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NASA SLS/Orion/Payloads


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4 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I recall some people being up in arms about NASA testing launch vehicles/spacecraft for the first time with crew (cough Space Shuttle cough). Now people are up in arms because A-1 ain't manned. I mean at least this isn't AS-201 where it only goes into LEO. It at least it's going somewhere. Plus carrying payload.

Who said EM-1 should be manned, here? I said it should be an all up test, nothing more.

4 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

That said, the biggest roadblock is likely from ESA and not getting the SM ready in time.

The SM is a joke, and we never should have involved ESA. If the goal is anyplace past LEO, the SM should be fully capable, which effectively means another km/s of dv, else stay home.

1 minute ago, Dale Christopher said:

It kinda feels like in the absence of competition up until the recent commercial space boom, the ULA have been just milking money out of the government... and now it feels like they are having to actually come up with the goods, and what do we get? a hastily 3d printed mock up? >.> where did the money go?

Space toilets are actually a big deal, it's important tech, the way Apollo did it was, well, yuck.

Shuttle and ISS have had toilets, this is not a warp drive. Orion has already cost what, 19 billion, and continues on the same burn rate until real flight (the first such real flight is EM-2, BTW, so until EM-2, Orion has not flown at all).

EDIT: To be very clear, the first all up Orion is the first flight of Orion, EM-1 is boilerplate, not Orion if anything on the flight article short of crew is not included (ie: it should be capable of crew, but uncrewed to count as an Orion flight).

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@tater

Did I understand correctly when I watched the launch abort test? Did they just let the test vehicle plough into the ground after they got the data? O_o 

wait wait... EM-1 is not going to be the Orion capsule?? what is boilerplate? a mock up?

Edited by Guest
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4 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

(boiler plate means dead weight or something?)

Yes, essentially. It means "just something the right weight and shape to stick under the LES because this was an LES test and not a capsule test".

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6 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

@tater

Did I understand correctly when I watched the launch abort test? Did they just let the test vehicle plough into the ground after they got the data? O_o 

wait wait... EM-1 is not going to be the Orion capsule?? what is boilerplate? a mock up?

Splash down, and yes. As there was only an aerodynamic/weight model of Orion (known as a boilerplate) under the LES cap. No point in recovering something literally built for the sole purpose of the test.

Just now, mikegarrison said:

Yes, essentially. It means "just something the right weight and shape to stick under the LES because this was an LES test and not a capsule test".

Damnit ninja’d by seconds

7 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

wait wait... EM-1 is not going to be the Orion capsule?? what is boilerplate? a mock up?

EM-1 will have a real capsule- merely missing all of the internal and crew essential features. The shape, weight and any essential shielding for the purposes of the flight hardware will be present but not any seats, life support, etc. it’ll look like Orion but missing everything the crew needs.

A boilerplate is the name for any test article that fills the role of the capsule for testing but without crew features. This was first used with Mercury hardware as they’d literally use boilerplate made capsules for testing the launch escape system and the water floatation systems, etc. The capsule had similar features but was completely a dummy fake for the purpose of the test.

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But wait... EM-1 is going to be orbiting the moon? How can it be a boilerplate and test the vehicle? testing a block of concrete wont tell you anything about Orion

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3 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

But wait... EM-1 is going to be orbiting the moon? How can it be a boilerplate and test the vehicle? testing a block of concrete wont tell you anything about Orion

Putting a block of concrete in orbit around the moon would tell you nothing about the block of concrete but an awful lot about the rockets that got it there. I don't know it "EM-1" is boilerplate or not, but in general it's wasted money to build in systems that aren't going to be used or tested.

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27 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

@tater

Did I understand correctly when I watched the launch abort test? Did they just let the test vehicle plough into the ground after they got the data? O_o 

wait wait... EM-1 is not going to be the Orion capsule?? what is boilerplate? a mock up?

The abort test was only a test of the LAS, Orion for that was a mass of the right shape and mass (true boilerplate).

EM-1 is an almost real Orion, but lacks many critical parts that a crew vehicle would have. The point of EM-1 is largely to test the new heatshield (changed after EFT-1), and as such, they could effectively send a full boilerplate Orion, as only the mass and EDL profile matter. Instead, they are going to test some other stuff while they are at it---which would be fine, if they were to then do another test with the final vehicle.

Instead, they are jumping from a partial Orion CSM test right to crew.

13 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

But wait... EM-1 is going to be orbiting the moon? How can it be a boilerplate and test the vehicle? testing a block of concrete wont tell you anything about Orion

The SM will be functional as a spacecraft, but the crew vehicle elements will be incomplete. It is my understanding that the ECLSS will not be complete on EM-1. No crew, so not needed, but it seems to me that testing it in actual space flight would be at least a "not bad" idea.

I'm all for testing, in short.

Apollo tested without crew (Saturn 1B for 4 flights), then/concurrently, Saturn V with Apollo 4 for heatshield, Apollo 6 with full CSM), then with crew in LEO (Saturn 1b (Apollo 7 with a crew CSM to LEO) and then Apollo 8, then the LEM in LEO (9), then the CSM and LEM in lunar orbit (10), then Apollo 11.

Edited by tater
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15 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Putting a block of concrete in orbit around the moon would tell you nothing about the block of concrete but an awful lot about the rockets that got it there. I don't know it "EM-1" is boilerplate or not, but in general it's wasted money to build in systems that aren't going to be used or tested.

I'm being pretty loose with Boilerplate as a term here. EM-1 is a flight article Orion CM in many ways, but not all, particularly the elements required to support crew. Ditto the SM, which doesn't carry unneeded ECLSS equipment. Any mass issues will presumably be ballasted so that the EDL is good data for them.

I don't think that such a test is terrible, but I think it's a wasted opportunity on a vehicle so long in development, with such a low possible launch cadence. Given the cost/cadence, they should have made the very most of the ONE testing opportunity they have before putting crew aboard (IMHO).

 

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21 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:
27 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

But wait... EM-1 is going to be orbiting the moon? How can it be a boilerplate and test the vehicle? testing a block of concrete wont tell you anything about Orion

Putting a block of concrete in orbit around the moon would tell you nothing about the block of concrete but an awful lot about the rockets that got it there. I don't know it "EM-1" is boilerplate or not, but in general it's wasted money to build in systems that aren't going to be used or tested.

In such big capsule they can put a whole pack of tortoises to flyby the Moon.

Spoiler

1469186483110413425.jpg1469186489166779049.jpg

Or a crocodile gator.

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This isn't the 1960s anymore. Proposing to shoot some animal into space and just leave it to die there absolutely woudn't fly (and I mean that literally). Even a live recovery mission would probably draw a lot of complaints for using animals as non-consenting test subjects.

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Spoiler
19 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

This isn't the 1960s anymore. Proposing to shoot some animal into space and just leave it to die there absolutely woudn't fly (and I mean that literally). Even a live recovery mission would probably draw a lot of complaints for using animals as non-consenting test subjects.

They can put makeup on it, and claim that it's a trivial cosmetics testing.
"With our products, even the space can't stop you from turning a crocodile into a beauty!"

Or they can put a hive and test space bees producing space honey.

Edited by kerbiloid
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Spoiler
47 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:
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They can put makeup on it, and claim that it's a trivial cosmetics testing.
"With our products, even the space can't stop you from turning a crocodile into a beauty!"

Or they can put a hive and test space bees producing space honey.

Now all we need are space flowers for space pollen >.>

 

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Please stop with the spoilers.

That said-

If Bridenstine get’s the funding and puts a nuclear hellfire under ESA pants, I guess it’s feasible they could install a mock version of the LSS. It’d be barebones, but enough to prove that it could work. It’s not like LSSs are new to NASA or the ESA. I’m sure someone at ESA has the plans for the LSS already drawn up and planned out. It just hasn’t passed NASA’s lengthy review and analysis processes. So I could imagine that if they sped the analysis along and built the parts, it might be ready within a year. 

Maybe I’m off though

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44 minutes ago, tater said:

The SM is already built, they won;t be adding anything to it:

 

Not currently planned however Bridenstine has shown to be following anything but previous plans. With the SM already built- all the remains to be built is the internal LSS hardware and all the hookups to the Orion (which should already be present in some form or another being a near identical build to the crewed version). 

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18 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

That said, the biggest roadblock is likely from ESA and not getting the SM ready in time.

You are entirely correct. The Artemis 1 ESM is not suitable for crewed flight. It could have been made suitable, but that would've needed to be done a while back and would've delayed the first launch. The issue is that some design changes to the life support systems were made after the first service module had been fabricated (something to do with valves and oxygen tanks, if I remember correctly). The ESM on Artemis 1 uses a stripped-down version of the old design. Again, they could've fixed it, but when the decision was made to do Artemis 1 unmanned, it was decided not to.

18 hours ago, Dale Christopher said:

It kinda feels like in the absence of competition up until the recent commercial space boom, the ULA have been just milking money out of the government... and now it feels like they are having to actually come up with the goods, and what do we get? a hastily 3d printed mock up? >.> where did the money go?

...SLS isn't ULA. They only provide the ICPS.

Edited by jadebenn
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1 hour ago, jadebenn said:

...SLS isn't ULA. They only provide the ICPS.

I was referring to Orion but it applies to SLS as well. I was under the impression that Boeing and Lockheed are the ULA, either way those guys are who I was talking about >_<. 

I mean, as far as delays and cost overruns, thats totally understandable when you are making something new that pushes the limits of what's possible... I mean, work of art takes as long as it takes right. But I cant really convince myself that that is whats happening here... Orion and SLS are both repurposed stuff. The idea behind them is more about finding a use for systems that have already been developed or had a lot of development time and money already sunk into them. We arent crafting a faberge egg here @_@.

Don't get me wrong tho, I welcome the capabilities that SLS would bring but at the same time... is the cargo variant even going to be built at all at this point? It's looking to me like the SLS might only lift Artemis missions for the span of the project before being completely superseded by commercial players undercutting it. 

I dont want to be a negative nelly but these are my feels @_@

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9 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

I was referring to Orion but it applies to SLS as well. I was under the impression that Boeing and Lockheed are the ULA, either way those guys are who I was talking about >_<. 

Boeing and Lockheed own ULA, but Orion is a Lockheed Martin product, not a ULA one.

In general, the companies that form ULA will prefer to bid individually instead of bidding jointly. Even though it's higher risk, it's higher reward too. The ICPS is a bit of an exception because it's basically just a Delta IV upper stage, and the Delta IV is a ULA product.

Edited by jadebenn
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Hey, folks -

Based on the OP of this thread, its purpose is the discussion of space flight and payloads, specifically the SLS/Orion payload delivery system. Please refrain from introducing other topics which are unrelated to the focus of the thread. Posts not directly relating to space flight, SLS/Orion payloads, or space-based experiments which are loosely related to the SLS/Orion program have been removed.

As a friendly reminder from your moderator team, please refrain from introducing off-topic subjects on this thread. Let's try to keep it focused on NASA's SLS/Orion system and possible payloads.

You may go about your routine forum thread postings... :)

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