Friday afternoon, NASA announced the downsized crew for the Crew-9 Mission to the ISS, a necessity brought on by flying the Starliner home autonomously and having Starliner Astronauts move to the Crew-9 vehicle to come home.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague will serve as the mission's commander, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will serve as mission specialist. Instead of a usual complement of four astronauts, a two-person crew was necessitated by the need to use the Crew 9 spacecraft, Freedom, as a rescue vehicle for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. They flew to the station in June aboard Boeing's Starliner vehicle, which has been deemed unsafe for them to return in.
Mission Commander Zena Cardman and Mission Specialist Stephanie Wilson will be reassigned to some unnamed future mission.
At the time, the naming of Cardman was significant—she would have been the first rookie astronaut without test pilot experience to command a NASA spaceflight. A 36-year-old geobiologist, Cardman joined NASA in 2017 and is well-regarded by her peers. The assignment of a rookie, non-test pilot to command the Crew-9 mission reflected NASA's confidence in the self-flying capabilities of Dragon, which is intended to reach the station autonomously. The assignment was made by then-chief astronaut Reid Wiseman in 2022, and the Astronaut Office was confident that Cardman, with an experienced hand in Hague at her side, could command the mission.
The source article notes that there was some division in the astronaut office, with a side that wanted Cardman to remain in the mission while others thought a more experienced astronaut would be safer than a "rookie, non-test pilot" and the last thing they need is another problem to explain now. Hague, after all, is an Air Force-trained test pilot, survived a harrowing Soyuz mission abort in 2018, and then flew to space for more than six months in 2019. He simply has much more experience than Cardman.
The Crew-9 flying up in September will be "the two doods" in the middle - Stephanie Wilson (L) and Zena Cardman (R) will be helping as much as they can for as long as they're needed.
Final words to Zena Cardman:
There was also a classy quote in the news release from Cardman, who revealed Friday that her father, Larry Cardman, passed away three weeks ago. “I am deeply proud of our entire crew,” she said. "And I am confident Nick and Alex will step into their roles with excellence. All four of us remain dedicated to the success of this mission, and Stephanie and I look forward to flying when the time is right."
I've got to hope she doesn't have to wait too long for that next mission.
FAA Says Falcon 9 May Return to Flight
But they really want to see that failure analysis.
The FAA announced this evening (August 30, Eastern) that Falcon 9 may resume
flying. No particular reason is cited in the article. Maybe someone with sense
realized how stupid and corrupt the agency appeared for citing safety when the
autonomously-flying rocket wasn't within miles of any people and hundreds of
miles from land. The only people within a few hundred miles were the trained
crew that are stationed in a ship a few miles from the landing drone, and then
drive over to it to aid in securing the rocket and drone for transport. The
rocket landed on a recovery drone that's tiny compared to the hundreds of
miles of open ocean the booster crosses to reach it, so navigation was fine. It's
hard to imagine how this was more dangerous than any other country or company
dropping a booster in the Atlantic.
The grounding lasted less than two days.
NextSpaceflight.com has been showing Starlink launches early Saturday morning (ET) from Vandenberg, early Sunday morning from Cape Canaveral, and Polaris Dawn early Monday morning at the same 3:38 AM time they've been focused on.
It would have been cool if they launched all 4 and came back with 6, but maybe the ISS is a little cramped and short of supply thanks to the 2 Stayliner crewmembers deadheading for so long and longer.
ReplyDeleteAs to the Falcon 9 in question, still lasted a lot longer than any of NASA's one-and-done launches. The FAA just can't seem to get the point that reusable rockets with a proven track record are quite different than one-and-dones and supposedly reusable rockets that aren't, so far, actually reusable.
I wonder which of the feckless twits in Congress is causing the FAA to do this, or is it just the feckless bureaucrats within the FAA?
I think the issue is that something that was expected to work did not work. Clearly, there was a malfunction that caused a mishap. It is the FAA's responsibility to oversee this. It's good that they exercised their authority and then quickly got out of the way. Spacex is doing a lot of things right, including candid communication, and the FAA seems to be rewarding that.
DeleteI may be 5 sigma, as in "nowhere near normal" but I don't see why the FAA should be involved at all. The closest Falcon 9s ever get to people after launch is if they land on the Cape, and like launches, the area where they will be is evacuated with a fall back zone measured as miles in diameter.
DeleteThe chances of an F9 hurting people or damaging things has virtually nothing to do with the kind of malfunction that happened on B1062. It would have to be a total failure of the onboard navigational system and that was demonstrably fine. It landed close to the middle of the "bulls eye" on the drone ship. Their accuracy at landing is, frankly, amazing.
The grounding was purely bureaucratic.
DeleteThe flow chart dictated the stand down. The breaker was reset, signed off, stand down was cleared.
FAA has no business in space ops. It is mission creep writ extraordinarily large. Maybe I'll look see when and where the agency charter was amended, and by whom.
The truly stupid part is all involved in issuing the grounding will beam with pride that they did their job. Bureaucrats performed flawlessly.
DeleteAs expected with fedgov, the answer is convoluted.
DeleteIt begins with Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 of limited scope.
Duties transfered to FAA in 1995.
Authority to regulate what seems to be every facet of launch, reentry, landing, and recovery came from within the FAA.
... 'probable intent' ... of Congress, due to regulation moratorium still in effect, is guiding principal for authority to establish regulations beyond the 1984 Act.
It appears, in lieu of action by Congress, FAA has assigned to itself increasing authority. Most anyone who knows the the workings of the FAA would not be surprised.
(Darn tootin I'm biased against FAA. Because of their actions.)
See, Title 51 USC 509 Commercial Space Launch Activities
See also, ATO SpCDM
I wonder if the recent SCOTUS decision in Chevron would provide a way for Elon, and others, to lessen the hold of the FAA monkey on his back.
DeleteIt seems like it. If I understand Chevron, it was that laws are to be made by congress, not federal agencies. I'm absolutely no lawyer, but I read it online so it must be true.
DeleteSiG, regarding SpaceX's accuracy, there's a major reason right there why the US won't allow SpaceX, right now, to launch or land outside the control of the US government. ITAR and all that jazz, dontchaknow.
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