NASA Is Already Considering Retirement of SLS (Update)
NASA will retire its new mega-rocket if SpaceX or Blue Origin can safely launch its own powerful rockets, Business Insider
“I think our view is that if those commercial capabilities come online, we will eventually retire the government system, and just move to a buying launch capacity on those [rockets],” Stephen Jurczyk, NASA’s associate administrator, told Business Insider at The Economist Space Summit on November 1. However, NASA may soon find itself in a strange position, since the two private launch systems may beat SLS back to the moon — and one might be the first to send people to Mars. … “We haven’t really engaged SpaceX on how we’d work together on BFR, and eventually get to a Mars mission — yet,” Jurczyk said of NASA’s leadership. “My guess is that it’s coming.”
Keith’s note: Dave Mosher is a solid reporter so I am confident he reported what was said. Either Steve Jurczyk misspoke or was mistaken. Either way the boss just cleared this up. Twitter is handy that way.
In case there is any confusion, @NASA will NOT be retiring @NASA_SLS in 2022 or any foreseeable date. It is the backbone of America’s return to the Moon with international and commercial partners.
— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) November 19, 2018
I see danger here. The last thing SpaceX needs is NASA’s help in the BFS. Just look at how NASA “help” derailed and delayed the Commercial Crew Program. I hope Elon Musk learned his lesson and will steer clear of NASA with the BFS, at least until after it completes the flight around the Moon.
The dynamics aren’t quite the same. With commercial crew, NASA didn’t have a viable alternative (since a goal of the program was to avoid buying more rides from the Russians) and SpaceX needed the money to develop the Falcon 9. With SLS and BFR, NASA would have its own option (despite the cost, and low cost was never a goal) and SpaceX has the income from Falcon 9 launches to fund BFR development. On both sides, commercial crew was a case of everyone being under pressure to make a deal. In the case of SLS and BFR, it sounds like everyone wanting to see how things stand in five years and deciding what sort of deal makes sense. At least, I hope so.
“Derailed and delayed”? How?
Basically safey requiresments an order of magnitude beyond those used by NASA for Orion, or even the Russians. Endless certification requirements that made it economically impossible for innovations like propulsion returns to land to be used. And the requirement for multiple flights of the Falcon 9 before crew mission even if minor changes are made to it, although NASA will be launching crew on an SLS with a different upper stage than the EM-1 flight.
If NASA used the same standards for Project Apollo, Apollo 11 will probably still be waiting to be certified to launch 🙂
An order of magnitude? No.
We can have an argument about risk tolerance some other time.
They want a probabilistic risk assessment that says the risk of a crew loss is under 1 in 270. While the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel does mention (in their 2017 annual report) that this isn’t possible (there are too many things which can only be estimated) they want it anyway. NASA has never asked for or expected anything of that sort from any past launch vehicle. Not for the first flight with astronauts on board, and not for the two Shuttle returns to flight. Those were just a guess and data which basically said “probably better than 1 in 30.”
If NASA truly assessed the estimated loss of crew of Soyuz today, I think it absolutely would be an order of magnitude worse than what they’re demanding of commercial crew. The Russians simply don’t do things like NASA does, so NASA would find all kinds of things to object to which would knock down their estimate of crew loss on a flight.
Things like having a single separation sensor on each Soyuz booster (absolutely no redundancy there) would be a huge no-no considering what just happened with the last crew launch attempt. We’ve seen that a failed sensor, wiring, and etc. will lead to recontact with the booster, ripping open its tanks and causing the launch vehicle to spin out of control. Not cool at all.
What makes you think the Soyuz event was due to “having a single separation sensor”? Nothing I’ve seen is that specific. For all I can tell, they might have had redundant sensors and bad software that couldn’t handle conflicting data from the redundant sensors.
That’s the sort of detail which makes me worry about the Russian approach to returning to flight. I think NASA goes a bit too far, when it comes to tracking every possible, ultimate cause of a failure. But I think the Russians aren’t going far enough. That can mean unresolved problems lurking in the background.
Everything I’ve read seems to indicate that there is one separation sensor in each booster. For example:
http://www.russianspaceweb….
And (from TASS):
Abortive Soyuz launch might have been caused by unintentional error, Roscosmos says
http://tass.com/science/103…
From above: “a nozzle cover on the oxidizer tank failed to open due to the deformation of the separation contact sensor”.
That sure sounds singular to me. Also, the above TASS article is from 11/20/2018 and contains this quote from the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin:
You can see in the above statement that the safety culture of Russia’s space program is that fear and intimidation will increase safety. They’ve been investigating this from the start as a criminal matter.
Bwah-ha-ha!! Thank you for this! On certain space discussion websites on the interwebs; if you even mention this prospect, you get a warning from the Moderator or even an outright trim of the thread.
I’ve been banned from one of those sites, LOL. I don’t even bother posting to another. The SLS kool-aid is strong on some “space news” sites.
On other sites, Gary Church sock puppets attack anyone who doesn’t support SLS with a passion.
The only remotely useful thing to do with SLS is to fly some uniquely suitable but ‘cheap’ payloads on it. Getting a *big* pre-outfitted LEO man-tended tank farm up there for servicing by BFS tankers would be an example of one such payload. Most others would be too expensive to develop.
?? Using a vehicle that costs over a $billion+ per flight to place a tank farm in orbit for a vehicle that only costs $10-15 million to fly and has more cargo capacity makes zero sense. Just use another BFS which is the strategy SpaceX is using.
On the contrary, big expensive payloads that no other entity would be allowed to launch probably — a nuclear reactor with fissionable materials for instance. Everything else I can imagine can be landed by commercial companies. SLS, if actually more reliable than anything else (which is hard to believe) then could justify itself as a limited-use launcher.
Really? Why would you trust a nuclear reactor on an expendable like the SLS that flies only every couple years versus a BFS that has been flight proven many times and is able to return to Earth intact at just about any point in its launch profile. As for the fissionable materials, just pack them right and there won’t be any risk.
If you are imagining a working BFR/BFS and a need for a reactor on orbit, you can probably afford to launch the reactor cold. Until a reactor goes critical for the first time, it isn’t radioactive enough to be a real worry. (O.k. that’s true of uranium reactors. That thorium cycle idea probably wouldn’t be.) Once launched, do the initial turn on and commissioning in orbit. Since something’s bound to be less than 100% perfect, that means fixing things in orbit rather than on the ground (which is what you’d do if you turned on and commissioned before launch.) But you’re assuming enough orbital infrastructure to handle that.
Exactly. And package the fissionable material (fuel pellets) separately in containers able to survive any accident. And since this is the BFS, a reusable crew system, you might even split the fissionable material over a number of launches.
As for Thorium Cycle Reactors, I expect one of the design criteria for use in space would be the ability to launch them without fuel and then add the fuel when you need to start them up. This also allows you options to refuel them later instead of sending up a replacement reactor.
Again, its design for the new space paradigm where you have cheap launches, reusable systems and humans present to do any work needed.
Has anyone actually ever proposed the latter for a power reactor?
AFAIR, the only true reactor (not RTG/RHU) that was to be active prior to launch was the proposal for an NTR third-stage for Saturn V.
Honestly, I’d have to look up the test history of the even numbered SNAP reactors. Those were real reactors, and we launched at least one. The Russian launched more than one.
So it is a bit theoretical. But the core of a reactor isn’t worryingly radioactive before it’s started for the first time. That’s well known from ground experience. Once you turn it on, you get some nasty stuff from the things uranium splits into. And after a while, other things in the reactor get nasty due to neutron activation. But all that happens after you turn it on and start splitting atoms. I don’t see any reason why that would be different for a reactor designed for use in space. The space-based reactor designs are mostly sodium, potassium or NaK cooled fast reactors, and I’m not a fan of that. But we’ve got plenty of ground experience with them.
I wasn’t referring to the Russians. They probably had them running on the launch pad with no impact protection at all.
But I thought the SNAP reactors [edit: reactor, singular] weren’t activated until they were on orbit. However a quick search didn’t reveal a definitive yea/nay, just the launch abort testing.
I’m not going to guess about Soviet safety practices. We’re talking about the people who built Chernobyl, and I’ve heard they also tested things like a sodium cooled reactor on a submarine and a fluorine/oxygen upper stage. They could have done just about anything with their space reactors. I was just saying they flew some.
For the US SNAPs, you need to be careful about the numbering. The odd numbered ones were RTGs. The even numbered ones were actual reactors. But I can only find a reference for one actually being launched, a SNAP-10A, and nothing about whether or not pre-launch testing involved turning it on.
SNAP?
“SNAP-10A (Systems for Nuclear, Auxiliary Power[1]), also called SNAPSHOT is an experimental nuclear powered satellite launched into space in 1965.[2] It is the only fission power system launched into space by the United States. The reactor stopped working after just 43 days due to a non-nuclear electrical component failure.[3] The Systems Nuclear Auxiliary Power Program (SNAP) reactor was specifically developed for satellite use in the 1950s and early 1960s under the supervision of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.[4][5]” https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
I’m not advocating it. Isn’t NASA, Boeing, Lockheed claiming no one can be as reliable as them? I’m just stating what the best case would be given that claim, and how they could convince congress for a big expensive mission that’s important, even when BFR is flying and doing the bulk of the work getting most payloads to Mars, if SpaceX is barred from lifting a reactor.
The danger is not fissing on launch, the danger is blowing up and spreading fissionable materials throughout the atmosphere and freaking out the people of Earth.
Again, you package the fissionable materials so they stay intact and within their packaging. It’s simply a matter of calculating the maximum potential forces and designing your packaging system to widestand them.
And this is not just theory. When the Apollo 13 burned up in the atmosphere it had a RTG aboard. Measurements showed zero release of radioactive material indicating it sank intact to the ocean floor. So the technology is known and is available for launching fissionable materials in a way that keeps them safe even in the most extreme accident that could occur.
The RTG on Apollo 13, like all RTGs after an early failure, include a huge amount of mass to assure an intact reentry. And the Apollo 13 Lunar Module, containing the RTG, was deliberately targeted to hit over the Tonga Trench, one of the deepest places in the Earth’s oceans.
Doing the same thing with a much more massive fission reactor core wouldn’t be practical. Don’t get me wrong. There are quite safe ways to launch and operate a fission reactor. Those ways are just quite different from how you do it with a RTG. So Apollo 13 isn’t a valid proof of concept.
Shelby will write some legislation saying NASA must use SLS and cannot use anything else.
He already did. He is way ahead of you. Section 117 of the Commercial Space Launch Competiveness Act of 2015 legally designated the SLS the legal replacement of the Space Shuttle in terms of being exempt from the legal requirement that NASA must purchase launches on commercial vehicles when available whenever the NASA Administrator deems a “compelling” reason exists to do so.
In plain English the NASA Administrator may use the SLS any way they want, even to send crews/cargo to the ISS, and ignore any existing commercial options. All the Administrator needs to do is inform Congress there are “compelling” reasons to do so. – i.e. Dragon2 failed to meet NASA safety requirements so we must use the SLS/Orion for crew rotation…
No one doubts Senator Shelby’s commitment to pork, but facts are stubborn things. If BFR manages to pull off sending a truckload of artists around the moon before SLS has its first operational flight, even the technologically illiterate main stream media will be able to notice that something is wrong.
The first time WaPo or CNN has a front-page article about the money we’re spending on SLS after BFR or New Glenn is operational, the clock will start running down. We will, of course, have already spent way too much on the beast by that point, but there will be an end in sight.
What? Replace a NASA rocket that was designed for exploration with a tourist rocket? Sure BFS flew a bunch of tourists around the Moon, but they didn’t do any exploring, after all they weren’t astronauts. (Playing the devils advocate.)
It isn’t even that hard to make it sound technically correct. And, in some ways, it’s already been done with SLS versus Falcon Heavy. You come up with a list of things SLS can do and the other rockets can’t. Then build an architecture around those SLS-unique capabilities, and find superficially plausible justifications for that architecture. Or, at worst, make sure the justifications can only be debated not disproven.
Justifying SLS by using its “unique capabilities” sounds like the space shuttle program all over again. NASA launched all the bits to build the ISS with the space shuttle (minus the Russian bits, of course). The space shuttle’s “unique capabilities” meant that ISS modules didn’t need their own propulsion, reaction control system, robotic arms, and etc. So they said we were “saving money” by using the shuttle to build it.
Or argue that, even after the BFR flies, we cannot trust our nation’s HSF program to just a single provider — we need the SLS as the assured government back-up in case of a BFR stand down after an accident. As for the New Glenn or New Armstrong, the case could be made that it may be good for the Moon but it does not have sufficient TMI throw weight to become a second launcher for a Mars program.
My point is that quasi-logical arguments could be dreamed up to support the continued funding of SLS even after the BFR flies. But I don’t think that these arguments would work in the final analysis. The unfavorable comparison betweenness the expense of the SLS vs BFR would be frequently made and hard to ignore. Legislators not favorable to Shelby won’t have reason to buy the argument. More money spent on SLS will mean fewer BFR purchases and building of payloads so a real missed opportunity.
We need to promote a tipping point criteria for the transition of support from SLS to the BFR. That point should be when the BFS demonstrates a level of accomplishment that it becomes likely that the BFR will be superior to the SLS. I believe that that point is when the BFS achieves orbit.
While I agree about pro-SLS arguments falling apart at some point, I don’t think we can come up with or promote any meaningful, technical “tipping point criteria.” I think that criteria is entirely political and subjective. It’s when SLS becomes an embarrassment to enough congressmen and senators who are not using it to fund jobs in their district.
That could happen today. What if the right person (e.g. the President) decided to start a big campaign to end government waste and pork, and used SLS as a prime example. That’s probably as good as talking about a “bridge to nowhere.” If it got enough press, congressional support for SLS would dry up. Not because of the technical details, but because it’s embarrassing and they don’t want to waste political capitol on it.
Or it could never happen. The federal government spends billions on all sorts of things, and some of them are, objectively, pretty stupid ideas. But that never ends up on the front page, and unless it does, I expect Congress will keep on voting a few billion on a few members’ pet pork project. The technical details don’t matter; the political capitol does; if that’s not at risk, I don’t anticipate facts or event changing anything.
Excellent thinking I did not believe NASA was even capable of! Let NASA concentrate on what it is good at (space exploration) and Space X (or other commercial provider) provide the launch capability. That way manned flight can move forward beyond low earth orbit where we have been stuck since the early 1970s.
Sadly NASA will probably have to send $12B to get through EM-2 which is the earliest they could sunset SLS. Better to start socializing the pivot and coming up with the meaningful work for MSFC to sell this retirement. The jobs of the past 60 years don’t necessarily have to be the jobs of the 60 years for those at MSFC.
The Power and Propulsion Element is already baselined for a commercial launcher, and Anatoly Zak (RussianSpaceWeb) reports Falcon Heavy is under consideration for the ESA ESPRIT module.
http://www.russianspaceweb….
If SLS isn’t being optimized from day one to use the best boosters and upper stage they could get, then it is severely hamstrung in it’s performance and value cost of $$ per kilo to low Earth orbit – or anywhere else for that matter. It should have been designed for the Exploration Upper Stage and 5x RS-25 engines per corestage from the beginning. Otherwise: getting less than 80 metric tons to orbit per $2 billion launch is hard to justify, in not just my view.
I think going big early would still have meant a super expensive launch vehicle with a very low flight rate.
They’d have gotten off the ground much sooner by sticking with the 4 segment SRBs and a three RS-25 engine core built using the external tank tooling. That version wouldn’t have needed an upper stage for LEO payloads and could have put CEV/Orion into LEO with no problem (i.e. the mass of a shuttle orbiter plus its payload minus engines, thrust structure, and any payload fairing).
Then they could have grown the design from there, if needed. Or they could have invested in LEO propellant depots which would have completely negated the need for anything bigger than the simple inline HLV.
But no, they went for a complete redesign of everything (5 segment SRB and junked the shuttle external tank tooling). So when Ares I was cancelled, they had to go straight to the “big” launcher with all new tooling for the four RS-25 engine SLS core and an upper stage.
I don’t believe any SDV could have been developed at reasonable cost. Even the most conservative side-mount.
The STS was optimised too tightly to its task, and was technologically and literally too fragile to be used in any other configuration.
I don’t subscribe to the oft-regurgitated aerospace phrase “rockets are Lego”, but I do believe that if you want a Lego-rocket, you have to design around components that are innately robust. The Shuttle hardware wasn’t. It doesn’t matter how you try to configure them.
[It’s not just SLS. During Ares, modding an off-the-shelf Shuttle SBR into a sub-orbital demo flight cost $1b.]
—
Had the STS been designed around a Shuttle-C-like system for a demo launch in the late 70’s before the orbiter was ready, then that cargo variant would have served as an experimental testbed for upgrades, reducing the cost/risk compared to having a crew on every flight. That might have resulted (after 25 years of operation) in a more robust and adaptable system, but the actual STS didn’t and wasn’t.
If Mr. Musk añd BFR are successful then there will be no point to Orion, Gateway or SLS. It would be like the Wright Bros çontinuing flights of their Kitty Hawk Flyer while millions cruise around the world in 747s. What would be the point? Nostalgia for the good old days when NASA was relevant?
But the Wright Flyer is an exploration craft that requires test pilots to fly, the B747 is just for rich tourists. 🙂
Let’s hope this happens. Hopefully it won’t be Lucy (Congress) pulling the football away when Charlie Brown (NASA) tries to kick it. The interesting thing is what happens to Orion if this happens. If Lockheed is smart, they will be talking with ULA or Blue Origin to put it on New Glenn with a refuelable upper stage or to put it on Vulcan ACES. Hopefully they don’t start building the second mobile launcher for Block 2 until this is sorted out.
The Orion is too small to be more than a taxi to distantly orbit the Moon and too big & expensive for LEO missions. Besides it is tied to the SLS, if the SLS dies so does the Orion.
The Orion vehicle stack was purposely design to be not launchable by any EELV including the Delta IV Heavy. So there could be the need for the Ares-1.
You need the Vulcan ACES Heavy variant to launched the Orion stack. ULA don’t have the funding to introduce the ACES upper stage until after the mid 2020’s.
Blue Origin don’t need the Orion. They have their own human spaceflight path.
Orion was designed to be too heavy for EELVs at the time. But what about Falcon Heavy? Orion’s diameter is less than that of the Falcon payload fairing so let’s assume the external size of Orion won’t be a problem.
I don’t think so. SpaceX advertises 26 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit on a Falcon Heavy. That’s also the mass of the combined Orion command and service module. So a Falcon Heavy would be something under 26 tonnes to a lunar transfer and that’s just won’t do for Orion.
If you flew Orion on anything without SRBs, you can drastically shrink the mass of the LAS module, which lowers the overall weight of the Orion stack by 2-3 tonnes.
(Switch to a pusher and you can eliminate the shroud, saving another few tonnes.)
In theory the Falcon Heavy can fly the current LEO Orion stack. But with the BEO Orion service module goes over the TLI capability of the Falcon Heavy. So you need a pre-positioned Earth departure stage of some sort.
Besides why would SpaceX want to have the hassle of NASA oversight in order to fly the Orion. A few forest have to be scarified for the paperwork.
Either NASA hitch a ride with the BFS/Starship or they can continue to trundle along with the SLS/Orion path.
“Huh? SpaceX? We planned all along to use them! No news here, so move along…”
“NASA Is Already Considering Retirement of SLS”.
It should say.
“NASA would like to Retirement SLS”
Since the SLS supporters will fight it to it’s last breath.
I don’t see to much of a contradiction here. Mr. Bridenstine said not “in 2022 or any foreseeable date…” Mr. Jurczyk said “if those commercial capabilities come online…” He didn’t say “when” they came on line. My interpretation is one of them thinks those commercial capabilities will not come online at any foreseeable date in the future. The other is saying that’s they’ll think about what to do _if_ that actually does happen in the early 2020s. Although there might also be some differences over what to say in front of a reporter. I just didn’t see anything in Mr. Jurczyk that implied an actual plan just things that might become sensible alternatives.
The SLS could be finished and propped up on the pad but it still won’t take off as it doesn’t even have a lander, nor has one been designed yet. Meanwhile SpaceX has been testing theirs, made modifications, and their rocket has made it’s maiden flight and is being prepped for another.
Update:
NASA Administrator, and former Congressman, Jim Bridenstine still supports SLS because no existing launch vehicles can simultaneously deliver as much pork and payload. Never mind the facts that it’s not flown once, the exploration upper stage is on hold, and the advanced boosters have not been funded. Also, NASA has no idea how much it will cost per flight nor what the actual flight rate will be (I’m guessing less than they’d like for their Lunar Gateway plans, let alone actual crewed moon landing missions).
And yet they are looking at commercial launches for the Gateway hardware, no attempt to design around SLS’s large diameter and heavy lift, no attempt to increase the flight-rate with an obvious SLS mission or two.
Almost like their claims, under oath, to Congress about the per-flight cost of additional launches wasn’t true. Shock.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Oops! Someone (Mr. Jurczyk) got their knuckles rapped on this one! Never announce anything of note before your boss does. And in this case, Administrator Bridenstine can’t say anything like that until he liaises thoroughly with Congress, and they reach a consensus, probably behind closed doors first. And there is no upside to announcing something like this yet, it’s just too early. However, I am pretty sure that Mr. Bridenstine is already talking to key political figures about how and when they will roll out this announcement. I don’t think anyone really doubts it will happen.