Cygnus Berthed at ISS
Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus Spacecraft Docks With Space Station
“The spacecraft was then grappled and berthed with the station by the Expedition 38 astronaut crew earlier this morning. After Cygnus was launched into orbit by Orbital’s Antares(TM) rocket on Thursday, January 9 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, it completed a series of thruster firings and other maneuvers bringing the spacecraft in close proximity to the ISS.”
Well done Orbital. Another great flight and more evidence that private companies can now do what NASA used to do. Now Congress, get your act together and fund Commercial Crew properly so as to end the payments to Russia and provide the service originally envisaged for commercial organisations.
Next up, properly cancel SLS and MPCV and tender fixed price requirements to commercial companies.
100% agree with you. SLS and MPVC are a waste. Private companies will (very) soon have the same (or better) capacity that NASA is spending billions on. Why duplicate what they already have? Spend that money on unmanned probes and pushing humans out past Earth.
Is that actually true? No, no, not starting an argument. I just wonder if a detailed, line by line comparison would show that the FH is better than SLS in every regard?
It’s a serious question and one I imagine already answered, not the least by those in the Senate or House opposed to the program. My research, admittedly limited, has shown no answer. There’s a chart on Wikipedia, not very useful.
On the surface, of course, FH is cheaper. Similarly, Falcon is cheaper than similar rockets.
Cost, though, only provides a ‘first cut’, just as throw weight is a first cut. And rockets being the incredibly complex critters that they are, I wonder whether an in-depth, even-handed discussion exists.
You are right. as it is now, the FH is not a match for the SLS. it has a smaller capacity for launches to LEO, and even less for deep space thanks to its Ker-LOX 2nd stage. it will need a 2nd stage with much better ISP to be able to seriously compete with the ISS for deep-space missions capability.
the primary Benefit of the FH is its cost. you can match the SLS throw weight to LEO with two launches of the FH and those two launches still cost half as much. the argument is for multiple smaller launches and in-orbit assembly rather than a monolithic launch of deep space hardware all at once. multiple parts and in-orbit assembly does increase complexity and cost, but with much cheaper launches, it seems more practicable than it did before SpaceX and FH came along.
only time is going to tell how this will play out in Congress. SpaceX has yet to launch the FH, but when it does and particularly when it starts reusing the first stages of its rockets, things will get dramatic in the space launch industry.
Actually Gwen Shotwell said at that CASAA that it will be closer to 20 tons to geo not 13 tons… but SpaceX is going with all minimums until flight proven.
well, by “deep space” i meant the Moon, Mars, etc. but GTO is definitely important for the commercial launches SpaceX wants to do.
If NASA ( or some other company) staged a fuel depot at the L2 point, you wouldn’t need such a monster rocket since most of your weight is fuel, and that could be pre-staged in orbit to refuel trips to the Moon or Mars. With something like that, you wouldn’t need the SLS 100+ ton launch abilities. I would guess the heavy versions of the Atlas, Delta or Space X launchers could do the trick–at least in a lauch or two.
You still need a monster rocket (or at least one dedicated launch of a heavy-lift rocket) to get the fuel to the fuel depot location. that has always been the problem with the fuel depot idea. the only way it’s practical is with extremely cheap heavy-lift rockets.
it also means your mission needs to stop at the fuel depot, whether it’s in LEO or L2 or Lunar orbit, you have to go there, stop, refuel, and go again. adds to mission complexity, burns more fuel, and increases travel time.
We dock to things all the time (ISS) so that isn’t an issue. The transfer of fluids to has been going on for decades (Russian and USA) so that isn’t really any issue either. I’m thinking you could contract fuel launches out to Orbital and Space X, so NASA only has to worry about planning the missions. Have some type of automatic tug transport the fuel to the depot. Both Fuel and spare parts could be stored that way.
i don’t think docking would be difficult, it’s clearly not impossible. it just adds a stop, which means you are in deep space longer, burns more fuel, and adds a layer of complexity – and therefore cost – to a mission. you also add the cost of at least one launch, just for fuel, to your mission.
and now the cost of designing and building an automated tug, fueling and maintaining that tug, etc.
SLS is going to cost the complete new startup of a launch company EACH YEAR. We are spending 3 billion a YEAR for SLS.orion. SpaceX said they could do a heavy lift for 2.5 billion. I would imagine if NASA put out bids we could fund the start up of another company building them every year.
16,5 BILLION for a disposable water landing capsule and over 1 billion per copy… you do not find that even a little INSANE?
SLS is actually designed to be complex… when congress says “space is hard” that is a code for we are going add so much pork on this and make it so insanely expensive it can only be justified if space is hard.
When congress says space is dangerous, that is another code for we going to pull out all the stops and spend BILLIONS extra on safety so we can justify the extra billions in pork.
Michael you really have to understand congress doesn’t care about space, they care about space pork and to justify the insane pork premium space HAS to be MADE hard and dangerous.
But it’s not just ten percent cheaper. Or fifty percent cheaper. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper (probably more). It’s so cheap it changes every other comparative measure you might make.
For example, to use HugDoug’s objection. FH will have less launch capacity to escape. However, FH will be so cheap that you can buy an entire extra launch, and loft an extra 50 tonne upper-stage. How much does it matter now that’s it’s only kerolox?
So pretending that SpaceX “needs” a higher-Isp second stage to “seriously compete” is a fake comparison. It’s pretending that the two launchers are operating in roughly the same way.
(And with FH, you can double the cost of those two launches, plus the cost of the extra upper-stage, and still walk away with TWO BILLION DOLLARS in change, compared to SLS.)
Saying “oh well, price is just one factor” is completely missing the point that it fundamentally changes the rules of the game.
[To put it in scale: SLS is supposed to fly the first “mission” by 2021. At $2.7b/yr development budget, that’s nearly $19 billion before the single manned flight. For that you could buy over one hundred FH flights plus an additional twenty Dragon/F9 manned launches. Sure that doesn’t include mission hardware, but neither does SLS. And that’s just the next 7 years of SLS’s budget.]
And yes, I know, we’re hijacking yet another post to go on and on about this, but it need seems so hard for some people to get. I used an analogy once before: Imagine you are starting your own freight company. You have one million dollars for vehicles. You can buy a single 70 ton capacity truck. Or you can buy a fleet of ONE HUNDRED 50 ton capacity trucks. Why is there even a discussion?