Americans attempted a space launch today

[Paratus]

The private sector is having a pretty rough week.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/vi...spaceshiptwo-crashes-1-dead-1-injured-n238376

That they are. I wonder if Virgin Galactic will continue the program or not.

 

[Paratus]

Layoffs negatively affect the remaining workers because of stress. You could practically hear the guys jaw drop on the video during the ~15 solid seconds of shock/silence. If that were 1999 he would have been cool as a cucumber and not exasperated like he was trying to hide.

Science types don't work well under stress like that. Cortisol and $100 million dollar rocket projects with 0.1% margin of error what could go wrong, what me worry?

You're like the stress-case poster child for what I'm referring to. Good luck you need it!

We're you referring to me as a stress case? 😵. I think you are projecting a little much. This medium makes it easy to misinterpret the emotions of others. You come across as arrogantly sure of your opinions and assumptions as facts, at least until you .. 😉

If you are referring to us folks who work in mission control for NASA as science types who don't work well under stress, well you basically have no idea what you are talking about. You have no idea how we train, how we monitor stress, or how we function.

Since this was an Orbital failure, what NASA does of course has no bearing.

Also the only NASA official heard on any of the videos is the Public Affairs Officer who has no control over the launch other than to broadcast it. Orbital has their own controllers. I have no idea if they were calm cool and collected during the launch.

If your point is simply that budget and schedule pressure can lead to mission critical and even fatale mistakes I would whole heartily agree.

But as of now, no one knows what the cause of the accident was.

 

[Brovane]

I agree that Musk has his eyes on BEO, but for the time being my opinion is they are going to have their heads down making LEO work. Commercial crew is to important to have a failure and SpaceX seems understand that. Orbital is helping drive that home.

I don't disagree about making LEO work and Commercial crew is critical. Not even mentioning providing launch services to private companies. However as SpaceX grows they still have that eye on Mars. They are still moving forward with the Development of the Raptor Engine and they have added equipment at Stennis Space Center to support Liquid methane engine testing. The Raptor development means they still have a eye on BEO work.

Some interesting speculation in the article below that potentially NASA could be looking at a rival HLV to the SLS.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/08/battle-heavyweight-rockets-sls-exploration-rival/

Projects like these also tend to slip. With these being manned crews on newly certified launchers that's not the worst thing in the world. My guess is they'll be in full swing and have handle on ISS taxi flights by 2019-2020.

Orion is a manned launch in 2020-2021. I guess with schedule slips either Orion or SpaceX could go BEO. SpaceXs capsule redesign for BEO would have to rapidly catch Orion as there's no contract to provide BEO services and they would be doing it just to do it. SpaceX would also have to expand somewhat to accomplish BEO flight since they would still be on contract providing LEO flights. So they would definitely have a lot of work ahead of them.

When I look at the Dragonv2, SpaceX has designed the capsule with the eye to future BEO missions from the start. The heat shield was designed to survive re-entry from inter-planetary mission speeds not just LEO. The SuperDraco thrusters have enough Delta-V in theory to soft land a Dragonv2 on the surface of Mars. Potentially a Falcon Heavy could send a Dragonv2 on Lunar free-return trajectory for a simple BEO mission when it is ready for crew flight. Not saying it will happen but it is interesting capability essentially already baked into the DragonV2. Not saying all the pieces of the puzzle are all there but they seemed to have designed the Dragonv2 with a eye towards BEO eventually.

As far as launchers go. I am not sure what certification for "human rating" a Falcon9 really needs? From what I have read the launcher was designed from the start to NASA human rating standards. It is the Atlas-V that will need to be modified some to be certified for "human ratings". At the rate that SpaceX is building up with Falcon9 launches NASA should also have a fairly good history of launch performance to look at before anybody ever flies on top of a Falcon9.

As for fuel depots vs. a big dumb booster? I actually prefer the big dumb booster. Mostly because it can do everything a smaller launcher can do in fewer flights and can launch larger masses and possibly more important larger volumes. Part of it is I'm stupidly hopeful congress will let us go to Mars on a fast nuclear electric vehicle as opposed to 9 month chemical rocket once Orion is operational. Also just think about the size space probe or telescope you could fit on an SLS. 🙂

The problem with big dumb boosters is that essentially NASA would be the only customer. So the cost of the development is fully amortized over just the few NASA launches. Going BEO with a crew is more about moving propellant than anything else. When you launch from LEO towards the moon or Mars upwards of 70% of the mass is just propellant. You don't need a big dumb booster that cost Billions and Billions to develop when smaller commercial launchers like a Falcon-9, Atlas-V, Delta-IV could move that propellant for you. We are looking at spending 10+ Billion to develop the SLS. Personally I would rather be spending that money on the specialized hardware to either land on the Moon or Mars than on a big rocket when we could do it with existing rockets. The problem with space probes for a rocket the size of SLS is cost. Historically as mass on un-manned probes increases the cost goes up. A probe large enough to actually make use of the lift capacity of the SLS would be incredibly expensive. Yeah a big booster could potentially lift a large volume but is it worth the cost?

 

[OverVolt]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Yeah a big booster could potentially lift a large volume but is it worth the cost?

Um yea because we rely on Russia for big boosters and they don't really like us very much right now. If we don't want to lose the ISS then we're going to need one of our own design.

 

[OverVolt]

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...s-us-from-international-space-station-am.aspx

I had read that back when it was first published. Had been waiting for a kablooey to happen for quite some time considering the whole "Shortened timetable and underbudgeted"

 

[SoulWager]

Orbital was already moving toward re-engining antares, Though I don't think they were planning on a US built engine, last I heard they were planning on using the RD-193.

 

[Paratus]

Um yea because we rely on Russia for big boosters and they don't really like us very much right now. If we don't want to lose the ISS then we're going to need one of our own design.

First off, the ISS doesn't require a big dumb booster. We do not currently rely on the Russians for one. We rely on the Russians to provide their smaller Soyuz booster to launch manned Soyuz's and unmanned cargo Progress's.

The Russian heavy booster is the Proton which hasn't launched an ISS payload since the Russian segment went up 14 years ago.

http://www.fool.com/investing/gener...s-us-from-international-space-station-am.aspx

I had read that back when it was first published. Had been waiting for a kablooey to happen for quite some time considering the whole "Shortened timetable and underbudgeted"

Your article here states that the Russians are claiming that their segment of the ISS can survive but ours can't. This is not accurate. The Russian segment requires US electrical power to function. If the Russians were to keep us from going to the station they would quickly find themselves unable to keep their segment usable with the little electrical power they can generate from their one set of remaining arrays. So don't fall for the posturing.

Each partner has an entire basket of services that they provide to the program. The Russians provide cargo, (Progress on Soyuz Booster) delta V, and manned transportation. The US, ESA, and JAXA provide cargo, (ESA's ATV on Ariane 5, JAXA's HTV on H-II, and now Orbital and SpaceX), electrical power, and delta V.

I'd also note that Proton, Soyuz, Ariane 5, H-II, SpaceX and now Orbital have all had booster failures of various magnitudes in the last 10 years.

The other thing to understand is this article has nothing to to do with Orbital. ULA launches the Atlas V. No Atlas V has gone to the ISS. Orbital does not use the same Russian engine as the Atlas V.

For NASA's manned space flight missions the only thing the the Atlas V will be used for is the upcoming un-manned flight test of the Orion capsule. That's a one off and again has nothing to do with the ISS or Orbital.

So I'm not sure why you been waiting for a kablooey from a booster that has nothing to do with this article. 😕

 

[Brovane]

Orbital was already moving toward re-engining antares, Though I don't think they were planning on a US built engine, last I heard they were planning on using the RD-193.

I don't think that Orbital has much of a choice. Especially if they discover something is wrong with the AJ-26 engine that cannot be easily fixed. The RD-193 doesn't have a flight history however. However going back to the Russians for rocket engines just perpetuates the problem of dependency on the Russians for space access.

 

[K1052]

I don't think that Orbital has much of a choice. Especially if they discover something is wrong with the AJ-26 engine that cannot be easily fixed. The RD-193 doesn't have a flight history however. However going back to the Russians for rocket engines just perpetuates the problem of dependency on the Russians for space access.

Doesn't Aerojet have license to domestically produce the NK-33 engine?

 

[Brovane]

Doesn't Aerojet have license to domestically produce the NK-33 engine?

Yeah but it is one thing to have a license but it is another to actually be able to build it. Same problem that ULA has with the RD-180 for the Atlas-V. They have license but they have never built it. With something as technically complex as a rocket engine. It would challenging to built it. They would probably be better served by just designing something new. There is no easy fix.

 

[K1052]

Yeah but it is one thing to have a license but it is another to actually be able to build it. Same problem that ULA has with the RD-180 for the Atlas-V. They have license but they have never built it. With something as technically complex as a rocket engine. It would challenging to built it. They would probably be better served by just designing something new. There is no easy fix.

I thought Aerojet was already working with Kuznetsov for quite some time to start making them here since there is no production (unlike the RD-180) in Russia and Orbital might need new ones to fulfill their their contract with NASA.

 

[Brovane]

I thought Aerojet was already working with Kuznetsov for quite some time to start making them here since there is no production (unlike the RD-180) in Russia and Orbital might need new ones to fulfill their their contract with NASA.

I thought they where going to make them in Russia if it started up again. However that could have changed. It looks like Orbital was eyeing the CRS2 contract for some type of new engine because they only have so many of the NK-33. They where even looking at buying the RD-180 but apparently ULA has a exclusive deal for these engines with Russia. So Orbital sued that this is a anti-trust violation however no ruling was ever forthcoming. All I can say is they have a potential cluster F$&k on there hands if it is discovered that the failure is due to some type of fatal engine flaw that cannot be easily corrected. At some point these companies need to start making there launch vehicle engines in the US. If SpaceX needs more engines they just fire up the CNC machines and 3D printers in Hawthorne.

 

[hal2kilo]

NASA still pops em off now and then, not that one though.

Most of the ones these days are Defense Department oriented type of things and not really announced a lot I believe.

Was at Cape Canaveral on Wednesday, saw a successful Atlas V launch by NASA.

 

[Brovane]

Some interesting videos from close in for the Antares launch. The media photographers that had cameras close in to the rocket launch were finally allowed to go in and retrieve their equipment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsvUVDTgPoI&list=WL&index=19

 

[soccerballtux]

I don't think that Orbital has much of a choice. Especially if they discover something is wrong with the AJ-26 engine that cannot be easily fixed. The RD-193 doesn't have a flight history however. However going back to the Russians for rocket engines just perpetuates the problem of dependency on the Russians for space access.

russia's not going anywhere and the trade sanctions are killing them. It's unlikely they'll try another Ukraine. I don't exactly see what the problem is

 

[Brovane]

russia's not going anywhere and the trade sanctions are killing them. It's unlikely they'll try another Ukraine. I don't exactly see what the problem is

What is really killing Russia is the drop in price of oil. From a viewpoint of strictly business there is no problem with Orbital going to Russia for rocket engines. From my viewpoint I just wish that US launch providers would look inside the US more for rocket engines. At least it looks like ULA is going to Blue Origin for a new 1st stage engine for it's Atlas-V vehicle. So it isn't to bad that Orbital is going outside the US again for a 1st stage engine replacement for the Antares.