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Old October 12th 18, 08:01 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default Soyuz Rocket Launch Failure Forces Emergency Landing of Soyuz!

JF Mezei wrote on Thu, 11 Oct 2018
14:54:59 -0400:


What are the odds of having a new Soyuz ready by then? Thankfully there
is half of october, november and december for russians to accelate
finishing a Soyuz capsule and rocket.


Having hardware 'ready' isn't an issue. There is a launch scheduled
for December. The issue is whether or not the investigation has
cleared things for launch.


Is there a precedent for sending an empty Soyuz to the ISS? Would
docking have to be via Toru or still via Kurs? If via Kurs, controled by
ground or ISS ?


This is one of the options. If the system hasn't been cleared for
humans, they could send up the scheduled December launch empty and
extend the three people currently on ISS.


Unless it can fly before January 4th, it may force the remaining crew to
return to earth on the Soyuz. Unless some paperwork is signed to allow
extension of "Best before" date on the Soyuz.


There will be hardware ready in December. The question is whether it
is cleared for people.


With regards to the crewed Dragon flights. Are the Falcon stages
"special" for crewed flights, or are they stock Block 5 ?


Stock.


In a crewed configuration, wouldn't the capsule have data a data
connection to command/control of Stage 1/Stage 2 to not only get health
of stage, bit also be able to comand it (such as aborting)? Such data
paths wouldn't exist for cargo flights, right ?


There's no difference between Crewed Dragon and a cargo Dragon V2.


This is a way SpaceX really shows what frequent, cheap launch can do. When
you've got a cadence of 15-20 flights a year, it's pretty easy to move stuff
around.


Isn't the critical path the Dragon vehicle itself and not the rocket? It
is the first crewed Dragon, so at this point, "frequent" can't be
applied to it.


The barrier for Boeing is having a booster. That's not a barrier for
SpaceX.


I know this may sound ludicrous, but how long would it take to fit a
Soyuz Capsule on top of a Falcon9 stage 1 or Stage and 2 ? Is this even
feasable or would weight/size make it a show stopper ?


It's a lot of work and it doesn't buy you anything.


--
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore,
all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw