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Commercialization

SpaceX Flight to ISS Approved

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
April 16, 2012
Filed under , , , ,

Coverage Set for NASA/SpaceX Launch and Mission to Space Station
“Following the completion of NASA’s flight readiness review, the second SpaceX demonstration launch for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program is scheduled for Monday, April 30. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon capsule will liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. There is a single instantaneous launch opportunity at 12:22 p.m. EDT.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

33 responses to “SpaceX Flight to ISS Approved”

  1. no one of consequence says:
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    Its a conditional approval based on TBD simulations. Clearly the software is still an issue. Unsurprisingly.

    • chriswilson68 says:
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      The SpaceRef article linked to here doesn’t mention anything about the approval being conditional.  Is there another source with more detailed information that you got that from?

      • no one of consequence says:
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        Listened to the press conference following the FRR.

        Gerstenmaier: “Test reports to come from the software testing. Testing with the actual vehicle in Florida. NASA will look at those results too.No formal review, but on the 23rd they’ll hear how the testing went. Final week includes the firing. One more SpaceX FRR style review.

        Today we had enough assurance to head towards the 30th, but we’re not completely there. We still reserve the right to look at the testing results.

        He’s not embarrassing them by being explicit.

        My read is that NASA knows they have too many false aborts left in the software, and that the issue is prop consumption on abort leading to too few tries.

        Thus NASA is doing its job by leaning hard on SpaceX to get better performance out of the sims prior to launch, such that the likelyhood of meeting the prop budget is best.

        Something to note is that of the cargo vehicles, Dragon has the most powerful thrusters, thus ones where the costs of using them is highest. This design decision, like others, relies on software control for efficiency – something that improves over time as the statistical model is refined (e.g. times at bat).

        The alternative is more thrusters (fine and coarse – duplicating systems) or just small thrusters (lower capability – acceptable for ATV/HTV/Cygnus, they aren’t intended for as broad a set of roles as Dragon is).

        This again is not a flaw but a correct design choice.

        But it makes the software more difficult and the early flights more challenging.

  2. chriswilson68 says:
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    Does anyone know why there’s only a single, instantaneous launch window?  Or what the next launch window would be if there’s a scrub for some reason?

    • John Thomas says:
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       Either they can’t or don’t want to do a dog-leg to match up with the ISS orbital plane. The Delta 2 did that for GPS launches. They were very reliable so they usually got off on the first attempt. If the hardware can do it, I would think it’s a cost trade off between the expenses of planning and analyzing the dog-leg versus the likelihood and cost of a scrub turn-around. Unmanned missions are cheaper.

      CBS reported that the next attempt would be May 3 I think. Don’t know why it’s that late.

      • James Lundblad says:
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        In the press conference they said they are trying to save fuel for contingencies. Elon Musk seemed to agree flying in space is not easy. Sounds like they are doing a lot of testing.

        • no one of consequence says:
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           they are trying to save fuel
          When you abort an R bar, you go all the way out, all the way around, and … start over.

          So if you trip on a out of bounds condition, you use up a considerable amount of prop budget.

          Its not like you make a recovery correction and continue on the same approach from where you “erred”. Thus you need to have a bounding box / centroid well within the abort box / centroid, where the corrections can’t exceed excursions to the larger.

          Aborts really hurt.

          The larger the thruster, the more the variance due to the chaos of combustion processes. Control systems are very … exciting to “adjust the seasoning” on.

          • James Lundblad says:
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            I can’t wait for this mission, and I hope they do some kind of SpaceX documentary at some point like an edition of NOVA. I really like what was done with the JPL documentaries on the Mars rovers. Would be great to see how it all came together from the engineering point of view. The sole of a new rocket.

      • dogstar29 says:
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        For GPS from KSC the dogleg is a full 28.5 degrees to an equatorial orbit, but it takes less energy because it is done at apogee where velocity is much lower.

    • Joe Pascucci says:
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      The in-plane time is the most efficient time to launch.  As you move away from in-plane you are eating into performance to be able to steer to the correct orbit plane.  If memory serves, the in-plane time shifts about 23 minutes earlier every day.

    • John Keller says:
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      This question was addressed during the press conference.  Basically, this launch time and the one on May 3rd will use the least amount of maneuvering fuel.  By having more fuel the vehicle can tested more thoroughly, or if  the engine don’t performance as expected they can still make it, etc.  Elon Musk emphasized that this is still a test flight.

  3. Monroe2020 says:
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    The Russians say no.

  4. Saturn1300 says:
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    Dragon will approach side on,not nose first.Elon said crew is now delayed a year to ’15.Scrubs have many factors.Like other launches.Because it’s new. After May 3,there will not be another window until the end of May.April 30 is the dry season in Fl.May 30,the showers are starting to pick up.The launch time should be dry.Unless a front is coming thru,of course.Winds are same as Shuttle.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
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      Saturn13,

      If the delays go on for too long, maybe we’ll see them launching from their own space port in Texas instead of trying to book a slot in Florida.  Clearly USAF launches are given priority over commercial launches in Florida.

      Steve

      • NonPublius says:
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        From SpacePolicyOnline: “These cargo flights do not carry anyone aboard, but SpaceX hopes to evolve Dragon into a vehicle capable of carrying crew.   When pressed today, Musk ventured that a flight with a crew might be possible in about three years if this demonstration flight succeeds.”   Did Elon say crew was delayed to 2015 because of range scheduling constraints?  I didn’t get that from any of the stories I read.  

        • John Thomas says:
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          He was saying 3 years ago several years ago. Presumably it was because of the launch abort system. Now that he has NASA money to develop that, he’s still saying 3 years. As I’ve mentioned before, I’d say they won’t have a crew capability until 2017 to 2020.

      • Saturn1300 says:
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        Elon said he might do that if Fl. got to loaded up.He said he is still looking at a Shuttle launch pad.Also Brownsville had been supportive.There is no hurry to get this launch off.It will free up people to work on CC.I am disappointed to see he now says ’15 or the last of 14′.If ’14 if they do what they normally do,they will bring in a part on Dec.31.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      Shuttle was more often constrained by SLF crosswinds for possible RTLS, which are not a factor for SpaceX.

  5. tutiger87 says:
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    No yaw steering to help make the launch window bigger? We’re going to miss that DEL_PSI ability….

    ‘Sup Joe?

  6. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    Maybe if Falcon 9’s second stage had  a stronger more versatile engine complement( two Merlin engines plus fuel and steering) , it could be somewhat more flexible for launch times. But at most the window would only be few minutes long. The Shuttle had the ability to ” yaw” the orbit and could launch in a 10-minute window to make plane, 5 minutes either side of zero plane. The Soyuz crew and freighters have always used instantaneous windows . I’m guessing that Ariane V  and the Japanese H2 are also instantaneously constrained when launching cargo ships…dunno. Orbital plane changes require a heckuva lot of torquing of Earth’s angular momentum…

    The primary reason the follow-on launch window is a month later is the Cape Canaveral Eastern Test Range is booked up with other launches, such as the Atlas V only five days later, and there’s a several day turnaround time required between each launch to reset the tracking radars, etc. This is an Air Force thing, not a NASA or SpaceX constraint.

    • dogstar29 says:
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      To my knowledge the Shuttle never had a window greater than five minutes _total_ for an STS launch, not five minutes on either side of the in-plane time. On one occasion a launch was scrubbed at the last moment because it was less than a second out of the window. In retrospect there was obviously sufficient margin to have made the rendezvous, but that was the policy.

      Regarding the long turnaround for switching the range from on launch vehicle to another, which would take only a few minutes with up-to-date but off-the-shelf technology, here has been talk of “modernizing the range” for at least twenty years and not much has changed. Part of the difficulty is that it isn’t clear that the DOD or the range contractors have any real incentive to do so.

      • chriswilson68 says:
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        Well, that’s another reason for SpaceX to build their own launch site in Texas.

        • John Thomas says:
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           Not necessarily. If tracking radars or destruct transmitters are required, then SpaceX would have to pay entirely for it instead of sharing the costs.

          • Steve Whitfield says:
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            True enough, but thinking longer term, being a low priority in Florida and continually being bumped could end up costing them a lot more once they’ve got regular launches for paying customers.  As launch volume increases, contracts are bound to change in terms of how scrubs/delays are handled, perhaps with penalty clauses.  I also foresee facilities and insurance costs increasing with launch delays.

            In SpaceX’s shoes I would certainly go for broke and put money into my own port in Texas whenever I could; the sooner, the better.

  7. Saturn1300 says:
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     NASA.gov/commercial has some nice images of DragonRider with a seven person crew in their seats.An article on that and they had a Astronaut at the Cape go inside to check it out and talk with controllers while doing so.
     Dream Chaser has been drop testing F-5E landing gear.

  8. John Gardi says:
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    Folks:

    I don’t blame Elon Musk guessing at crewed Dragon flights in three years. It’s a safe bet when you’re dealing with an unflattering press, an impatient public and unsupportive lawmakers (read: cheque signers). Especially when Spacex can probably get the job done in half that time.

    What would be the minimum it would take to safely fly crew on Dragon?

    – Super Draco thrusters are in their initial testing phase. Basically it’s the same type of motor that got us safely off the Moon half a dozen times.

    – Flight controls. Basically a ‘user interface’ extension of the existing Dragon flight software (which will probably be third generation by that time).

    – Docking software and hardware. Well understood technology.

    – Life support systems. Come on, we’ve been at this for fifty years! How hard could it be?

    … and that’s it! Forget about vertical powered landing for now and use the parachutes. Put a couple of tablets aboard Dragon and run the ship through WI-FI (Just kidding, but you know what I mean. Keep it simple, serviceable and off the shelf components wherever possible). Use the same docking hardware and ports on the ISS that the shuttle used.

    If Spacex just adapted the docking hardware and minimal life support system for Dragon they’d have all the ingredients of the X-38 lifeboat canceled by NASA years ago.

    Spacex has a lot of options for incremental testing. Not only will their spacecraft be safer the anything NASA ever built, their testing program
    will be a lot more cautious than the ‘damn the torpedoes’, ‘man in the loop’ and ‘please the politicians’ conditions forced upon NASA by circumstance.

    tinker

    • no one of consequence says:
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       … and flight control software for lower CG LAS (unlike dumb high overhead solids with passive control),  qualification flights for low/high/maxq aborts,  ECLSS qualification, full-up unmanned test.

      These are the big ticket / long pole issues.

      Other issues – prox ops qualfication for docking, plume impingement studies for docking, crew training/simulator for docking.

      • John Gardi says:
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         no one of consequence:

        The center of gravity is pretty low on Dragon. Eighty percent of Dragons’ mass will be below the LAS nozzles in crew mode, which is where you need such. The software will be tough, sure, but Dragon may be more stable during launch abort then you think.

        tinker

        • no one of consequence says:
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           NASA doesn’t work that way.  More by instinct/experience, that you go with a jettisoned, passive stability tower … because of the law of unintended consequences. They fear it’ll flip.

          My comment was entirely NASA perspective.
          Not my engineer’s guidance or pilot’s instinct.

  9. no one of consequence says:
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    Monday  April 23rd is when Gerstenmaier said they’d look at the sim results.
    It’s about here. What are they? What about the “one more FRR” before launch?