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NASA is Building "Crew Exploration Vehicle" Again

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 24, 2013
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NASA Solicitation: Crew Exploration Vehicle Cockpit Prototyping Phase Four
“NASA/JSC has a requirement for Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) Cockpit Prototyping Phase 4 research and development (R&D). The objective of the Phase 4 work is to provide human machine interface R&D for defining CEV cockpit layout requirements, displays, and controls rapid prototyping using iterative interaction.”
Keith’s update: “CEV” (Crew Exploration Vehicle) is not a term that has been used for nearly a decade. “CEV” became “Orion” under Constellation. Then Orion went away when NASA cancelled it. Then it quickly came back as “MPCV” which quickly reverted to “MPCV/Orion” and then simply “Orion”. Now we’re back to “CEV”.

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

14 responses to “NASA is Building "Crew Exploration Vehicle" Again”

  1. TheBrett says:
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    Let it never be said that NASA wastes labeling.

  2. Anonymous says:
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    Is this NASA preparing taxpayers for an ISS-less decade in the 20s by re-branding/re-purposing Orion?

  3. Rocky J says:
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    What a mess! What’s in a name? The use of various names is the least of our problems but is indicative of the whole chaotic program going back to 2005 (CxP competition). Very costly to taxpayers and wasted time for NASA.

    Constellation (CxP), Ares, CEV, MPCV/Orion, SLS. I was not on the CxP proposal teams but had affiliation that provided insight. The final competition phase (CxP manned vehicle) was Lockheed Martin vs Northrop-Grumman/Boeing. Word on the street and amongst contractors, was that the Northrop Grumman/Boeing was the favored proposal and was expected to win. Lockheed Martin’s design was initially a reusable spaceplane drawing on X-24/X-33 technology. Late in the competition, Lockheed Martin reverted to a Apollo type capsule versus the NG-Boeing design which was an Apollo type capsule from the start. Upon wining the competition and upon the insistence of NASA, the Lockheed-Martin design for CEV adopted design features of the Northrop-Grumman/Boeing capsule and service module.

    Today, putting aside the Dragon capsule, there is the MPCV/Orion capsule and the CST-100 (Boeing/Bigelow). Both these designs have heritage going back to the Northrop-Grumman/Boeing bid for Constellation (CEV). As it is said, history is written by the winners, Orion and CST-100 are really tied to the Constellation bid by Northrop Grumman/Boeing but, by surprise, was given to L-M. I do not know the details of the final decision and it would be great to hear a recounting of the decision here by someone involved. It seemed to me that part of the decision involved a balance of resources & contracts between the two major NASA & DOD contractors – over-simplification, but there was certainly more politics involved and not a matter of preferred or best engineering design.

    The Space Shuttle design was compromised by the Air Force requirement to lift heavy loads to LEO and the NASA goal of reusability and lower of cost; the shrinking NASA budget beginning in the late 60s also impacted design. Since 2005, limited funding of CxP and SLS/Orion has forced design changes, pushed milestones out and completion now closing in on 2020. While Orion is called Multi-Purpose Crewed Vehicle, its design is only good for short excursions within the Earth-Moon environment, e.g. circum-lunar orbits, visiting the Lagrange points or visiting a small captured asteroid – 7 to 14 day trips. Beyond the Moon, astronauts will need a habitat module which there are concepts and technology based on ISS but no clear plans.

    So with Orion, after all the chaos in the programs including halting CxP, restarting in the form of SLS/Orion, we do not have a multi-purpose vehicle. SLS/Orion is much like Space Shuttle – a single design meant to reduce the cost of lifting heavy payload (manned or unmanned) to LEO, to be safer than Shuttle and meant to carry both humans and heavy cargo in a single launch.

    Orion is essentially a launch and re-entry vehicle in which astronauts can tough it out for a few days journey in the near-Earth environment. It is not at all a true multi-purpose vehicle. It requires varied service modules but there is no plan to link pressurized service modules to the Orion capsule. A separate module will be required for longer duration flights. From what I have read, I believe Orion is over-built (and too costly) and the CST-100 or Dragon would amply serve the purpose of launch/re-entry and transfer of crew to living quarters for long duration flights which we are trying to do – go beyond low-Earth orbit.

    With CST-100 (Boeing) and Dragon (SpaceX), there are two capsules with designs driven without the bureaucracy and complexity of NASA management. It appears that both will fly before Orion and they do what a capsule should only need to do – launch & re-entry.

    • rktsci says:
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      A few corrections.

      “Late in the competition, Lockheed Martin reverted to a Apollo type capsule versus the NG-Boeing design which was an Apollo type capsule from the start.”

      The LM change to an Apollo capsule was not late. And it was, in fact, mandated by NASA.

      “the Lockheed-Martin design for CEV adopted design features of the Northrop-Grumman/Boeing capsule and service module.”

      Um, no. There was no tech transfer or design transfer from the N-G/Boeing team to LM. Any such transfer would have been a violation of the FARs and appropriation of their IP.
      Again, some of the design features were mandated by NASA. The docking mechanism, the capsule shape, and capsule size were part of the NASA spec. The docking mechanism was to be designed by NASA and provided by them. The capsule shape was the Apollo shape and was mandated because there was quite a bit of performance data on it from Apollo, particularly the hypersonic data.

      I don’t know anything about the CST-100 or Dragon designs besides what is in the press, but there are a couple of design requirements that neither of those have had imposed on them. First, entry from a lunar transfer orbit which requires a much more robust heat shield. Second, autonomous operation for 6 months in low lunar orbit. (CST or Dragon may be able to meet those requirements, I just don’t know,)

      Criticizing Orion for needing a hab module for long duration missions is disingenuous. Both CST-100 and Dragon would need one also. (Now, the fact that NASA has no money for one is another problem.)

      Also, it’s well-known in the community that Orion could get to orbit on the heavy variants of Atlas, Delta, or Falcon.

      • Rocky J says:
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        I don’t mind being corrected. I was a bystander with contacts and working outside of the manned program. But first, I hear you but not fully convinced. Perhaps Keith or a contact via Keith could clear the air. You state “a violation of the FARs and appropriation of their IP”. The bids from these competitors become the property of the US government. While they may not be able to take technical innovations, there are design aspects that they can take effectively from one bid’s design and require in the final design of the craft, post award. The two designs had unique features which could be taken because they are features that are old, known and/or proven, that can’t be declared IP. NASA is in charge and wants the design of their choosing and can borrow but I agree with limitations.

        The competition was a phased one and I think, if I recall correctly, that this revealed the L-M and NG/Boeing designs to the public as well as NASA. Griffin and NASA chucked the L-M spaceplane idea and called for a vertical stack & apollo type capsule. (The timing stands corrected) That’s what NG/Boeing already had in their bid. But despite this NASA liked the lifecycle, cost and management plan of L-M more than NG/Boeing’s. A final design that took the best design aspects of both competitors is what we have now and now driven by the tried and true, well oiled NASA management and development methods. 😉

        No I do not think disingenuous. They are all capsules for sure but my emphasis is that Orion is not a multi-purpose vessel. It has Near-Earth capability and with modification could be used as a re-entry vehicle from Mars or more distant asteroids. It needs a habitat module to make it multi-purpose. If you call the Orion capsule multi-purpose, then you could call all these capsules the same.

        • rktsci says:
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          I worked the LM side of Orion from the late phases of the competition, starting before the cut to two bidders. LM had a number of ideas – including a capsule- in early phases, but the spaceplane was the most mature. After the cut, both teams were given a requirements list that ordered use of an Apollo capsule shape, set max base diameter, and a few other requirements.

          During proposal and after award, we never saw any documents from the other teams. None. NASA would have had to have gotten the other teams to agree to let us see them. During the bid process every piece of paper or electronic delivery we sent to NASA was marked as proprietary, competition sensitive and SBU. Most was also ITAR restricted. NASA has rights to most, but not all of the current design. The exceptions are well-documented and agreed to, and involve proprietary IP of the contractor team.

          The post-award requirements from NASA had nothing that I could see that were inspired by any other design. They were pretty clean of specific design solutions, except for the items I’ve cited above and the interfaces to ISS, Altair, and The Stick.

          It was “multi-purpose” because there were to be 4 missions: transfer 6 crew to ISS, act as ISS lifeboat, deliver cargo to ISS, go to the Moon/Mars/etc with 4 crew. The first 3 are no longer Orion missions.

          • Rocky J says:
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            This helps. Thanks. Knowing Proprietary/ITAR/SBU, yes – NASA could never hand over one competitor’s docs to another during or after but they could draw on ideas from bids to refine their requirements. What I may be recalling from conversations is that NG/Boeing had a vertical stack capsule design from the start and when the competition was trimmed to just two, as you state, the requirements were revised and specified a capsule vertical stack design that closely resembled the Northrop Grumman/Boeing proposal. As you mentioned, the specifications were not detailed but as you state it was late in the competition. From NG/Boeing point of view, it bode well that they were on the right track from the beginning. While all these corporations maintain cores of excellent proposal writers and draw on experts too, Lockheed-Martin has had much more experience writing proposals for NASA contracts compared to Northrop Grumman. Boeing should have been an Ace giving them more recent experience with NASA contracts.

  4. Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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    What can Orion do that Dragon and CST-100 cannot do?
    Remote control a lander? Act as a control room for the habitat and motors?

    • John Thomas says:
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      Orion is supposed to be designed to operate beyond low earth orbit in deep space. The main effects would be higher reliability in control and life support systems and a better thermal control system.

      It also would be crew controllable. Dragon may now be but initially it was going to be controlled from the ground.

      • Andrew_M_Swallow says:
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        Those are significant advantages over the CST-100 but sound only minor technical advantages over the Dragon. For this sort of money the Orion needs equally big advantages.

    • pilgrim101 says:
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      Orion and CST-100 are shaped for the re-entry heating that would be exper. in high speed return from lunar or deep space missions. Dragon would need to have a aero braking or skip profile.

  5. Joe Cooper says:
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    It feels like they’re on a massive, multi-billion dollar mission to disprove the “sunk cost fallacy”.