NASA Delays First Crewed Orion Flight By Two Years
Smith Condemns Administration’s Space Exploration Delays
“NASA announced today that its schedule for the first crewed mission of SLS and Orion will slip to 2023; this represents a two year slip from previous plans for the first mission by 2021. The agency announced similar delays last fall. Smith has repeatedly criticized the Obama administration for failure to request adequate funding for Orion and the Space Launch System; the administration’s FY16 budget request proposed cuts of more than $440 million for the programs.”
OIG Report on SLS/Orion Ground Systems, earlier post
“NASA management noted a risk that the dates planned for SLS and Orion could slip and the GSDO review occur first. Accordingly, NASA should closely monitor the Programs to ensure any such risk is mitigated so as to avoid significant cost increases or schedule delays.”
GAO Sees Through NASA’s SLS/Orion Smoke and Mirrors, earlier post
“The Orion estimate does not include costs for production, operations, or sustainment of additional crew capsules, despite plans to use and possibly enhance this capsule after 2021. It also does not include $4.7 billion in prior costs incurred during the approximately 4 years when Orion was being developed as part of NASA’s now-defunct Constellation program.”
SLS Has Problems That Money Alone Will Not Fix, earlier post
“In addition, our ongoing work has found that the three human exploration programs are pursuing inconsistent and unrealistic schedule goals and that the Orion program is facing significant technical and funding issues that may affect NASA’s overall schedule for its human exploration programs.”
Congress and GAO Have Doubts About SLS Costs, earlier post
“According to the program’s risk analysis, however, the agency’s current funding plan for SLS may be $400 million short of what the program needs to launch by 2017. … “Moreover, NASA’s estimates do not capture the cost of the second flight of the 70-metric ton vehicle during EM-2, the costs of development work that will be necessary to fly the increased 105- and 130-metric ton SLS capabilities, and the costs associated with legacy hardware that will be used for the Orion program.”
Empty Promises On NASA’s Road to Mars, earlier post
“Now Charlie Bolden seems to derive a certain amount of happiness by saying “we are no longer 20 years away from Mars”. What he is really saying is “Hooray – we now suck less at NASA”.
Negative Progress Towards Putting Humans on Mars, earlier post
With latest SLS/Orion slip #NASA is making negative progress on #JourneyToMars – FYI Charlie Bolden Mars is now more than 20 yrs away again
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) September 16, 2015
That sucks, but as long as the hardware is available by the mid-2020s for the next program after the end of ISS we’ll be okay. It’s not like we’re going anywhere else with people until then anyways.
Yeah, the fact that the U.S. of A. cannot launch anyone into space for 12+ years is really no big deal at all. #romanempire
SLS isn’t our only potential way to put people into space. There’s SpaceX.
and Boeing.
Great, we now have 1 govt. agency and 2 commercial companies that won’t launch Americans into space for possibly a decade or longer.
CST-100 and Dragon will be sending people into space in 2017/2018.
I wish!..but it’s hard to imagine any U.S. astronaut launching from the U.S. before this decade is out.
There is a very good chance that one, or both, of the Commercial crew vehicles will fly a U.S. Astronaut into space before the decade is out. There is an increasingly unlikely chance that SLS/Orion will do the same.
That’s an unusual statement, given that all the evidence is to the contrary. Both Boeing and SpaceX should have their spacecraft test flown by 2017 and have put people into space by 2018. About the only thing that could prevent that is outright cancellation of the Commercial Crew program, and SpaceX has said they will keep working on the Crew Dragon even if that happens, so they could still be launching people into space well before the decade is out.
I hope you’re right. Are NASA astronauts (or anyone else) currently being trained to ride on SpaceX and Boeing rockets?
Yes. NASA has selected four of them. they will be trained on both for a year or so, they will be assigned to one or the other.
http://www.collectspace.com…
RED DRAGON V2 should be picking rocks up on Mars about 2022 unless SLS people crush that future too
https://www.flickr.com/phot…
Getting mars samples and demonstrating a practical mars landing technology.
Provide a link that shows where commercial services will not be available until 2025?
and Blue Origins
True enough. I wonder if they have to delay till 2023 they might throw in another SLS flight in 2021-2022 with Europa Clipper or some other payload to test the EUS.
I believe the current, Congressional authorization requires the Europa.mission to launch on SLS, and to do so no later than 2022. I think that would.mean three SLS launches in five years.
Congress authorizes things all the time that never get funded or fully funded in appropriations. Multi-billion dollar space missions are an example. It’s one thing to earmark a few tens of millions for a mission study. It’s another thing to sustain multi-hundred millions dollar increases year-after-year to get something like Europa Clipper through peak development. Just can’t be done without the backing of the President’s budget.
And this delay WOULD mean EUS instead of a second interim stage?
No money for EUS anytime soon -announced some time ago. Less probable than zero now, as of this announcement on SLS/Orion.
Likelihood Europa clipper would be ready by 2021, score an SLS agreement, AND an EUS, BEFORE Orion and a crew – less than zilch.
Joe
SLS jumps out not spirals and takes money away from what nasa should be doing to move us out in a sustained manner
Joe the reason I want SLS canceled and don’t care if it flies anywhere is because the program doesn’t promise to bring commercial along for the ride. That’s more important than going the moon, mars or an asteroids.
A VERY tough sell.. you are talking about what will happen with one or two different administrations.
I don’t think they’ll just toss out SLS after developing it.
I do think there is a possibility that we’ll end up settling for an “easier” destination than a Mars program, because of budget costs. We’ll either build another space station (talking about how it’s a “stepping stone” to Mars, naturally, even if we never fund any Mars mission for it), or we’ll build a moon base. I think the Russians want to do another space station after ISS.
It’s almost certain that the next White House will try to terminate SLS and Orion. The Orion/SLS flight safety figures are coming in slightly worse than STS; SLS can’t maintain a safe flight rate without large budget increases; even with a budget increase the SLS flight rate can’t support its ostensible reason for being in human Mars campaigns; the SLS schedule slips even when its budget goes up; the Orion schedule is slipping under multiple technical unknowns; EM-2 is politically over-the-horizon for the next Administration, etc. It’s just an untenable situation for a new White House, which always wants to get the Executive Branch’s ducks in a row.
That said, whether the next White House succeeds in terminating SLS/Orion over entrenched parochial interests in Congress depends a lot on how much attention the White House can give NASA. They’ll need to develop an alternate plan for NASA human space flight and they’ll have to push it hard through a couple budget cycles. The Bush II White House surrendered within a year of the VSE by appointing Griffin, and the Obama Administration gave up even more quickly with a less well-defined plan. Absent major reform in the next Administration or two, the bulk of NASA’s human space flight program may become more or less permanently captive to congressional interests in the same way as other, old, heavily earmarked agencies with declining national relevance and low performance like the Corps of Engineers or the TVA.
“Didn’t see that coming!” said no one.
This will be a gap of 12 years since NASA last launched humans in to space. Another way of looking at it, this is greater than the span of time covering Alan Shepard’s first sub-orbital flight in Project Mercury, through the final Apollo 17 mission. Think of all the historic accomplishments by NASA human spaceflight in that time period, and reconcile that with the current post-STS era. Wow.
There’s far more congressional meddling and mismanagement nowadays.
And there is no “waste anything but time” mantra like their was during the Cold War when the Space Race was clearly being run in order to show the Soviet Union who had the superior political, economic, and technological society.
The Cold War is over. You’d think it would be time for NASA to start planning “the next big manned space program” with that in mind. Focusing on the long term affordability of spaceflight would seem to be the next logical step, but instead we’ve gone back to expendable HLVs, a known unsustainable transportation architecture.
NASA could do all the studies and planning that it wants to, but the trouble is that it is congress who tells NASA what to do, and gives it the funding as well as directs how that funding is to be spent.
Long term affordability does not require reusability, as the Russians have proven over many decades. Driving down unit costs per launch does, however, require sustained launch rates at a high enough level to drive down unit costs for hardware production, and make better use of the system’s relatively fixed base for sustaining engineering, production tooling, test support, and O&M.
Russian (and Chinese) “affordability” is due to their low labor rates compared to American, European, and Japanese launch providers. All that’s been “proven over many decades” is that a US engineer costs a lot more than a Russian engineer. If ULA or Ariane could meet payroll using rubles, they’d probably beat the old Soyuz and Proton on cost.
I completely disagree. The Russians do not have an HLV currently flying. That said, they developed two HLVs (N-1 and Energia) and both are relegated to the dustbins of history, despite Energia being successfully flown twice (it was the payload that failed on the non-Buran mission, not the launcher).
I like so many others am so frustrated. Just beside myself.
I used to love NASA. The can do days are gone.
Just shut the whole thing down. They are just incapable …why I don’t know. Other than $$$. Give the $$$ to Musk…he will be on Mars and SLS won’t even be on the pad for the first time
Seriously what is wrong with this country. Will no one with any power speak out. Are there no men, women, or penguins in this country with any, insight, vision
Please. SLS will be launching in 2018. SpaceX will be nowhere near Mars by then.
Please, as you say, SpaceX will be nowhere near Mars when SLS launches. But at the first (or even the third) launch, SLS will also be nowhere near Mars. Can we use the same finish line when making comparisons?
I was responding to Robert’s point about how Musk will be on Mars before SLS even launches. That is absurd.
A year or two ago I would have wanted to throw this in your face with a big “I told you so” but having read your passionate arguements for so long it is now more of a regret to see it happening.
And as always, I do not blame NASA, but always with very self interested members of congress.
Glad to hear that. Hearing your passionate arguments have made me more of a fan of the commercial side.
Feed on Vladislaws comments with radicalmoderate here Joe 🙂
http://thehill.com/blogs/co…
Fair enough. I might say a SpaceX Mars mission before the first SLS launch is very unlikely, rather than absurd, but that’s a detail. I do think they will be able to launch similar missions years before SLS is capable of doing so. SpaceX does have a history of actual schedules lagging.predicted ones, but so does NASA.
The SLS that launches in 2018 will have no one aboard. It will be the Mark 1 model. By then Falcon Heavy will be flying, crewed Dragon will be flying with folks aboard. Reusable versions of one or both of those might be flying by then too.
SpaceX won’t be on Mars by then, this is true, but they might be cutting commercial Falcon 9/Dragon v2 crewed launch deals for LEO and uncrewed deals for Falcon Heavy to the Moon (I.e. Google LunarX Prize folks) and maybe even Mars if they can find customers… when the only slightly more powerful, un-manned, non-reusable, and for more expensive SLS Mark 1/Orion leaves the pad for the first time and does the Moon loop. Then the manned SLS Mark 1B/Orion won’t launch for another 5 years? And then not even to Mars? The best they’re planning for that flight is Phobos. If so then they might indeed be looking down from Phobos on hardware on the surface of Mars that was flown there on a Falcon Heavy.
Also remember that SpaceX is a NASA partner and SLS is owned by NASA, not Boeing, so every detail of everything that SLS/Orion does and everything they learn on test flights goes on the database for SpaceX and the other partners (like Bigalow) and the retired NASA employees on those company’s payroles, to see and use for their own spacecraft development for that entire 5 years.
SLS won’t be anywhere near Mars in 2018 either. That first iteration of SLS will not be flying with the upper stage necessary for a Mars mission. In 2018 the SLS version needed for Mars will still be scheduled years (and billions of dollars) into the future.
I didn’t say that Jeff. I was responding to Robert’s point that SLS wouldn’t launch before Musk was on Mars. That is patently absurd.
I found your man!!!
You can get in touch with him here.
https://youtu.be/YSxCT1Faw6k
Love it. Crank the AC
The word that you seek is “Risk averse” the other is “Politics”.
The moon launches were promoted as a national security mandate by a very popular President. Back then the agency was new and didn’t have its procedural ducks all in a row. These days they are more seasoned and need, on many things, to be able to draw a procedural line from A to Z before moving forward. In many ways that is a good thing but it slows them down.
As to Politics…NASA’s funding comes from Washington and we (the voters) send legislators to Washington to “bring home the bacon”, which isn’t necessarily the same thing as “do what’s best for the country”. Senators and Congresspersons who want to cut the Federal budget only want to do so to have more money for their own constituents. In other words…a rocket doesn’t have to fly (or if it does fly, it doesn’t have to do anything useful) to make a Federal legislator happy…it just has to keep spending money in the industries of his or her campaign donors. Fixed cost budget overruns caused by delays caused by budget cuts mean more money spent on the project, for them, over a longer period of time. All of this runs exactly in contrast to the goals of many of us other space advocates, who want rockets that are affordable enough to use on a broad range of missions and actually fly soon and fly often.
We wont have to put up with it for much longer though, at least not for LEO and maybe not for Mars either. Another year or two and there’ll be two NASA certified commercial human launch providers to transport people to Bigelow space habitats owned by anyone who can afford them. Then things will start to get crazy. Did you notice the Tweets from Elon a couple of days ago declaring that Falcon Heavy can carry a fully-loaded Dragon to Mars or a lightly loaded Dragon to Europa?
What’s the likelihood NASA never flies one of their own vehicles ever again? And if so, is that truly the charter our country envisions for NASA? Space has been a volatile & changing landscape – politically, economically & philosophically – over the past 10 years. What is it that our country asks of NASA going forward, and to what endeavor do we want their resources allocated – it seems to be a blurry vision, or lack thereof that is most troubling.
Deep space could still be a nautilus-x or Hermes type spacecraft and the boeing and spacex just handle the crew rotations. Do you really need to take an Orion all the way to Mars and back or can you just pull back into high earth orbit and do a crew offload.
NASA has been flying people to space and back since the early 1960s. It’s time to hand that part of spaceflight over to commercial operators. The US commercial aerospace industry is perfectly capable of building and flying launch vehicles with manned space vehicles on top.
Back in the day, NACA did a lot of R&D in support of the US airplane industry, but you don’t see NASA today designing its own passenger aircraft to be used by a NASA airline. Instead, NASA buys commercial airline tickets.
At some point, NASA needs to focus again on the “hard problems” which include things like how to land a large manned space vehicle on Mars, so they can design and build an actual Mars lander. We’re never going to get to Mars if NASA’s primary focus is on maintaining its own launch system and (launch and entry) spacecraft separate from commercial vehicles.
Well said, I agree!
I guess the dilemma these days is in the political wrangling and the financial stranglehold that reps & senators alike hold over NASA. It would be great to see some legislation that enacted multi-year funding that bridged / overlapped presidential & congressional terms so that the NASA administrator & staff could actually focus on technological advancements & not be constantly tuned to the budgetary cycles that so often curb any particular vision.
First, NASA’s team of contractors were responsible for flying people to space and back. NASA’s civil servants, aided by support service contractors, were responsible for launch site and flight operations monitoring and decision-making. That action ensured the contractors were not open to law suits for wrong decisions, even on the occasions when their personnel advised NASA poorly. (They did of course face contractual penalties for such disasters.)
Business decisions by commercial firms operating in fixed price environments are made in a risk/reward environment, where additional costs incurred to run additional “just to be sure” tests or replace hardware when anomalies crop up on bench units or run the N+1 simulation are challenged. You will note that recent launch failures by commercial launch providers did not include a requirement to compensate the USG for the loss of hardware or operational consequences, such as deferred ROI, when science hardware was destroyed..
The commercial launch providers operate in an environment where their financial risks for failure are limited by the U.S. Government — AKA “indemnification”; that allows them to operate without “betting the farm.” The indemnification relieves them of financial consequences above a set, insurable level. That means this is not a purely commercial activity; the USG is significantly involved in commercial space launch, and the FAA, NASA, and DOD accordingly must maintain a “due diligence” level of insight into their operations.
I get that commercial cargo and commercial crew are not strictly “commercial” in that sense. But, you can’t deny that the details of how the contracts are set up can greatly influence the price the government pays.
NASA could subcontract out maintaining its own airline for its own use, but they don’t, because it would be hideously expensive compared to buying a ticket which is a contract for a ride, not a specification for the vehicle to be built and operated.
That would be fine with me, NASA should be out of the transportation development game. NASA if the private sector develops gas n’ go, turn key systems.. then yes. LIke if WK2 and SS2 were operational NASA could buy that as a training, test system… but even then .. they should just purchase the service in most cases.
It’s like Constellation all over again.
Keith, has the development progressed to a point where it can survive the loss of political will and momentum and the increase in fixed costs associated with a two-year schedule slippage? How far will the Falcon Heavy be flying by then?
To be fair it is a No Later Than (NLT) not a No Earlier Than (NET). They are still targeting 2021. This isn’t an official delay like what happened with EM-1. Also they are basing it on the President’s budget and the current President isn’t a supporter of SLS/Orion.
If the next President decides to support the SLS/Orion program the time will come back.
Edit: The funding levels given by NASA today result in a deficit of $1.5 Billion dollars below what Congress has authorized time and time again. If we go with what Congress has authorized we reach the level of funding NASA says is needed sometime in 2021-2022.
That sounds like the way a NASA program manager would talk.
Quibble over $1.5B, to explain away multi-year delays, having (1) already spent many times that above earlier estimates (losing credibility as far as that $1.5B) and (2) while heading toward grand totals for development of well over $30B (both SLS and Orion) – the most generously funded projects in recent history, by an order of magnitude.
To be fair you could say the same thing about CC. They are going to have to delay for a year or so unless they get full funding. I don’t think their “quibbling” over $300 Million is wrong.
The numbers don’t add up. NASA says that $6.77 Billion are needed through the first flight regardless of whatever “unknown unknowns” come up. Obviously it can’t all come in one year but over 5 or 6 or 7 years funding makes a huge difference in dealing with “unknown unknowns.”
According to both the President’s budget and what Congress has appropriated we will hit $6.77 Billion sometime in 2021.
So for NASA to say that through April 2023 Orion will only receive $6.77 Billion assumes funding below $1 Billion a year for Orion. That hasn’t happened in either the President’s or the Congress’s budget.
They’re pushing the workforce to move as quickly as possible (as any organization does), but NASA management is not “targeting 2021”. Lightfoot admitted that the 2021 date is “not a very high confidence level”. Even the 2023 date only has a 70% chance of being met. (Industry standard is 80%.) There is still a 30% chance of missing 2023.
On budget, exploration systems has been going up since 2013, including a $231 million increase over 2013 in 2014 and $130 million increase over 2014 in 2015. In that same time, EM-1 has slipped a year and EM-2 has slipped two years. Based on actual experience, there’s no indication that additional funding will reduce schedule.
Then the republican controled house and senate mearly has to give another 3 billion a year to NASA and force the obstacle to their plans, President Obama, to veto the funding bill.
In the same press event, among other things, they finally all but publicly admitted that Orion has not much to do with going to Mars, i.e. its not a spacecraft even remotely capable of making the journey
Orion won’t be going to Mars. It would remain in lunar orbit.
See AIAA paper “Comparison of Human Exploration Architecture and Campaign Approaches” by Goodliff, Cirillo, et al. These are members of the evolvable Mars campaign working groups.
What other mission architectures are considered?
That’s something everybody already knew anyway. It was always going to need a mission module with more supplies for missions greater than 21 days in length.
Everyone who pays attention knew it, to everyone else its all a #JourneyToMars
True, but the bigger point is that Orion, aside from the systems needed for launch and landing, is far more spacecraft than what is truly necessary to support a Mars mission. It really doesn’t need to be much more than a short duration taxi, yet from the very beginning (when it was still the CEV) it has been overburdened with “requirements” for deep space missions that are not yet funded.
If NASA had not bloated CEV’s “requirements” in order to disqualify EELVs from launching it with a crew, it would likely have been flying by now. Too many of the issues with CEV stemmed from the unnecessary requirement to fly it on Ares I.
Orion doesn’t need to be the bloated capsule that it is, but it is saddled with the mistakes made during its prior life as CEV.
Think of it more as a command module, where radio transmissions, flight operations, trajectory corrections, etc. will be done from. The mission modules can be big dumb boxes full of supplies.
Agreed, but it doesn’t *have* to be the command module for the entire mission. For decades, Soyuz vehicles have largely powered down and are not utilized for the majority of the time that they were/are docked to a space station. Future crewed vehicles will surely follow that example.
What would it take to boost a used Soyuz around the moon and back to an earth landing from ISS? At one time the Russians where going to do some lunar tourism. Can a Soyuz be refueled at ISS? Would it need to be, provided there was a service module/2nd stage big enough to boost it? What was their plan before? Isn’t the Soyuz safe enough to carry the tourist? Seems to me somebody needs to demonstrate that you don’t need an over weight Orion capsule and a giant SLS, to send paying tourist around the moon.
Oh my, it would take a lot, a launch vehicle like the SLS, Saturn V or N-1. Or two launches, one with the capsule and the other with a rocket stage. Think about what you are asking: to stop at the ISS on the way back home means it needs to reduce its Earth return speed by almost half, enter Earth orbit and circularize its orbit, then rendezvous with the ISS. So it will need to take a substantial rocket stage with it on its way to the Moon, just to slow down and make these orbital corrections.
Why would the Soyuz need to be refueled at the ISS for the journey back to Earth?
Ironically, your idea would require a SLS / Saturn V size rocket, or two launches.
Though you are right, sending tourists around the Moon with an SLS / Orion would be overkill. A smaller rocket can launch a smaller, lighter capsule on a free-return trajectory directly into Earth reentry (no silly stop at the ISS).
ISS and the moon (or any of the other planets for that matter) are on totally different orbital planes such that the ISS isn’t really a stopover to anywhere. I heard some folks complain about that when it was built. This diminishes its value as a refueli g station dramatically. To use it for that, it would need to be moved to more of an equatorial orbit, or just put it on the same orbital plane as the moon.
Tidal influences might diminish its value as an Earth science research staion in that orbit though. I don’t know.
Also, isn’t Soyuz kind of small quarters for a moon trip? It takes something like 5 days to get there right? I don’t remember.
DTARS, read this!
ISS inclination is not ideal for lunar flight but the availability of regular logistics flights could substantially reduce the cost of stocking it with fuel. The overall cost of using ISS as a fueling depot for lunar flight is unclear. Equatorial orbit (and equatorial launch) would be the most efficient route for refueling a low inclination Earth departure mission, but the US does not have an equatorial launch site. ESA;s CSG is at only 5 degrees North and might be a better bet.
Maybe I wasn’t clear,
Soyuz carries crew to ISS,
Then a second rocket with no payload flies to ISS to mate with Soyuz and pickup the tourist after their week or two at ISS. Then the second stage boosts them around the moon on a free return back to earth. NOT BACK to ISS .
How heavy is Soyuz? Is it heavier than dragon V2 or or the liner?
YES I WAS THINKING 2 launches.
And of course have FALCON HEAVY in the back of my mind or atlas with all that second stage capability.
The current Soyuz is 7,150 kg (15,760 lb), this includes the service module, reentry module, and service module. One modified for a trip to the Moon would mass a few thousand pounds more, for a thicker heat shield and the food / water / etc. for the trip.
I haven’t seen a figure for the mass of the crewed version of the Dragon. I imagine it will be similar to the mass of the Soyuz. The mass of the cargo Dragon is 4,200 kg (9,300 lb), which I think is including the trunk.
Going to the ISS is really out of the way if you want to go to the Moon. The ISS’s orbital inclination is 51.6 degrees, the Moon orbits the earth at 5.15 degrees, so you’re expending energy you really don’t need to if you go to the ISS first.
The most efficient route would be to launch the rocket stage, then launch the capsule to rendezvous with the stage, then go directly to the Moon.
Alternately, you launch the Soyuz attached to an empty stage, and then fill it at a depot in LEO (not the ISS). The advantage here being that your fueled transfer stage could actually end up being more massive than you could have launched with your chosen launch vehicle.
Orion was designed for a 30 day lunar mission with direct launch and direct return. It is not optimal for either LEO logistics or interplanetary missions.
It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think it would work. The orbital inclination of ISS isn’t prohibitive, but it makes for very narrow and limited launch windows from ISS. At a guess, the extra stage would have to give the Soyuz 3 to 4 km/s, which might make it too large for a Proton but not a Falcon Heavy. It would be a complete new vehicle, however, which would be expensive. The Soyuz is small, but so we’re the Apollo capsules. I think the biggest problem would be integration. Unless both vehicles were designed for it, which Soyuz is not, you couldn’t just plug them together at ISS. ISS has no facilities for more complex integration. At minimum, you’d be looking at a new, redesigned Soyuz. Overall, I’d call the idea very expensive but not impossible. So who would pay the bill and why?
Soyuz was originally designed for lunar missions. A version of Soyuz,called Zond, has made several trips to, around the moon, and returned safely to earth. It was launched by a Proton.
For a lunar flyby, you’d just launch a Soyuz on a Proton and skip ISS entirely. The killer would be the delta-V to brake a returning ship into ISS orbit. Direct return instead uses the ship’s heat shield to get rid of the excess velocity.
Perhaps it doesn’t “have” to be… but Orion isn’t going to a space station (at least, not to the ISS). Ultimately, it’s a design tradeoff. Either your capsule is smart and your mission module is dumb, or the mission module is smart and the capsule is dumb. Since they can (at least it’s the plan in theory) recover and reuse a smart capsule, they can make the mission modules just big dumb boxes full of supplies, which is cheaper in the long run. If the capsule is dumb, then you need to invest a lot more into making the (likely one-off, not reused) mission module smart. The other other alternative is making a smart and reusable multipurpose mission module (like a space station is) and a dumb capsule.
Figuring out what you need really depends on where you’re going and what you plan to do there. Since the white house / congress can’t decide what to do, NASA has wound up making the Orion capsule a smart and multipurpose vehicle, which can use a dumb mission module once someone finally decides on a destination. That might not be ideal depending on what their destination is (for example, if it’s a space station at the Earth-Moon L2 and they are controlling rovers on the lunar surface below, or something), but NASA has been hamstrung by not having a clear purpose to design towards.
“…but NASA has been hamstrung by not having a clear purpose to design towards.”
Whatever our preferred architecture, I think we can all agree on this.
So what this SLS delay means that after dragon V2 is flying and FALCON HEAVY is flying in full reusable mode that SpaceX will have about 4 years to find some paying customers for a lunar free return flight.
Cost 150 million divided by 3 or 4 customers.
Anyone want to be one of the first humans to see the DARK SIDE of the moon (Keith 🙂 ) for 50 million before NASA gets their porker off the ground?
Launch date 2020 after SpaceX does a lunar free return to test their shield.
Mr. Cameron??
Breakout the Pink Floyd!
https://youtu.be/kJkVegBsNyE
https://youtu.be/Bg_dfV4TO2E
If they can find a customer (or three) who wants to do that. I suspect the cost would be much more than that, as they will need to design some mission-specific hardware for going to the Moon, as well as adapting whichever spacecraft they use to go there.
The Apollo astronauts have already seen the dark side of the Moon… The Apollo moon landings were all timed so their landing sites were in the early morning sunlight, partly so the astronauts would have the benefit of long shadows to add some depth perception for hazard avoidance during the landings, and partly so the lander would have a shaded side for radiative cooling. This also means when their orbit took them around the far side, a good portion of it was illuminated by the Sun.
Also by that time, SpaceX will already have one launch to the Moon under their belt, the GLXP rovers.
That special moon Dragon V2 could be reusable by 2020 too 🙂
The lunatic 🙂
How much would a Bigalow module costt? Are there plans to find a way to land them on Luna and Mars?
Yes he has plans for landing them
http://www.nasaspaceflight….
I’ve never seen a number for the cost of a Bigelow module, but in 2014 they said the BA 330 lease rate will be US$25 million for one-third of the station—110 cubic metres (3,900 cu ft)—for a 60-day lease, rocket launch to bring experiments / people up to the station not included.
And yes, Bigelow has a concept for a variant that could land on the Moon, but landing on Mars would be much, much more difficult.
http://www.spaceindustrynew…
Agreed, but nothing says you can’t reuse the mission module. For lunar missions, you can leave it on the surface or in orbit. For Mars missions, you can make it a cycler and launch only the crew and lander for subsequent missions. ISS is a big example of that philosophy and it works.
I think my point went right over your head. I never said the mission module couldn’t be reusable, but doing that will add expense. If you’re going the whole hog and building a cycler, you’d want to make it really smart and durable, and put the majority of your funds into that, rather than the capsule.
NASA was ordered to bloat the CEV by congress through their mouthpiece they put in place that replaced O’Keefe.
Grifffin was given his marching orders and he followed them
Robert Zubrin screamed when he learned the size of orion
Dragon will have been flying crews for about two years at that point. Perhaps Elon himself will be in orbit to welcome Orion on its maiden voyage.
More importantly, Mark 1B SLS is not big enough, nor will it come online early enough, to compare fairly with Falcon Heavy (nor a host of other heavy throwers under design around the world that might come out before then).
Look at these weights and dates…
Falcon Heavy (starts flying in 2016?, then has a heavy launch schedule)
53,000 to LEO
21,200 to GTO
13,200 to TLI
SLS Mark 1 (Flies in 2020?)
70,000 to LEO
25,000 to LTI
SLS Mark 1B (the one that will fly with Orion in 2021-2023
101,900 to LEO
40,600 to TLI
Overlay these things with cost/flight data (and the positive impact that lower costs can have on a mission schedule) and SLS’ missions might all already be flown by other rockets before its first test flight.
I still think Mark 1 will fly, but it might be a one-shot wonder like Ares.
Ares I never really flew. What flew was a four segement shuttle SRB. On top of the SRB was a dummy fifth segment, dummy upper stage, and dummy CEV. It was more dummy than Ares.
Ya, I heard about that later. Makes it even more of a waste than the dead-end test it appeared to be at the time.
Well, not totally dead-end. It was a flight for the database, just as SLS Mark 1 might end up being.
It was Congress’ last attempt to save Orion as an ISS resupply vehicle.
Government agencies will lose their role in LEO…it is just a matter of time.
We will all see faster progress when both branches of our government understand that and stop fighting it.
Wow. I didn’t know about the fifth segment. That’s just…
I just recently watched the movie “The Pentagon Wars”. While I don’t know if Hollywood is interested in making any more government procurement comedies, between the F35 and the Constellation program there is plenty of material available.
When their were intimations that the commercial crew schedule might slip, Lamar Smith and crew used it as justification for slashing funding to the program. I expect they will react similarly in this case?
Good question and I think the answer may be yes. If we believe the dismal U.S. economic charts we don’t have enough money now(nor in the 2020’s, 2030’s, and beyond) to support an HSF mission to Mars.
Trust me, Charlie and everybody else in D.C. knows this. Also, think about it, isn’t it a simple solution to all the questions Charlie and NASA get about “when are we going to mars?” to simply and emphatically repeat “in the 2030’s!”.
So, for the rest of their careers they can’t be called out on it.
When the 2030’s roll around and it doesn’t happen they’ll be long, long gone..but not forgotten.
By then their will already be coloiesvon Mars and any NASA mission would only be to visit/support them.
Senator Nelson said that SLS may loss the solid boosters for liquid boosters the other day, in this video
What that about????
http://spaceksc.blogspot.co…
Does this have to be done before SLS is safe to fly humans??
And who will provide these liquid boosters??
Years ago Tinker and noofcsq suggested in a last ditch effort to save SLS NASA might buy reusable boosters from SpaceX to replace the Srbs.
Is this a possibility now!
Look look SLS is reusable!
Spacex helping pigs fly! 🙂
That Video is from 2011…….
Never happened with the shuttle, despite the obvious improvements in payload and safety, so I don’t see it happening with SLS.
Jeff: the “obvious improvements” came at a very high investment cost. The OMB fought against that at the outset of the Shuttle’s development (too much $$$), and the reliability history of solids made for a solid technical argument at that time.
Agreed, which is why we’ll never see liquid boosters on SLS. Orbital/ATK would simply come up with a proposal for an “enhanced” SRB which would surely be far cheaper to develop.
Liquid boosters replacing the 5 segment SRB have been a part of the possible future development path of the SLS since mid-2012.
https://www.nasa.gov/explor…
Here’s an article from 2013.
http://www.spacelaunchrepor…
Scrap SLS and Orion at this point. SpaceX will have the Dragon v2 up by then and be well on their way to having a Falcon Heavy launching by that point as well. SLS and Orion are a waste of money
And Boeing will likely have CST-100, a.k.a. Starliner, up and running by then as well. That is, if Congress chooses to fully fund commercial crew. That could very well be a huge issue going forward which is Congress cutting commercial crew in favor of increased SLS/Orion funding.
I’m just amazed at how uneducated (most) politicians are on this subject. If they had fully funded this since day 1, we would already be back in space, having spent less money to do so, and we would have stop supporting Putin’s space program years ago.
It is not that they are uneducated .. they just do not want to hear or do anything to change the status quo so they bend over backwards with convoluted answers to justify their actions.
They are very well educated. They know perfectly well the details what they want out of space exploration. However what they want the most does not include actually going anywhere or saving money that gets spent in their respective states.
Currently, we space exploration enthusiasts have to go to them for the money to do stuff, and then it has to be gazillions of dollars. Privatization of launch services threatens that system. Legislators don’t like that because it takes power and money away from them and gives it to entities outside the scope of things that they can take credit for.
But we won’t have to put up with it for much longer. By 2018 the private launch services will be available to support private space habitats anywhere within reach of a Falcon Heavy/Dragon or Atlas 552/Starliner.
(Whispers)…and it won’t just be LEO or cis-lunar space either, but we’ll keep that our little secret. 😉
Senators Shelby and Nelson, Congressmen Lamar Smith, Palazzo, Brooks, Posey, and the rest of Team Alabama and Texas:
End this wasteful spending. It’s time to fully fund commercial crew and allow the talent at NASA with the private sector to build missions utilizing Falcon, Delta, and Vulcan. The United States is a great country that needs a robust space program and not a BFR.
As delays mount, an interesting feedback into the SLS and Orion program is demographics.
I suspect many in these programs (gov’t and industry) will be approaching retirement eligibility around 2020ish. The NASA demographic data is often copied over in industry as well (the big hump in the data).
So these delays mean that to many people in the SLS/Orion project workforce the uncertainty of maybe making 2021 is now a near certainty of that being more like 2023.
If a project wants to have achievements so far out, perhaps a lesson learned that someone will seriously think about one day is the demographics of the workforce. You can either (A) have achievements that are very ambitious, bringing about change in ways of doing business, so tangible milestones like flight test or going operational are well within the career of the workforce, or (B) get a younger workforce, so the significant milestone of a first flight falls in the middle career of the workforce. The alternative (C) an older workforce with milestone dates beyond their careers is what SLS and Orion and much of the evolvable Mars study groups are doing now.
One day we may better appreciate project feedback mechanisms here – human nature and incentives vs. big project milestones.
BTW-where is that official NASA announcement? I see just secondary links.
With the prospect of as many as three human-rated launch vehicle operating within the next few years (Falcon, Atlas/Vulcan, New Shepard) we should be sending people into space well before then.
What are you talking about? USA/NASA send people to space now.
See!
🙂
I believe the Russians are kicking our ass in commercial space. Lol
Sorry, I was not considering Russia or China. There are two man-rated launch systems flying now (Soyuz and LM-2F), with up to three new ones from the US and one from China (the LM-7) to appear in the next few years.
That was a joke 🙂
No, you were quite correct to point it out!
I’ve been watching a lot of Soyuz launches live on NASA TV. Plus archival launches of historical US HSF missions. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever see another HSF launch from US soil. I think that soon we’ll have to admit that the Russians have won the race after all – and with a system from the 60’s.
You plan on dying before 2017-2018?
No, when I wonder, I don’t plan, just wonder.
Orion will be obsolete before it is launched. I know projects take time, but this seems too long.
This delay perhaps means that the second interim stage would not be needed as the EUS would be ready by then?
Maybe simply getting into space, LEO, is more difficult than most people think. Though SpaceX has made great strides, they are far from routine operations. And even the Russians struggle now and then. Chinese are not cranking out rockets like they do with everything else, other countries do a lot of talking but not much activity. In other words, there is no cheap.
Spaceflight is, currently, difficult and expensive. But so was sailing from Europe to China in 1500. That didn’t stop people from doing it. I think the two things we’re missing are the gradual improvements in the state of the art, making the trip easier, cheaper and lower risk, and a financial motive to do so. Arguably, spaceflight has a sharper threshold than commerce with the far east had in 1500. Then, the products and the market were known and established.
There is no cheap government programs..
From the AAs statement, it sounds like they are postponing the first flight now, 6-8 years in advance for the hell of it. But based on Orion and NASAs performance -remember when Orion would fly in 2009, or 2011, or when Geyer and others swore to Augustine that it would be flying in 2014, and Sally Ride responded she thought 2017 was potentially doable, but 2019 was more likely? Fact is, 6 or 8 years in advance, i expect more announcements of delays at about 2 or 3 year intervals. With 3 more delays of 2 years each, maybe 2030 is likely?
Dead in the water. SLS/Orion is just pork from top to bottom.
What amazes me is that Orion represented safe, simple, and soon. Its design was selected based on being old tech-NOT new tech. Especially given that the complexity, if any, is in the service module being built and financed by ESA, there really is no reason why the US built Orion command module could not/should not have been ready to fly years ago. Quite honestly given how little is in it, they should have been able to build it in a garage using some reclaimed Apollo parts. We are now into the tens of billions of dollars and no hope for a flight in this decade. It is really a shameful performance by NASA. And NASA keeps hyping they are going to Mars-maybe just not in this century.
Could it be the Lockheed Martin, Boeing ULA and NASA are just……sticking it us.
What can be done to change the situation, or is George Carlin right?
Is it hopeless?
https://youtu.be/rsL6mKxtOlQ
I genuinely believe that NASA is in on a “secret” plan which ensures that money flows to the big contractors, Lockheed Martin and Boeing. In the case of Boeing, there was a program called commercial crew, to develop a manned space vehicle using commercial (not government) money, and that, once built, NASA would purchase transportation servies. Instead Boeing decided they would put none of their own money into the CST100, which was different from how Space X and Sierra Nev ad were operating to develop Dragon and Dream Chaser. Yet, with no good explanation, NASA Associate Administrator still selected Boeing despite its higher cost and not meeting the requirements as originally defined. In the case of Lockheed, despite how little is coming out of the Orion project, the money keeps flowing.
There’s no secret plan. The company with the most lobbyists will get the bigger contracts.