What to expect

Happy New Year to all.

What do you expect will be the most interesting things coming up in 2020?


Alain Fournier

In article , says...

Happy New Year to all.

What do you expect will be the most interesting things coming up in 2020?

Commercial Crew flights to ISS. Starship tests.

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

On 2019-12-30 8:19 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

Happy New Year to all.

What do you expect will be the most interesting things coming up in 2020?

Commercial Crew flights to ISS. Starship tests.

Jeff


Yep 2020 will be a bellwether for Commercial Crew. I expect to see the
first flights to ISS either by early summer or early fall. I expect both
Boeing and SpaceX will pull this off before the end of next year.

Starship MK3 first flights sometime in March I think. But progress will
be incremental. I'm somewhat pessimistic and I don't think crewed
flights will take place until 2022, perhaps later. I depends upon how
much of Dragon V2 tech gets incorporated into Starship early on. Or not.
Also the *early* emphasis may actually *not* be in crewed flight for
Starship compared to an automated and fully reusable launch system for
Starlink. I think the emphasis may actually be on Starlink support for
MK4. Getting a working LEO Internet satellite cluster up and running
with a global customer base could pay the way for the costly Starship
upgrades for crew to come later. What is fascinating to me is the
incremental launch costs for Starship. If we are down at around $100/kg
of cargo, it might actually become possible for Starlink to upgrade it's
infrastructure at a speed faster than terrestrial cable can perform
roll-outs of new tech. Future bandwidth races might be between cellular
and LEO satellite constellations, with wire or fiber becoming the
anachronism due to the physical cost to upgrade it. This would be a very
new phenomenon for the satellite business. Time will tell.

Yeah sure I'm *not* saying Starship won't hold people, just not sure
exactly *when*. It isn't necessary to put Starlink up. I wouldn't expect
the ability to do so would be deferred until it can handle crew. That's
just not necessary. But to get Starlink up and running, AND to provide
the ability to be cost effective at fleet maintenance and upgrades,
yeah, it (Starship), seems quite necessary.

Happy New Year To You Too.

Dave

On Dec/31/2019 at 03:13, David Spain wrote :
On 2019-12-30 8:19 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

Happy New Year to all.

What do you expect will be the most interesting things coming up in
2020?

Commercial Crew flights to ISS.Â* Starship tests.

Jeff


Yep 2020 will be a bellwether for Commercial Crew. I expect to see the
first flights to ISS either by early summer or early fall. I expect both
Boeing and SpaceX will pull this off before the end of next year.

Starship MK3 first flights sometime in March I think. But progress will
be incremental. I'm somewhat pessimistic and I don't think crewed
flights will take place until 2022, perhaps later. I depends upon how
much of Dragon V2 tech gets incorporated into Starship early on. Or not.
Also the *early* emphasis may actually *not* be in crewed flight for
Starship compared to an automated and fully reusable launch system for
Starlink. I think the emphasis may actually be on Starlink support for
MK4. Getting a working LEO Internet satellite cluster up and running
with a global customer base could pay the way for the costly Starship
upgrades for crew to come later. What is fascinating to me is the
incremental launch costs for Starship. If we are down at around $100/kg
of cargo, it might actually become possible for Starlink to upgrade it's
infrastructure at a speed faster than terrestrial cable can perform
roll-outs of new tech. Future bandwidth races might be between cellular
and LEO satellite constellations, with wire or fiber becoming the
anachronism due to the physical cost to upgrade it. This would be a very
new phenomenon for the satellite business. Time will tell.

Yeah sure I'm *not* saying Starship won't hold people, just not sure
exactly *when*. It isn't necessary to put Starlink up. I wouldn't expect
the ability to do so would be deferred until it can handle crew. That's
just not necessary. But to get Starlink up and running, AND to provide
the ability to be cost effective at fleet maintenance and upgrades,
yeah, it (Starship), seems quite necessary.

In my opinion Commercial Crew isn't all that exciting. We've been using
capsules since the 1960's. Going from Soyuz to US capsules isn't a big
deal. Dragon will allow cost reductions, but the real cost reductions
here are in fact about the Falcon 9 which isn't something new for 2020
it was something very exciting that happened in December 2015 (the first
successful return of the first stage).

I think SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy are much more exciting. I also
hope and expect that we will hear a little more about Blue Origin.
Having one company developing a new technology revolutionarily reducing
cost is exciting, having two companies doing so, adds competition in the
mix which will make them both try to reduce cost yet again.

Super Heavy, Starship and Blue Origin are putting us on a path to Mars
and other such interesting things. Commercial Crew is about LEO. I'm not
saying Commercial Crew isn't nice to have. It is very nice to have. But
I'm not as excited about that as I am about very cheap reusable heavy
launch vehicles.


Alain Fournier

"Alain Fournier" wrote in message ...

On Dec/31/2019 at 03:13, David Spain wrote :
On 2019-12-30 8:19 PM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article , says...

Happy New Year to all.

What do you expect will be the most interesting things coming up in
2020?

Commercial Crew flights to ISS. Starship tests.

Jeff


Yep 2020 will be a bellwether for Commercial Crew. I expect to see the
first flights to ISS either by early summer or early fall. I expect both
Boeing and SpaceX will pull this off before the end of next year.

Starship MK3 first flights sometime in March I think. But progress will
be incremental. I'm somewhat pessimistic and I don't think crewed flights
will take place until 2022, perhaps later. I depends upon how much of
Dragon V2 tech gets incorporated into Starship early on. Or not. Also the
*early* emphasis may actually *not* be in crewed flight for Starship
compared to an automated and fully reusable launch system for Starlink. I
think the emphasis may actually be on Starlink support for MK4. Getting a
working LEO Internet satellite cluster up and running with a global
customer base could pay the way for the costly Starship upgrades for crew
to come later. What is fascinating to me is the incremental launch costs
for Starship. If we are down at around $100/kg of cargo, it might
actually become possible for Starlink to upgrade it's infrastructure at a
speed faster than terrestrial cable can perform roll-outs of new tech.
Future bandwidth races might be between cellular and LEO satellite
constellations, with wire or fiber becoming the anachronism due to the
physical cost to upgrade it. This would be a very new phenomenon for the
satellite business. Time will tell.

Yeah sure I'm *not* saying Starship won't hold people, just not sure
exactly *when*. It isn't necessary to put Starlink up. I wouldn't expect
the ability to do so would be deferred until it can handle crew. That's
just not necessary. But to get Starlink up and running, AND to provide
the ability to be cost effective at fleet maintenance and upgrades, yeah,
it (Starship), seems quite necessary.

In my opinion Commercial Crew isn't all that exciting. We've been using
capsules since the 1960's. Going from Soyuz to US capsules isn't a big
deal. Dragon will allow cost reductions, but the real cost reductions here
are in fact about the Falcon 9 which isn't something new for 2020 it was
something very exciting that happened in December 2015 (the first
successful return of the first stage).


I have to disagree. I don't think it's existing simply because it will
replace Soyuz for US crew exchange at ISS.

I think it's exciting because it'll prove that commercial crews flights can
be cost affordable.
This means that folks like Bigelow start to look more viable.

I think SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy are much more exciting. I also
hope and expect that we will hear a little more about Blue Origin. Having
one company developing a new technology revolutionarily reducing cost is
exciting, having two companies doing so, adds competition in the mix which
will make them both try to reduce cost yet again.

Agreed on that.

Super Heavy, Starship and Blue Origin are putting us on a path to Mars and
other such interesting things. Commercial Crew is about LEO. I'm not saying
Commercial Crew isn't nice to have. It is very nice to have. But I'm not as
excited about that as I am about very cheap reusable heavy launch vehicles.

I think we need the 737 before the 747. So I'm quite happy with stuff
that'll get us at least to LEO.
I think we'll see far more folks going to LEO for "vacation" than Mars for
any reason in the next decade and possibly two.



Alain Fournier

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/

On Thursday, January 2, 2020 at 11:30:28 AM UTC-5, Alain Fournier wrote:

In my opinion Commercial Crew isn't all that exciting. We've been using
capsules since the 1960's. Going from Soyuz to US capsules isn't a big
deal. Dragon will allow cost reductions, but the real cost reductions
here are in fact about the Falcon 9 which isn't something new for 2020
it was something very exciting that happened in December 2015 (the first
successful return of the first stage).

If it provides a much lower cost and reliable and sustainable access to low Earth
orbit, that is plenty exciting.

On 2020-01-03 3:30 AM, JF Mezei wrote:
On 2020-01-02 11:30, Alain Fournier wrote:

We've been using
capsules since the 1960's.

The Boeing one can land on land, so this is different.


The original plan for Dragon V2 called for propulsive landing using the
same Super Dracos used for the launch escape system that proved
problematical last year. It was to have been a powered descent from
orbit to a hard surface landing pad such as LZ-1 or LZ-2 at the Cape
using landing legs that protruded out of the head shield. But NASA nixed
the idea in favor of parachutes. Boeing must have sensed the political
winds at NASA better since their design incorporated parachutes from the
get go with the additional twist of air balloons for a hard surface
landing. It wasn't a major design hit for SpaceX because they also had
parachutes in the original design for Dragon V2 but only as a backup in
case the propulsive engines failed. I guess they just weren't expecting
as spectacular a failure as was seen in last year's test.

I suspect the other issue for NASA was the potential of compromise to
the heat shield due to the landing legs. Thus in a remarkable flip of
fate, the first land landings will go to Boeing even though SpaceX tried
to innovate it in first, just in steps that proved to be too big (risky)
for NASA.

Dragon V2 will be fished out of the ocean like Dragon is today.

Dave

On 2020-01-04 3:41, JF Mezei wrote:
On 2020-01-03 09:58, David Spain wrote:

The original plan for Dragon V2 called for propulsive landing using the
same Super Dracos used for the launch escape system that proved
problematical last year.

[snip]

With regards to the landing legs, I assume they folded back up onto the
side of the capsule?

As I recall the SpaceX images, they suggested that the landing legs were
tubular and vertical (in the landed position) and were extruded from the
bottom surface (the blunt end, the heat-shield) like pistons. The legs
had "feet" like flat disks that looked like sealing well against the
holes in the heat-shield.

[snip]

I suspect the other issue for NASA was the potential of compromise to
the heat shield due to the landing legs.

Doesn't Starliner have to compromise heat shield too in order for it to
open up and let the giant balloons inflate?

For Starliner, the whole heat-shield drops off well before the landing,
during the parachuted descent, and this exposes the air-bags. No holes
in the heat-shield, but I assume the heat-shield is not reusable at all.

--
Niklas Holsti
Tidorum Ltd
niklas holsti tidorum fi
. @ .

In article ,
says...

On 2020-01-03 09:58, David Spain wrote:

The original plan for Dragon V2 called for propulsive landing using the
same Super Dracos used for the launch escape system that proved
problematical last year.

I had wondered about how SpaceX had planned its propulsion for it. So
they would have been thottleable with wide range of thrust?

Yes. Super Dracos can throttle over a wide range. Each of the four
propulsion pods on the side of Dragon 2 has two Super Draco thrusters.
So there is also a lot of redundancy built into the system.

Does the removal of powered landing allow SpaceX to put significantly
less fuel in it? or would propuslive landing take about as much as
launch abort?

No, because that propellant is needed in case of a launch abort. Only
in the case of a nominal launch would that propellant have been used for
a propulsive landing. In the event of a launch abort, Dragon 2 would
have used parachutes to splash down in the ocean. So, in a nominal
launch, the landing propellant is essentially "free" since it had to be
there anyway in case of an abort.

On a nominal launch, Starliner uses its abort propellant as orbital
insertion propellant. And in the case of a complete failure of
Starliner to perform that orbital insertion burn, it will simply reenter
as Atlas V puts it into an orbit whose low point is within the earth's
atmosphere.

With regards to the failure, it would have happened in the same way,
with SpaceX finding out about the not-so-one-way valve and fixing it.
And testing it again until it was considered as trustable.

This is why SpaceX performs a lot of tests. Test as you fly; fly as you
test. This enables both rapid development and increases safety in the
long run.

With regards to the landing legs, I assume they folded back up onto the
side of the capsule?

No. They would have been driven by linear actuators through the base of
the heat shield. Much in the same way that the shuttle orbiter's
landing gear doors were on the underside of the space shuttle.

Could one conceive of a system where there are "mattresses" on the
ground at the landing site and the capsule lands on them instead of
having legs? (and in case of emergencies where de-orbit can't wait for
proper alignment, then they would have to land on a lake/ocean).

So airbags you have to hit precisely instead of incorporating them into
the spacecraft? Not a good idea. In a contingency landing, you would
not have the ability to hit the "mattress". Better to put the airbags
on the spacecraft as Starliner does.

I suspect the other issue for NASA was the potential of compromise to
the heat shield due to the landing legs.

Doesn't Starliner have to compromise heat shield too in order for it to
open up and let the giant balloons inflate?

No more so than Mercury did or any of the Mars probes that dropped their
heat shields before landing (pretty much all of them did this, from what
I remember).

Why was the Friendship 7 Mercury heat shield detachable?
https://space.stackexchange.com/ques...he-friendship-
7-mercury-heat-shield-detachable

Jeff
--
All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

"JF Mezei" wrote in message ...

On 2020-01-04 10:40, Jeff Findley wrote:

No, because that propellant is needed in case of a launch abort.

I was asking on whether propellant used for abort = propelland needed
for propulsive landing. Aka: had SpaceX been allowed propulsive landing,
would the fuel tanks for the super dracos have been bigger?

No, you're missing the point. The propellant was for one OR the other. You
want to ensure you've got enough fuel to accelerate quickly and far enough
in an abort and you want reserve for landing. So no. I don't believe there
was any difference.



With regards to landing gear: I have to wonder if that might not have
been the show stopper for NASA. Mechannically deployed landing legs seem
like a accident begging to happen if one fails to deploy/lock.


There's this concept called redundancy. And also accepting a harder, but
still survivable landing if one doesn't.

BTW, did the shuttle crew have cranks to manually lower the landing
gears like on planes at some point in time? Or is the time between
landing gear deployment and touching ground so short that it was
pointless to add manual gear deploy cranks?

The landing gear on the shuttle was deployed very late on approach. There
was no time to hand crank anything. Not even really enough time for a short
prayer if they fail to deploy.

NASA relied on explosive bolts to force the gear to deploy and gravity to
lock it in position. It was nearly foolproof.




a propulsive landing. In the event of a launch abort, Dragon 2 would
have used parachutes to splash down in the ocean.

Can Starliner launch over land if after an abort, the combination of
parachutes and inflatable mattress lets it land anywhere?


No, because you still need to launch the Atlas V over water for aborts.



insertion propellant. And in the case of a complete failure of
Starliner to perform that orbital insertion burn, it will simply reenter
as Atlas V puts it into an orbit whose low point is within the earth's
atmosphere.

So in the context of the recent Starliner test launch, how long after it
detached from Atlas and failed to activate orbit insertion engines,
would Starliner have re-entered? a few orbits or at the next perigee?

I believe at the next perigee.


Just curious how close to re-entry the ship was at the time ground
control re-established contact with it and started to "fix" it. I take
it a "confused" ship left to its own devices would have re-entered with
its service module still attached and not have realised it was
re-entering and not deployed parachutes?


No idea on this one.

(since its software seems so based on a timer).

--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
https://www.amazon.com/Disaster-Resp...dp/1484221834/