totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[RealKerbal3x]

Two weeks isn't bad.

[StrandedonEarth]

And then it’ll be another week after that…

[Spaceception]

16 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

And then it’ll be another week after that…

Three in a half days after that?

[Beccab]

The FAA also released 19,000 comments distributed in 25 pdf files made on the PEA:
https://cms.faa.gov/spacexstarship/starshipsuperheavy/comments-draft-programmatic-environmental-assessment-pea-spacex

It looks like (unexpectedly) that a decent part of the additional time required to process the comments wasn't only due to spacex fans spam: there's a looong sequence of comments (over a thousand, going from volume 20 to 25) that contain the same exact text asking the FAA to do a full EIS, never changing more than one or two words of the original message. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Another 2 week delay:

 

 

[Minmus Taster]

5 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Another 2 week delay:

 

 

Well it wasn't a full month this time! big leaps forward indeed  

[Beccab]

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Woot! 

[Scotius]

Booming boosters! That's a big pile of shiny, brand new engines. BO should take notes...

[Beccab]

 

Also:

Remember that SpaceX was contracted 3 additional Dragon flights a few weeks ago? That's been increased to 5 additional ones if this contract is correct, which means it should fly until Crew-11

Edit: it's also unclear whether this is 5 on top of the original 6 or 5 on top of the additional 3 already awarded - that would mean continuing until Crew-14, not 11

Edited June 2, 2022 by Beccab

[Beccab]

https://www.permits.performance.gov/proj/spacex-starshipsuper-heavy-launch-vehicle-program-spacex-boca-chica-launch-site-cameron-county

Section 4f of the PEA has been completed today! This was the last publicly known milestone needed before the assestment is finalized, which makes the june 13 release date quite realistic

[mikegarrison]

That's a really strange letter. It talks about how very important it is to have redundant methods to reach the ISS -- so it awards a sole source contract. Um, did two different people write this and then they just slapped the two parts together?

It also feels like really strange timing, given that it came out right after Boeing's apparently-successful OFT2. Almost like somebody felt like they had to rush this through while SpaceX was still the only fully-qualified Commercial Crew provider.

[Beccab]

10 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

It also feels like really strange timing, given that it came out right after Boeing's apparently-successful OFT2. Almost like somebody felt like they had to rush this through while SpaceX was still the only fully-qualified Commercial Crew provider.

That's a quite weird conspiracy theory. Even ignoring the various thruster issues, Starliner still has no way to fly after the original 6 missions, as Atlas V is sold out and ULA said repeatedly they won't pay for Vulcan crew certification on their own

10 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

That's a really strange letter. It talks about how very important it is to have redundant methods to reach the ISS -- so it awards a sole source contract. Um, did two different people write this and then they just slapped the two parts together?

As for this part, it makes sense to me - Starliner Crew 1 won't be until late 2023 at best, and at that point Dragon Crew 6 will have returned. With the flights that were contracted before you could only get to 2027 and by flying three starliner missions back to back, while the ISS is scheduled to last until 2030; these flights get you up until then

There's now also a NASA blog post about it:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/kennedy/2022/06/01/nasa-to-purchase-additional-commercial-crew-missions/

and this quote in particular specifies the reason behind this

Edited June 2, 2022 by Beccab

[mikegarrison]

8 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Starliner still has no way to fly after the original 6 missions, as Atlas V is sold out and ULA said repeatedly they won't pay for Vulcan crew certification on their own

Well, this is true, but they could have said that.

I'm just saying, it feels a lot like somebody really wanted to make sure they could get this sole source pushed through quickly, and wanted to do it now while it would be easiest to justify.

The really strange part is still the heavy emphasis on the need for redundancy in an announcement intending to offer a non-redundant sole source bid. However, I suppose maybe you are correct that with the delays to Starliner they ended up with the Dragon flights all front-loaded and the Starliner flights all back-loaded.

[Beccab]

5 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Well, this is true, but they could have said that.

I agree, but in this case being vague in the announcement benefits both Boeing (as there's no way to describe the lack of Starliner launchers in a way that puts it in a good light) and NASA (simply because a displeased vendor is never a good thing)

As an aside, not crew certifying Vulcan honestly seems to me the dumbest thing I've seen ULA do - sure, it's some millions you could maybe save if you can convince NASA to pay instead, but in this era where there's more stuff being developed in LEO than basically ever before the stakes are way too high to risk it on what's peanuts for Boeing and Lockmart. Between the ISS, Axiom station, Blue Reef and Starlab there's a lot of money Boeing could get by finding a rocket on where to put their capsule

[tater]

 

[StrandedonEarth]

2 hours ago, Beccab said:

As an aside, not crew certifying Vulcan honestly seems to me the dumbest thing I've seen ULA do - sure, it's some millions you could maybe save if you can convince NASA to pay instead, but in this era where there's more stuff being developed in LEO than basically ever before the stakes are way too high to risk it on what's peanuts for Boeing and Lockmart. Between the ISS, Axiom station, Blue Reef and Starlab there's a lot of money Boeing could get by finding a rocket on where to put their capsule

I agree, I generally like Tory Bruno, as he’s been playing a good PR game on Twitter, but I think in this case he’s playing chicken with NASA. I do believe Starliner could also ride the F9, but they lose redundancy in having multiple boosters available. 

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I agree, I generally like Tory Bruno, as he’s been playing a good PR game on Twitter, but I think in this case he’s playing chicken with NASA. I do believe Starliner could also ride the F9, but they lose redundancy in having multiple boosters available. 

Keep in mind that Starliner is Boeing, but ULA is ULA. It's quite possible that it's not NASA that ULA is trying to force to pay for crew-rating Vulcan.

It's also entirely possible for Boeing to write off Starliner as an "oh well, we tried" thing and decide their better business opportunities lie elsewhere.

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Starliner could also ride the F9, but they lose redundancy in having multiple boosters available. 

That would be interesting, because it could easily lead to anti-trust concerns if SpaceX was not willing to provide launch services to a competitor for their own capsule.

Edited June 3, 2022 by mikegarrison

[sevenperforce]

6 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Keep in mind that Starliner is Boeing, but ULA is ULA. It's quite possible that it's not NASA that ULA is trying to force to pay for crew-rating Vulcan.

It's also entirely possible for Boeing to write off Starliner as an "oh well, we tried" thing and decide their better business opportunities lie elsewhere.

That would be interesting, because it could easily lead to anti-trust concerns if SpaceX was not willing to provide launch services to a competitor for their own capsule.

Having just taken (and, miraculously, passed) antitrust law, I would tend to think that because SpaceX has already gone to such lengths to be vertically integrated, they wouldn't be liable under §2 for failure to deal unless they did something nefarious to Starliner or Boeing. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Having just taken (and, miraculously, passed) antitrust law, I would tend to think that because SpaceX has already gone to such lengths to be vertically integrated, they wouldn't be liable under §2 for failure to deal unless they did something nefarious to Starliner or Boeing. 

Isn't that, however, modified when one actor offers services to the public at large (general offer to any and all comers) that are willing to pay for the services and then refuses to deal with a bona-fide offer from a competitor? 

 

(it's been almost 20 years since I took the class - so... Am I remembering that correctly?) 

Edited June 3, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[sevenperforce]

1 minute ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Isn't that, however, modified when one actor offers services to the public at large (general offer to any and all comers) that are willing to pay for the services and then refuses to deal with a bonafied offer from a competitor?  

Liability for refusal to deal is only triggered when the purpose and effect of the refusal is to totally foreclose a competitor from the market. For example, if SpaceX was the only launch provider, then refusing to allow Starliner capsules or Kuiper satellites to fly on Falcon 9 in an effort to protect Crew Dragon and Starlink would be an actionable refusal to deal. But since there are other launch providers theoretically available, refusal would not be not a market foreclosure and thus would not be considered an act of monopolization under §2.

[tater]

3 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

That would be interesting, because it could easily lead to anti-trust concerns if SpaceX was not willing to provide launch services to a competitor for their own capsule.

I can't even imagine that happening.

Waiting on crew rating Vulcan makes sense, honestly. Centaur is already crew rated. Ditto the SRMs (already flying on Atlas V). The bit not crew rated is the Be-4 booster—which BO says they will crew rate (the Be-4).  Maybe they let BO pony up for that.

[Beccab]

55 minutes ago, tater said:

I can't even imagine that happening.

Waiting on crew rating Vulcan makes sense, honestly. Centaur is already crew rated. Ditto the SRMs (already flying on Atlas V). The bit not crew rated is the Be-4 booster—which BO says they will crew rate (the Be-4).  Maybe they let BO pony up for that.

You still need to certify the whole system, even a crew rated capsule on a crew rated stage using crew rated boosters won't make a crew rated rocket. Which means you only save a few millions and in exchange lose years, in which you could have had a crewed spacecraft to sell to anyone who doesn't trust spacex

 

[tater]

25 minutes ago, Beccab said:

You still need to certify the whole system, even a crew rated capsule on a crew rated stage using crew rated boosters won't make a crew rated rocket. Which means you only save a few millions and in exchange lose years, in which you could have had a crewed spacecraft to sell to anyone who doesn't trust spacex

Everything except Be-4 is likely already crew rated. You can demonstrate the vehicle, as SpaceX did, or you can show the safety of each component, etc, or some combination, perhaps.

Commercial crew requirement is a LOC probability of 1:500 on ascent.Assuming the LES can pull the thing off the stack, what non-capsule failure modes caused by the booster are there that would negate the LES and result in LOC—and what is the probability of such an event?

 

[AVaughan]

A SRB exploding at a low altitude, causing enough burning fragments to endanger the parachutes perhaps?