Blue Origin Thread (merged)

[codepoet]

An ignorant question, I am sure, but why does each launch provider need to have their own spacesuit? By a Beoing suit and a spacex suit and a NASA suit? Can't they just use what is already on the shelf?

[Steel]

3 minutes ago, codepoet said:

An ignorant question, I am sure, but why does each launch provider need to have their own spacesuit? By a Beoing suit and a spacex suit and a NASA suit? Can't they just use what is already on the shelf?

I mean technically they don't, it's mostly for the PR shots. Also I imagine it's partly to do with integrating the suits with the spacecraft (i.e making sure you fit in the chairs and can connect to the radio, life support e.t.c The lack of a generic "off-the-shelf suit" is probably also an issue, what would you adopt as the standard?

[Kryten]

NASA does not appear to be involved with this, so it's unlikely to be the suit. Also it's an 'announcement'; for suits it would be a 'reveal', or something similar.

1 hour ago, codepoet said:

An ignorant question, I am sure, but why does each launch provider need to have their own spacesuit? By a Beoing suit and a spacex suit and a NASA suit? Can't they just use what is already on the shelf?

The only existing NASA suits were built for shuttle; they're too bulky for smaller capsule interiors, and they have a lot of capabilities that the capsules don't need (like acting as a survival suit for bailout over water). The Boeing suit is a heavily simplified version of the shuttle suit; only the SpaceX suit is new.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Kryten

[Tullius]

4 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Launching a 15 t craft with a 4 t payload rocket?

For the LES test, you only need to go suborbital until MaxQ, i.e. you only need to reach some 15km of altitude. And considering that a Peacekeeper has a TWR of 2.5 (twice that of Saturn V), i.e. much bigger than what SLS probably will have, you can add a considerable payload before it won't be able to reach MaxQ at the desired altitude and speed.

[AeroGav]

4 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

LOC/LOM rates are calculated from the failure rates of individual subsystems, which are calculated from the failure rates of components, etc...

Doing all these calculations is the major component of "man rating" a vehicle.

The mind boggles at how you would calculate such a thing.

I also look with disdain upon the "mean time between failure" numbers bandied around in the consumer electronics industry.

What does "Man rating" mean in practice?

Using components that have proven themselves on unmanned flights?

Additional redundancy, at the minor systems level -  backup electric circuits and valve actuators/sensors/microprocessors - that would not be used on a cargo launcher?

Extra stages of inspection of every assembly action - every time an engineer plugs a connector cable in from one module to another, two others come along to inspect his work?

Thorough non-destructive testing of every component coming from suppliers, be it a fastener , cable or strut, before attempting to fit the part?

More generous safety margins on component spec, erring on the side of cost and weight?

How much safety comes from the above measures, as opposed to 

a)  Mission Architecture

Ensuring there is a viable abort mode for every part of the flight.    One of the issues with the space shuttle being the lack of launch escape system .    

b) Program Management

Avoiding complacency in the face of known risks - Challenger launching outside of the operating temperature parameters of the SRB seals,  Columbia continuing its mission despite foam strike being witnessed on launch. Apollo 1 conducting a ground test with a pure oxygen cabin atmosphere, at much higher pressure than would have been used in space.

In the case of SLS, the issue of whether to launch manned or unmanned first, and what degree of change to the launch vehicle stack config justifies another unmanned test flight.

[tater]

5 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

LOC/LOM rates are calculated from the failure rates of individual subsystems, which are calculated from the failure rates of components, etc...

Doing all these calculations is the major component of "man rating" a vehicle.

I understand they are calculated, but it seems like comparison with reality would also be in order. The actual shuttle failure rate was substantially higher than that, yet they continued flying. It's a reasonable design goal (1:500 launch failures, 1:500 reentry failures), but it seems like given even the most optimistic launch cadence for SLS/Orion, they will not have enough real data for a long, long time.

[kerbiloid]

31 minutes ago, Tullius said:

considering that a Peacekeeper has a TWR of 2.5

Then TWR 2.5 * 4 / 15 ~= 0.7

So, maybe if just the first stage of  MX, replacing other stages with Orion.

Edited February 27, 2017 by kerbiloid

[Tullius]

7 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Then TWR 2.5 * 4 / 15 ~= 0.7

So, maybe if just the first stage of  MX, replacing other stages with Orion.

Peacekeeper weighs approx. 90 tonnes, i.e the calculation is something along the lines of (90+4)/(90+15)*2.5=2.24. So there is still plenty of TWR to spare at takeoff.

Edited February 27, 2017 by Tullius

[kerbiloid]

Yes, my fault.

[tater]

Eric Berger says it's likely the suits FWIW. Chris Bergin agrees. <shrug>

[Nibb31]

3 hours ago, AeroGav said:

The mind boggles at how you would calculate such a thing.

I also look with disdain upon the "mean time between failure" numbers bandied around in the consumer electronics industry.

What does "Man rating" mean in practice?

Using components that have proven themselves on unmanned flights?

Additional redundancy, at the minor systems level -  backup electric circuits and valve actuators/sensors/microprocessors - that would not be used on a cargo launcher?

Extra stages of inspection of every assembly action - every time an engineer plugs a connector cable in from one module to another, two others come along to inspect his work?

Thorough non-destructive testing of every component coming from suppliers, be it a fastener , cable or strut, before attempting to fit the part?

More generous safety margins on component spec, erring on the side of cost and weight?

Pretty much all of the things that you mentioned.

Components have MTBF ratings and known failure modes. Not all of those failure modes cause a LOM/LOC. There is also built-in redundancy and redundant systems.

This is all why "man rating", like most certification processes, is such an expensive thing, even though it's mainly just a lot of paperwork. Think ISO9000 on steroids. This is also why the aerospace industry uses aerospace-certified components and frowns upon SpaceX's conduct of buying"off-the-shelf" struts and fasteners.

 

3 hours ago, tater said:

I understand they are calculated, but it seems like comparison with reality would also be in order. The actual shuttle failure rate was substantially higher than that, yet they continued flying. It's a reasonable design goal (1:500 launch failures, 1:500 reentry failures), but it seems like given even the most optimistic launch cadence for SLS/Orion, they will not have enough real data for a long, long time.

Absolutely. It's theoretical of course (I doubt there will ever be 500 flights of SLS), but you've gotta work with something, right?

[tater]

No, I agree completely, I was just musing on the difference between man rating the current commercial crew vehicles and launch vehicles, vs SLS/Orion.

Under the (perhaps misguided  ) assumption that SpaceX stops tweaking F9 and launches a definitive vehicle, the LV for Dragon 2 will have multiple tests under its belt, with loads of data. That data will include failures that were addressed before return to flight, then at some point they have X launches of the definitive crew version, then they will do an unmanned test, then at some point manned tests (the same for CST-100).

Whatever number X is, it's certainly going to be larger than SLS's number of tests for EM-2, and both will be vastly lower than the theoretical value of 500 (I realize this is a probability, not a real number) . Presumably the 500 number is a response to shuttle, and shuttle was done without these metrics. I'm also curious at what point they might (if ever) un-rate a vehicle. It would be interesting to apply the same criteria use for 1:500 to Shuttle as designed, without considering the actual failure modes, and see what the risk metrics show. If back-analyzing Shuttle doesn't provide theoretical risk levels concordant with the actual risk, then those theoretical tools might not be very useful.

Edited February 27, 2017 by tater

[AeroGav]

24 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

This is all why "man rating", like most certification processes, is such an expensive thing, even though it's mainly just a lot of paperwork. Think ISO9000 on steroids. This is also why the aerospace industry uses aerospace-certified components and frowns upon SpaceX's conduct of buying"off-the-shelf" struts and fasteners

Agreed, but in the consumer electronics industry ISO 9001 doesn't guarantee all that much.    Any large company (as opposed to a small, family run repair shop) will have to have a system to log what it's engineers do anyway.   Someone creates some flowery sounding documents describing how things are done , and there you go , you're ISO 9001 compliant.  Employees may have never read these process control documents, let alone adhere to them.   Just so long as the inspector can be shown that they exist.     Even then, design tolerances, employees caring about the quality of their work matters more than rigidly following some document written by someone who isn't even an engineer.

As for MTBF,    build 1000 circuit boards containing dodgy capacitors (or simply under-specced ones, or that are being subject to high temperature).  Test these 1000 circuit boards for 1000 hours each and get zero fails,  you can advertise the component of having a MTBF of "better than a million hours".   In practice, these boards start dying after 1200 hours operation and by 1600 hours the mortality rate has risen to 80%.   

Finally,  I recently had to memorise an incredibly dull presentation on soldering quality control.   What a Level 3 (mission critical) certified solder joint looks like, in terms of miniscus, overlap, fillet etc. etc. etc.. zzzzzz

I suppose I'd want my space suit life support to have great looking solder joints on its pcbs too, but it's by no means the whole story.   The components could still be overstressed , under specced, poor quality plagued by noise emi etc. or poor design  but  at least it's shiny !

But yes, Aerospace is a different ball game,and it's not just about paying lip service.

[Tullius]

28 minutes ago, tater said:

No, I agree completely, I was just musing on the difference between man rating the current commercial crew vehicles and launch vehicles, vs SLS/Orion.

Under the (perhaps misguided  ) assumption that SpaceX stops tweaking F9 and launches a definitive vehicle, the LV for Dragon 2 will have multiple tests under its belt, with loads of data. That data will include failures that were addressed before return to flight, then at some point they have X launches of the definitive crew version, then they will do an unmanned test, then at some point manned tests (the same for CST-100).

Whatever number X is, it's certainly going to be larger than SLS's number of tests for EM-2, and both will be vastly lower than the theoretical value of 500 (I realize this is a probability, not a real number) . Presumably the 500 number is a response to shuttle, and shuttle was done without these metrics. I'm also curious at what point they might (if ever) un-rate a vehicle. It would be interesting to apply the same criteria use for 1:500 to Shuttle as designed, without considering the actual failure modes, and see what the risk metrics show. If back-analyzing Shuttle doesn't provide theoretical risk levels concordant with the actual risk, then those theoretical tools might not be very useful.

I heard somewhere that Apollo was designed to a failure rate of 1 in 1000. So I would be surprised if the Shuttle wasn't designed to some similar figure.

The problem is not really the calculation of risk, you have to do it (there is no way of doing it otherwise). And generally, you overestimate the risks (as in: You guess that an engine fails 1 in 1000 launches, but you enter a failure rate of 1 in 500 into the calculation).

The problem is that you are going to miss some possible failure modes or misidentify the actual failure rate of a component. Nobody really bothered about the risk created by the O-ring design until after Challenger. The probability that the Shuttle's heat shield could be fatally damaged by foam from the external tank was also underestimated until Columbia.

In hindsight, NASA estimated the risk of failure for the Shuttle during the first flights to be 1 in 9, while the later ones were 1 in 90 (i.e. barely acceptable). But that is in hindsight and doesn't help with the development of a spacecraft, other than showing that targeting such an extreme reliability as 1 in 500 or more is a good idea.

Doing lots of test flights or man-rating a cargo rocket, makes it easier to estimate the risks, since you can analyse the results of those flights. But this in turn also means that you can use sharper estimates on the risk of different failures, and thereby reduce the amount of over-engineering to be really sure that you achieve the desired reliability, and thereby making the development cheaper.

[Guest]

What is UTC / rfc-2822 date/time of promised announcement? PST->UTC converters give contradicting results, "tomorrow" is also non-ISO date...

 

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

21 minutes ago, WildLynx said:

What is UTC / rfc-2822 date/time of promised announcement? PST->UTC converters give contradicting results, "tomorrow" is also non-ISO date...

 

It's 10:45 PST right now. Elon posted that at 4:45 pm PST on the 26th, so the announcement would be at 9:00 pm UTC on the 27th:

http://bit.ly/2mwG7Rs

 

Edited February 27, 2017 by Mad Rocket Scientist

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

It's 10:45 PST right now. Elon posted that at 4:45 pm PST on the 26th, so the announcement would be at 9:00 pm UTC on the 27th:

http://bit.ly/2mwG7Rs

 

Thank you sir.

[_Augustus_]

9 hours ago, Steel said:

what would you adopt as the standard?

Boeing basically just recolored the ACES. Orion is using ACES.

What's wrong with using ACES as a standard?

[insert_name]

22 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

Boeing basically just recolored the ACES. Orion is using ACES.

What's wrong with using ACES as a standard?

Can't fit in dragon I believe.

[tater]

Not terribly punctual.

[Kryten]

30 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

Boeing basically just recolored the ACES. Orion is using ACES.

What's wrong with using ACES as a standard?

Orion ACES is also heavily modified, because it's intended to act as an EVA suit (I think with the addition of another layer, like the apollo suits). It also doesn't have quite as much volume restriction due to Orion's size.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

 

[tater]

https://livestream.com/accounts/16944724/events/7071172/player?hide_external_links=true&autoPlay=false&enableInfoAndActivity=false&autoplay=1&auto_play=true

 

No content yet.

[CatastrophicFailure]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Not terribly punctual.

Are they ever?

[insert_name]

2 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

 

Isn't one of the x prize contestants using a falcon 9?