Finally: A Completed Orion/MPCV/CEV
The First Orion Crew Module Is Complete
“NASA’s first completed Orion crew module sits atop its service module at the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew and service module will be transferred together on Wednesday to another facility for fueling, before moving again for the installation of the launch abort system. At that point, the spacecraft will be complete and ready to stack on top of the Delta IV Heavy rocket that will carry it into space on its first flight in December.”
Yay! You see all you detractors! And it was just about $1billion a year since 2006…oh heck, 10, 12 something billion just to get to here…maybe another 6 or 7 billion to go…that will show all you negative people we are flying soon and not to compare us to that half a billion dollar cheapo Dragon ride. That extra speed and thermal limit would cost that very inefficient Dragon development process to spend, like well, that other 10 or 11 billion or 20 billion you know! duh, right…wait I forgot the point here…
Internet comment section post of the month.
More like $8 Billion total with $3 Billion more to go. I agree there was waste (may have more to do with the contractor than NASA) but there was a change of rocket they had to deal with and we get a BEO orbit spacecraft. Dragon V2 will cost around $1.7 Billion and will get us to LEO but in its current form that is all it will take us. No problem with that and I am happy about that. Lets develop everything on the list and see how they perform in space instead of clamoring for one or the other to get canceled.
Is Dragon really only rated/designed for return from LEO? Not being argumentative- just seeking information/clarification. If not- what would it take (a formal program or a few extra bucks- and how many) to make it a BEO capable craft?
Hey Chris,
Dragon’s thermal protection system is rated for lunar return velocities. I think it was mentioned in Dr. Reisman’s presentation (http://spaceref.biz/company….
That said heat shield is just part of the equation. You also have to look at the life support system and redundancies. I haven’t been able to find much information about how long Dragon can support a crew free flying but from what I have seen it would be about a week. That is not long enough for a lunar mission. It also doesn’t have the multiple redundancies that Orion has since Dragon V2 will be used in LEO and be able to return quickly. (Nothing wrong with that. Perfect for a space taxi)
I don’t know how much more money it would take to upgrade Dragon to the level of BEO craft. Probably the same order of magnitude as Orion. I hope it happens since the way Dragon lands would be perfect for a Mars lander.
numbers_guy101 and @ Joe
Thanks to you both for the quick response.
My gut tells me that Lockheed is coming in high- victim of its own Corp financial return expectations, Nasa’s practices, Congressional mandates, changing scope(s) from executive branch and ever changing launch vehicle parameters.
So all that is on the left side of the ledger- along with Lockheed costs to keep employees and facilities and intellectual capital through periods when the program changed status.
On the right would be the all- in costs for a notional “DragonV3”. New/imporved craft based on upgraded life support/etc as outlined by you both.
I have this sense that Production Orion will still be above the cost of Production Dragon V3
(including all NASA subsidies to both firms for R&D)
We’ll have to see. We all know a V3 is coming. Should be an interesting time 2018 and beyond,
A better question is, how fast and for how much would it cost for SpaceX to make the upgrades for a Dragon V 3.0 for launching on the Falcon Heavy for Lunar trips. Bigelow has already been in talks with SpaceX about this option.
“The BA 330-DS would be launched by either a Falcon Heavy or an Atlas 552 to LEO, before being tugged – or pushed – to lunar orbit, or to other desired destinations.
Although Bigelow is not ready to publicly disclose the prices for renting or for the astronaut taxi ride to a lunar orbiting BA-330-DS, the company notes the price for both of these items would be “very reasonable”.
The documentation envisions a taxi seat to a lunar orbiting BA 330-DS would be offered by SpaceX via a crewed version of Dragon and Falcon Heavy.”
http://www.nasaspaceflight….
If you have a habitat module, Dragon doesn’t need a version 3, and it doesn’t need to launch on FH. Just launch the crew on F9 in the normal way, dock with the hab in LEO and put the capsule in space-station-standby mode for the duration of the mission. FH would be used unmanned to launch the other components.
Lets do a head to head. Pop a Dragon onto a Delta IV and put it in the same roaster as the Orion and see what happens. Lets see what’s rated for what… no brag no boast…just do it.
Most likely both would perform quite well. Like I said the TPS on Dragon is rated for lunar return flights. However Dragon’s life support doesn’t last nearly as long as Orion’s.
When I have floated your question around informally, internally, I have never gotten any answer in the 1 Billion range, most being in the high hundreds of millions, and many commenting that much of the effort would be in test and certs of the existing Dragon design for the new requirement/environment.
Hence the notion—with Orion eventually reaching $23B to complete (see the recent GAO reports) some many years from now, even adding 1 years worth of Orion funding to mod Dragons would still save billions, while it’s also worth questioning what program management DISASTER, NOT requirements, leads to $23B capsule/module development costs?
it would take a bigelow module, more fuel, and some bigger solar arrays. So about another $200 million and the whole thing could do a loop around the moon to a splashdown
That $1.7B apparently includes Spacex’s internally funded Falcon 9 launcher. What are your numbers?
Nope. SpaceX has gotten over 500 Million so far for Dragon V2. Assuming SpaceX gets a CCtCap contract (worth around $400 Million a year if 2 companies get full awards). $400 Million a year x 3 = $1.2 Billion. $1.2 Billion + $0.5 Billion = $1.7 Billion.
Where are you getting the out year CCtCap costs?
Based on how much NASA was going to get for commercial crew for this year ($700 Million). Assuming 2 full contracts that are equal each company would get around $350 Million. I rounded up to $400 Million to take into account the possibility of DC getting the second contract (given prior contracts they would get less than half of the total). Multiply that by 3 and you get $1.2 Billion.
I see what your assumptions are, now. You have two competitors halving the pie. I don’t have a clear crystal ball but I had originally thought an strongly asymmetrical split between spacex and SNC. I am not so sure lately. SpaceX is there because they’re flying, popular, all-american and with nice crew plans. And I see Boeing there, getting an equal split, because they have politicians from local dog-catcher to fed senator bought and tied up in fancy bows. But I still see SNC getting a significant share due to novelty and a technology that rhymes with the shuttle, has crossrange capability and low-g reentry. Also it is a front for some heavy hitters like lockheed, and also has politicians in its pockets. So I see strong possibility for smaller slices of the pie for Dragon, essentially mirroring the earlier awards. Lesser pain for NASA. (altho, it would be swell if SpaceX took it all). Guess we’ll see how it plays out over the next days or weeks.
I also see SpaceX flying with people in late 2016, not 2017, and with Nasa in 2017.
But they will both perform well. The recurring yearly or unit costs are what will not perform comparably. Actually, the BEO craft will ask for a yearly budget, nearly wholly independent of usage or rate. The LEO craft are more a by-the-unit expense, for less, within a range of use. Question is how affordable LEO craft might become affordable BEO craft, by the unit, at much lower cost. Leaving funds for all those other things on the list.
The Office of the Inspector General has the price as 16.5 billion to develop.
“Assuming this budget profile and current development schedule, NASA plans to spend approximately $16.5 billion developing its crew vehicle by the time of the first crewed flight currently planned for 2021.”
http://oig.nasa.gov/audits/…
NASA, “Preliminary Report Regarding NASA’s Space Launch System and Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Pursuant to Section 309 of the NASA Authorization Act of 2010 (P.L. 111-267)”, January 2011 –
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/510…
From this – “NASA recently estimated that Orion would need a total of $11.5-$12.0 billion through 2015 in order to achieve the first crewed flight in 2015, minus the $4.9 billion already expended through November 2010.” i.e., $12B+$4.9B=~$17B. Then noting that development continues to the first crewed flight in 2021, adding ~$1.1B per year till then, the total would be $17B+6X$1.1B=$23.6B.
Well Orion has gotten $8 Billion total so far (counting CxP). $1 Billion a year through 2021 would be $15 Billion.
The problem is that one item on that list consumes most of the money for the whole list, preventing many other options from being added to the list.
By eliminating Orion and SLS, we open up funding for a dozen development programs, giving us multiple options and paths. OTOH, by eliminating Commercial Crew, we slightly increase the budget for Orion and/or SLS, maybe saving a few months to a year of expected delays, but adding nothing to their capabilities.
Also, your “$1.7 billion” for Dragon would include actual flights. By contrast, your $11 billion cost for Orion doesn’t include post-2021 flights, nor the cost of the launcher, nor the operations costs. Not really a fair comparison.
Similarly, Orion is not really a BEO spacecraft. Even the full version will be limited to 21 days life-support, and will not be capable of docking with a habitat module. A true BEO version will require a further development program after 2021. Dragon, while having just a few days life-support, will be designed to dock and spend months on powered-down standby. That means Dragon will be capable out of the box of mating to a pre-launched habitat module. Orion, otoh, will require billions of dollars additional development to do the same.
By eliminating SLS and Orion NASA will lose that $2.7 Billion in funding. That money will not come back to NASA. You really think that Congress would just go, “Okay we’ll just spend this money somewhere other than our districts?” SLS/Orion are not impeding CCDev. Lets develop everything and see what happens.
As I have stated elsewhere the $1.7 Billion figure counts until 2017 (the first manned flight for Dragon for NASA). It probably will be 2017 before there is a manned flight at all. The full version of Orion will fly in 2017/2018. So about $11 Billion total. Counting to 2021 would give you $15 Billion.
Um the full version of Orion will be able to dock with a habitat module and spend years on powered down standby. It also has computer systems and other redundancies that are better suited for BEO than Dragon. Dragon is best suited for what it is designed for.
Lets wait and see what happens. If Dragon turns out to be much better than Orion in BEO capability than lets use it instead.
Yes, we’ll have to wait and see. As it stands only one of the two is flying right now. It will also be a manned Dragon that flies first. Orion has some catching up to do, assuming it gets one of the two CCtCap prizes. If it doesn’t, Boeing’s already stated it will shut down the Orion project.
You mean CST-100. Orion is not part of the commercial crew program.
That’s correct, I meant CST-100, but I think Boeing’s statements about the CST-100 program are indicative of Boeing’s commitment in general.
Orion is being built by Lockheed Martin, not Boeing (although I think things might have turned out better if Boeing had built Orion given their successes with CST-100).
Dreamchaser’s bones are Lockheed, too.
I’m not sure what successes Boeing has. Their unflown, unready capsule charges $10 million more per seat then their competitor. The SLS/Orion of commercial spacecraft.
😉
Interestingly, the Dragon is already capable of making the flight. Its thermal protection system is rated for return from lunar space.
Dragon’s TPS is rated for lunar return (which is another reason why I hope Dragon gets picked for CCtCap). However, life support is another matter. Dragon will have to be heavily modified for it to be used on BEO flights (which I hope happens. The more spacecraft the merrier).
SpaceX has never been clear about its radiation protection for crews, the trunk is a straightforward space for expendables and extended and redundant systems. As is V2 may not be interplanetary, but V2.75 or V3 is not a stretch as wide as V1 vs V2.
The key is again whether the Dragon can protect its crew from primary and secondary ionizing radiation above MEO.
Have the specification been published yet?
Things changed so much during development that I lost track.
Yeah, I’d like to find out if all that Space Shuttle-derived TPS tile that is surrounding the sides is meant only for this demo flight capsule or part of the final version of Orion.
Nope…it’s part if the final design. Doesn’t even matter if it’s the better, harder TPS tiles. Tiles were never intended for salt water dunking. So you can imagine the strip-down job if ever any parts of an Orion were to be reused. But that doesn’t matter anyway, as the way the money flows it’s just a straight-line in the budget (as Jeff Greason would say, it’s that simple, and not as complicated as budgeteers try to make things out). The result? What comes out of that straight line? Reuse, throw away? They’ll figure that out …whenever.
NASA did the same thing when cutting corners during space shuttle development. Some of the deficiencies were reduced or eliminated during later years as shuttle “upgrades”, while others lingered until the end (e.g. toxic hypergolic propellants for the OMS/RCS). The lingering compromises added cost and complexity to the turn-around process between landing and re-flight. The end result was a vehicle with very high fixed costs and a very low flight rate. SLS/Orion does not appear to improve this situation one bit.
The $12 billion so far does not a complete. Spacecraft make. It is only the shell, which is needed to prove that Apollo heatshield technology still works, and it doesn’t include the Service Module or any of its systems….at least ESA is doing the SM so it shouldn’t be more than another $12billion and another 10 years til we get to a man able spacecraft.
Question. What are those black tiles? I’m guessing Orion’s white outer layer that it is typically imaged with is part of the launch abort system? I know the decision was made years and years ago to have the LOS cover the entire capsule rather than just connect to the top, but I never thought it would replace the entire outer layer of the capsule. I’d appreciate if someone could explain what I’m seeing here.
Same as Apollo, which had the LES “escape tower” attached to a Boost Protective Cover over the Command Module. The BPC was white, but the Command Module was polished aluminum (or whatever metal it was made of.)
Mylar tape, actually!
The construction details of the CM outer skin are quite complicated. What you see in the “in space” photos is aluminized mylar tape (burned off during re-entry) on the composite surface.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Jonathan — http://www.parabolicarc.com…
I was kinda hoping beyond hope that NASA might use the metallic TPS that was made for VentureStar. But alas, being associated with VS is like having a Scarlet Letter…
The upper part of the capsule (backshell) is covered with tiles. This is the material used:
http://www.sciencedirect.co…
The Orion uses a boost protective cover to shield the spacecraft from damage during launch. The black tiles are very similar to the Shuttle’s heat shield tiles, and are used for the same reason, for thermal protection during reentry.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.a…
I am baffled by that word “complete”. This is not a crew flyable machine. And I don’t just mean that the service module is just ballasted boilerplate.
The “crew” module is stripped down, with no life-support systems, crew control consoles, crew accommodations, etc. It is 2-3 tons under true production flying weight. Why don’t they just ballast up the crew compartment and make a better test?
Well, unfortunately, at production mass, the parachute system won’t function. D’oh!
After this test, they say, so much will be learned that they can pare down the weight by the required couple tons when it actually flies with people in the 2020’s.
Sure, I believe it…
About as close to the real thing as the pop-bottle rocket test was to the real Ares-I
Wonder what Orion would be like today if Boeing had beaten out Lockheed?
And once the test flight is over? It gets thrown away? Or moved to the KSC Visitor Center?
It should sit in the reception room at Senator Shelby’s office. He bought it (albeit with our money).
the capsule will be reused, for the in-flight abort test.
Cue the jobs program discussion!
For 12 billion dollars I would have thought it would look more like an aircraft carrier… at least I thought I would see more gold and gemstones.
Aircraft Carrier! Hah! So, which president’s name should be on this 12 Billion dollar baby?
President Kennedy for not suggesting a market based approach and President Bush for not making congress toe the mark and actually follow the Vision for Space Exploration.
We would have never made it to the moon without Kennedy and to suggest that there was a commercial approach to spaceflight at that time is silly.
Things might have been better with Orion if Boeing had gotten the contract. Lockheed seems to be messing up a lot of stuff these days (see F-35). That said we have made it this far. If Dragon will be so much better than Orion let it be proven in space. Competition is a good thing.
I rather doubt prices and the situation would have been any better with Boeing given their love, like the rest of old-space, for cost-plus pricing.
I do like the fact that new space is introducing new ideas and competition into the spaceflight arena. If there are going to be 2 CCtCap contracts I hope SpaceX and SNC get them. That said Boeing has a load of human spacecraft building experience compared to Lockheed. That was a concern when the contract was awarded originally under CxP. Given their work on the CST-100 I think things would have turned out better had Boeing won.
While I agree that a commercial approach to spaceflight wasn’t viable in the 60’s, it’s also true that there were other ways forward. Earth orbit rendezvous with a smaller Saturn launch vehicle might very well have been more sustainable in the long run than the lunar orbit rendezvous approach which required the mammoth Saturn V.
President Johnson couldn’t get funding support. For each additional vote something had to be given for that state/district that added to the costs. To get a majority vote a lot had to be added. Also more costs were added because of the philosophy of waste anything but time. Even at the time there were less expensive alternatives but it was run as a top down “manhatten” style big government project. To deny that is silly.
That “top down “manhatten” style big government project” succeeded. Was there waste? Sure but we made it to the Moon. In your perfect world we could have done it a different way and everything would have worked out great. We can discuss theoreticals until we are blue in the face but the fact is that in the real world Apollo worked.
Look I am a conservative guy who is wary of most government spending. In most cases I agree that big government programs don’t work. NASA has mostly been an exception to that rule though.
Actually, NASA’s original plan at the previous rate of funding would have seen first landing by 1975, via a modular EOR stack using smaller launchers.
Without Kennedy’s “challenge”, the US still could have gotten to the moon only slightly delayed, and doing so would have developed systems which were a lot more flexible than the Apollo stack.
It also would have saved NASA from having to develop the ridiculous system of distributed centres and giant workforce it is still stuck with. This would have made the agency much more efficient over the following decades when their funding dropped back down after Apollo.
[Edit: Jeff2Space wrote something similar first.]
That would have given the Russians 6 more years to test and perfect their HLV and or build a different one. Then they beat us and the country is demoralized and the space program goes into the dumpster.
Also the fact that Kennedy gave that challenge (and adding the fact he was assassinated later) galvanized the nation and NASA into making the moon shots possible.
[Sorry, missed your reply]
They didn’t crack the engine Korolov needed until after 1975, and the N1 work-around was a fundamentally flawed design. Russia would have still had to (as it did) switch to EOR on small, affordable launchers.
The plan would have had NASA practising EOR assembly, with small (Salyut-style) space stations, by 1970-71, roughly in sync with the first Russian Salyut (1971). After the first lunar landing in 1975, the program would have moved to surface habitats, probably adapted from those orbital modules.
Don’t forget that, unlike Apollo, this would have been an affordable lunar program, it was developed before the Apollo super-budgets. Small incremental stepping-stones outward, building capability and knowledge.
Russia’s early lead galvanised the US. Beating Russia left the US space program without clear goals. Having the US and Russia neck and neck to the moon would have motivated the US to continue on until Russia inevitably faltered, and by then the US would have had a sustainable program.
For the record, I’m not saying any of this was obvious at the time (except, apparently, to Von Braun). I’m just saying that, your comment that “We would have never made it to the moon without Kennedy” is nonsense. NASA had a perfectly good plan, all Kennedy did was accelerate it and, in doing so, put the agency on an unsustainable path.
In hindsight, Apollo was a bad program that harmed US progress in space. Therefore, given that we have the benefit of hindsight, idolising Apollo and trying to mimic it with Constellation and now SLS is the height of foolishness. They had an excuse for their mistake, we don’t.
I read somewhere that they have stopped the presidential naming for AC’s. The new Ford Class has Ford and Kennedy planned, and then bucks the trend by using Enterprise next on the list.
In all seriousness, is NASA holding one of its usual naming contests for the individual Orion capsules?
I hope so. Names help connect the people to the craft.
In the end the US will have a two tiered space program one government Orion and two private companies doing LEO operations. That’s smart and is the way to go. You will have 3 spacecraft and possibly 3 launch vehicles something the US program has never had.
The problem is that one of those programs is not financially sustainable.
You mean the ISS that costs more than SLS and Orion are costing right now and that commercial spacecraft will depend on in order to keep them in business (at least for a while)? (Nothing wrong with that by the way. Just pointing out a fact)
If NASA’s budget was a bit above 0.5% of the fed budget ISS, SLS/Orion, Commercial Crew, and pretty much everything else at NASA would be financially sustainable.
We can dream all we want about NASA getting an appropriate budget, but there’s zero indication of that happening any time in the near or distant future.
The real costs of SLS and Orion aren’t in yet, as these programs are just getting started. Wait for the “plus” part of cost-plus to start piling on.
Agreed.
This is the post-Apollo/Saturn reality that many have not learned. Look at a graph of NASA budget and you’ll see it peaked well *before* the Apollo 11 moon landing. As development of Apollo/Saturn was winding down, that money did *not* simply get transferred to manufacturing and operations, like many space advocates had hoped.
So, here we are, about five decades after the big cuts to NASA’s budget, and I *still* hear people whining about how much more NASA could do with just a little more money.
IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!
NASA budget increase hopefuls need to remember that Apollo/Saturn was an artifact of the Cold War, which is dead and gone. NASA needs to learn to do more with less. In the long run, SLS/Orion is not helping manned spaceflight. It’s just another expensive, dead end, jobs program mandated by Congress.
I am (unfortunately) well aware of the budget woes NASA has had. Just because they haven’t received increased funding in the past doesn’t mean that they won’t in the future.
That said lets say that NASA’s budget continues to fall as a percentage of the fed budget. Canceling SLS/Orion would not solve the problem. The money would not come back to NASA. We’d be in the same situation we are in now except that we don’t have a BEO capsule or a HLV.
We could use SLS and Orion for 30 years (at 2 flights a year) as well as throw in a half a billion a year for say developing a lunar lander or other payload for the same price as the space shuttle program.
Exactly Mark. Having an all of the above approach to spaceflight is the right way to go.
So maybe if we’re lucky, by the 50th anniversary of Apollo we’ll have test flown an unmanned glorified Apollo capsule that has no lander to go with it and no currently defined mission. Progress?
The OIG (Office of the Inspector General) tagged MPCV/Orion as costing 16.5 billion to develop.
http://oig.nasa.gov/audits/…
“Assuming this budget profile and current development schedule, NASA plans to spend approximately $16.5 billion developing its crew vehicle by the time of the first crewed flight currently planned for 2021.”
Critics, Be careful what you wish for and more, you may end up with no Human Space program like we did after Apollo. Rewind to the debates of the 70’s cost of moon rocks and I can already hear you complain that the televised Mars landing interrupted your viewing of Duck Dynasty.
We’ll just end up with a different space program. It’s not out of line at all to expect SpaceX to continue beyond LEO, and in fact, Musk has said that is the plan.
If you want a NASA directed human space program, then you’ll need someone to convince Boeing, Lockheed Martin, et al to do things less expensively and more creatively. The way they’re working now, we’ll end up with a NASA directed human space program that makes a few launches and then becomes unaffordable.
As it stands, Boeing, LM, et al don’t seem to responding with creative, lower cost solutions.
Does Boeing and Lockheed Martin work for NASA or not???
Your comment implies the opposite.
You may be right.
My comment implies neither. It alludes to the relationship between NASA and those companies as the result of SLS and the propensity of those companies to get NASA work because of the power they wield in Congress. That allusion is not explicitly stated.
Why doesn’t NASA direct them to respond with creative, lower cost solutions??
They do write the contracts after all.
They could require mile stones to force productivity. Yet they don’t. Seems to me they don’t care or know how to.
Musk will build a giant rocket like SLS for a fraction of the price so, it is possible. NASA needs to change the way it does business. Yet they don’t
Some one needs to take charge.
While the answer to this question is surely more complex than I know, I do imagine some sitting around, head in hands, wondering what they did wrong.