Boeing's Starliner

[.50calBMG]

Well, even if we assume starliner doesn't blow out it's thrusters this time due to an error that should have been caught, it will still probably be replaced by dragon just based on price alone. Just the RL-10s alone are almost as much as an entire falcon 9, and those RD-180s can't be cheap either. Even switching to vulcan doesn't help all that much in that regard, every proposed version still uses RL-10s.

[SpaceFace545]

2 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Depends. I think that as long as NASA has the budget they'll keep at least two crew vehicles. Dissimilar redundancy and all that.

2nd phase of commercial crew will be interesting though. Both capsules will have to rebid against outside competition.

I would be highly surprised if Dragon weren't chosen again, NASA seem extremely satisfied with price, service, and SpaceX's management culture. 

Starliner on the other hand may be vulnerable to replacement by a newcomer, such as Dreamchaser.

Yeah, dream chaser could very likely replace cargo dragon with its ability to softly land lots of cargo and lift even more cargo up with or without the shooting star module. And I think a crewed dream chaser could take like ~9 people up but aborts may be tricky.

[tater]

Just now, .50calBMG said:

Well, even if we assume starliner doesn't blow out it's thrusters this time due to an error that should have been caught, it will still probably be replaced by dragon just based on price alone. Just the RL-10s alone are almost as much as an entire falcon 9, and those RD-180s can't be cheap either. Even switching to vulcan doesn't help all that much in that regard, every proposed version still uses RL-10s.

I think the actual cost of RL-10s is far lower than has been stated.

Using Tory Bruno's math:

Vulcan Centaur is $82M. 41 is rocket, stage 2 is $20.5M. If the 2 RL-10s are also 2/3 of S2 cost, they are ~$6.8M each.

Their contract gets them paid more per seat, tis true. Shotwell has said if they did it over again they would have charged more.

4 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Yeah, dream chaser could very likely replace cargo dragon with its ability to softly land lots of cargo and lift even more cargo up with or without the shooting star module. And I think a crewed dream chaser could take like ~9 people up but aborts may be tricky.

All the CCV applicants had to design for 7 crew, even if they will all nominally carry 4. So I bet DC does 7 as well.

I think DC would be the ideal crew vehicle for the current requirements, it only lost because I think NASA wanted one "sure thing" in there (Boeing, lol).

[SpaceFace545]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

I think DC would be the ideal crew vehicle for the current requirements, it only lost because I think NASA wanted one "sure thing" in there (Boeing, lol).

How do you think abort would work on DreamChaser? especially if it is launched inside of a faring with it's wings folded.

[.50calBMG]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

I think the actual cost of RL-10s is far lower than has been stated.

I won't argue that they are cheaper than people seem to think (I've seen people say a single RL-10 is about the same cost as an entire falcon 9), but I still believe a falcon 9 with crew dragon is considerably cheaper than an Atlas V N22, considering you get most of the important stuff back.

2 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

How do you think abort would work on DreamChaser? especially if it is launched inside of a faring with it's wings folded.

The enclosed DC with folding wings was meant to be cargo only iirc, so it wouldn't have any abort system.

Edited May 6, 2021 by .50calBMG
Phone doesn't know words

[tater]

3 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

How do you think abort would work on DreamChaser? especially if it is launched inside of a faring with it's wings folded.

Good point, it would have to launch minus the fairing I would assume, that of LES looks kinda tricky (yank the fairing off the stack, then shed it?)

Presumably earlier work (Dyna Soar) at least addressed this in some fashion.

4 minutes ago, .50calBMG said:

The enclosed DC with folding wings was meant to be cargo only iirc, so it wouldn't have any abort system.

yeah, I think the CCV version doesn't have the fold.

[RCgothic]

Dreamchaser and Cargo Dragon will already run concurrently alongside Cygnus for commercial really phase 2. That phase of the contract still has a while to run, so there's no chance of any of the cargo vehicles being replaced in a new phase any time soon (although Cygnus' missions all seem to be front-loaded in this phase).

 

It's Commercial Crew Phase 2 that will soon be selected.

I would be shocked if Crew Dragon weren't retained. By all accounts NASA is extremely pleased with it and it's the cheapest. It's Starliner that needs to prove it can perform.

[tater]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24298984_Launch-pad_abort_capabilities_of_the_HL-20_lifting_body

They studied crew HL-20 abort modes.

[SpaceFace545]

1 minute ago, RCgothic said:

Dreamchaser and Cargo Dragon will already run concurrently alongside Cygnus for commercial really phase 2. That phase of the contract still has a while to run, so there's no chance of any of the cargo vehicles being replaced in a new phase any time soon (although Cygnus' missions all seem to be front-loaded in this phase).

 

It's Commercial Crew Phase 2 that will soon be selected.

I would be shocked if Crew Dragon weren't retained. By all accounts NASA is extremely pleased with it and it's the cheapest. It's Starliner that needs to prove it can perform.

Starliner is actually reusable which could cut costs later down the road. Crew Dragon isn't reusable, I think it only can be cut up into the cargo version, what still cuts costs but still.

[Beccab]

1 minute ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Crew Dragon isn't reusable

Crew dragon is reusable, that's its whole point. Unlike Starliner it has also been already reused, in fact the Crew 2 dragon is the same as the demo 2 dragon iirc

[Flavio hc16]

2 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Starliner is actually reusable which could cut costs later down the road. Crew Dragon isn't reusable, I think it only can be cut up into the cargo version, what still cuts costs but still.

Crew Dragon isn't reusable? Ehmmmm who should tell you that Endeavour is on the ISS  for the 2nd time with crew ( demo 2 and crew 2 )

[SpaceFace545]

2 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Crew dragon is reusable, that's its whole point. Unlike Starliner it has also been already reused, in fact the Crew 2 dragon is the same as the demo 2 dragon iirc

I didn't know that lol

[RCgothic]

51 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I didn't know that lol

And the Crew-1 Dragon Resilience after its stay at the ISS is being retrofitted with a dome window in place of the docking adaptor for a free-flying mission later in the year, Inspiration-4.

Edited May 6, 2021 by RCgothic

[tater]

Originally there was talk of not reusing them, and instead using them as cargo. Since then they decided to make dedicated cargo versions. They're largely the same, but simplified for better cargo capability.

[RCgothic]

Basically, as with Falcon 9, NASA were initially skeptical of reuse, but SpaceX convinced them after multiple successful reuses of Dragon v1.

[Spaceman.Spiff]

 

[Beccab]

25 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

Axiom-1

Isn't it called inspiration 4? Or am I mixing up names

[RCgothic]

9 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Isn't it called inspiration 4? Or am I mixing up names

No, it's me that's mixed up. Multiple private flights!

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Starliner is actually reusable which could cut costs later down the road. Crew Dragon isn't reusable, I think it only can be cut up into the cargo version, what still cuts costs but still.

It was originally announced that Crew Dragon would not be reusable due to the saltwater landings, but they later decided the saltwater was not a deal-breaker.

[KSK]

52 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

It was originally announced that Crew Dragon would not be reusable due to the saltwater landings, but they later decided the saltwater was not a deal-breaker.

Yep. Crew 2 used the same capsule as Demo 2.

Edit. Sorry - already pointed out upthread. Please ignore.

 

 

Edited May 6, 2021 by KSK

[kerbiloid]

7 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It was originally announced that Crew Dragon would not be reusable due to the saltwater landings, but they later decided the saltwater was not a deal-breaker.

They did it after the post-water explosion.

Sea Dragon can, any dragon can.

[monophonic]

11 hours ago, tater said:

Good point, it would have to launch minus the fairing I would assume, that of LES looks kinda tricky (yank the fairing off the stack, then shed it?)

I don't think that would be a big problem, not technically at least. After all, Soyuz does exactly that and it has worked more than once in a real emergency. But it would probably require a completely new fairing and payload adapter, I imagine. Doubtful if the existing ones could be easily adapted to withstand such stresses as they would experience in an abort situation. There's a hole right there to sink money into. Any extra mass would come out of the cargo too, but that one is true of any LES system.

[SpaceFace545]

2 hours ago, monophonic said:

I don't think that would be a big problem, not technically at least. After all, Soyuz does exactly that and it has worked more than once in a real emergency. But it would probably require a completely new fairing and payload adapter, I imagine. Doubtful if the existing ones could be easily adapted to withstand such stresses as they would experience in an abort situation. There's a hole right there to sink money into. Any extra mass would come out of the cargo too, but that one is true of any LES system.

I doubt those fairings could, I was watching an atlas launch and when those fairings came off they just bounced and vibrated like crazy.

[tater]

 

[mikegarrison]

We have gone from "we're not sure when this will happen" to "the launch will be July 30 at 2:53pm local time".

Of course, since the target is the ISS, they actually do need to have an exact launch time in mind, plus or minus only a few minutes.