything else.
More work is also being done on the water deluge system and other infrastructure at the launch site. Overnight Wednesday to Thursday, the last of the water tanks for the new deluge system arrived at Boca Chica.
Boeing Confident They Will Complete the Six Starliner Flights NASA has Ordered
I read this more as Boeing being committed to getting Starliner certified for flight and not giving up on the program than just that they're going to make the flights. NASA and Boeing shared the updated launch information in a press briefing on Monday, Aug. 7.
Opening the briefing, Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of the CST-100 Starliner at Boeing, said the teams planned to have the spacecraft ready by early March. “That does not mean we have a launch date in early March, that means that we are ready with the spacecraft then, and we’re now working with the NASA Commercial Crew program, ISS, and ULA [United Launch Alliance] on potential launch dates based on our readiness,” Nappi added.
Starliner has been under development for over ten years. Boeing announced in 2010 that they were going to be manufacturing the Boeing CST-100 under NASA’s Commercial Crew Development Space Act Agreement. At the time, they expected the spacecraft to be operational by 2015. In 2014, NASA selected Boeing and the relatively unknown startup called SpaceX to provide spacecraft to ferry crews and cargo to the ISS. Boeing received $4.2 billion, and SpaceX received $2.6 billion.
Since inking the contract, NASA ordered six flights for Boeing to operate to the ISS. But the ongoing delays on top of the Station’s likely demise from 2030 have put the plan into question. However, in the press briefing, Nappi asserted there is “no reason to change our plans with the six flights, plus CST fits well into the window that we have, and there are additional flights that are available outside of those six with other customers, so I think we are still committed like we have been in the past.”
NASA added that their plan has been to have two different transportation systems to get crews to the space station. Once Boeing is certified, they'll split crew rotation flights with SpaceX, each provider getting one launch per year.
In this artists conceptual drawing, a Starliner, right, approaches an ISS docking port, while a Dragon capsule is docked at another docking port, top left of center. Mack Crawford for NASASpaceflight.com
I am firmly of the opinion that Boeing has exactly two chances of making the 6 flights
ReplyDelete1) slim
2} none.
In other words, I just don't have *any* confidence in Boeing, and ULA and LockMart are lagging more and more for doing what they say they can do when they say they can do. "Can't do" is more likely.
SpaceX is now the Gold Standard, and Starship is going to leave everybody else in the dust, especially where heavy lift is concerned. Even if Starship can only do 75 tons to orbit, that's 75 more tons than BO and 50+ tons more'n ULA and LockMart combined. And a helluva lot more reliable.
Nah, I'm not biased.
At this point, if I was an astronaut, I'd be really wary of Starliner.
ReplyDeleteAnd it looks like Cargo Dreamcatcher will launch before Starliner. Interesting thing is Sierra Nevada Space is still working on a passenger version.
Anything else and I'd just be repeating what Igor said up above me.
RE: SpaceX 'Can Crusher'
ReplyDeleteI understand this device exerts a force onto a mating ring. This test is to simulate forces during flight.
Yet the former would be compressive, the latter (actual flight conditions) would be tension.
If that, then is there a a known relationship (formula, or other) by which one can be accurately estimated by the other?
IOW, by what means can tension be estimated by application of compression?
Nevermind
DeleteI sware, sometimes I really wonder about myself.
I was about to note that the only tension in the Booster/Starship would be the ground controllers sweating a four-engine-out boost to orbit...
DeleteNevermind, though.