tater

Launch in a few seconds

Which is end of August, beginning of Sept as he said before

First F9 today. The second one was moved to tomorrow morning.

Crew home on Dragon, Starliner home uncrewed, next Starliner is cargo (as a test of any fixes), then they certify and allow first real mission.

They were already working on those contingencies should they ever be needed for crew delivered with Soyuz, actually.

Launch today moved to 11:17 EDT.

This overview by Scott Manley is good:

Dunno, but the design spec for both CCVs is for a 6 month nominal mission to ISS—which could go long. No idea why shorter battery life could possibly be a thing, it's not like battery tech pushes the TRL.

Love the frost

Tory will no doubt express that he is impressed. He's the opposite of a scrub, he thought it really was not fully assembled.

Context for the text of Gwynne's post:

Sorry, image didn't get copied:

This is Flight 1 hardware per BO CEO.

https://oig.nasa.gov/office-of-inspector-general-oig/nasas-management-of-space-launch-system-block-1b-development/ "As for the upper stage itself, NASA initially predicted development costs would be $962 million back in 2017. However, the new report predicts that the Exploration Upper Stage will actually cost $2.8 billion, or three times the original cost estimate." $2.8B PER STAGE. 18 FH launches. 28 Starship complete stacks. For 1 upper stage. So a Block 1B will cost ~$7B. Insanity.

Long thread goes through the self-docking requirements.

I think it's important to remember that Dragon, while flight-proven, is also, well, not "safe." Space travel is still rather dangerous. Assuming the vehicles meet their spec, they will only lose 1 in 270 flights. So far they've flown 25 times, including cargo (since they're basically the same). So we know it's real safety is at least 1:24 (crew on ISS still has to return). So there's a nonzero chance that they could do one of the "Dragon rescue" options, Starliner returns home nominally, and Dragon suffers a loss. So the question is not, "Send them home safely on Dragon, or take a risk on Starliner," it is in fact a balance of the risks of the 2 vehicles vs each other. If they believe their own risk estimates, then they assume 1:270 for Dragon, vs whatever they downgrade this particular Starliner to right now. Actually, they calculate risk for ascent, on orbit, and descent, so the remaining risk might in fact be higher for both vehicles than 1:270, dunno how they calculate it.

I can’t imagine them certifying this vehicle for an operational flight without first testing whatever they fix, even if the crew comes home on Starliner.

Welcome to #5.

F9 takes ~18 months to build (including long lead items, so in the "I, Pencil" sense). Reuse incredibly important, launch is now profitable. Learn about vehicles from reflight (reliability). Stage 2 of F9 costs $10-12M.