The troubled Orion capsule

[PB666]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36343542

Well who wants to bet it will not meet the deadline?

 

 

 

 

[Spaceception]

From the looks f it, it may be 2 years late, but I think it'll launch before 2020.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Spaceception

[PB666]

6 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

From the looks f it, it may be a year late, but I think it'll launch before 2020.

Uh thats two years late.

[Spaceception]

Just now, PB666 said:

Uh thats two years late.

Oh, I misread it

[PB666]

16 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

Oh, I misread it

But I think 2020 is probably closer to correct than 2019

 

[Basto]

I honestly don't get the point of it...  

[wumpus]

I'd think the biggest question is which deadline are you talking about:

The blip on the microsoft project timeline that says "complete"?

When there is a SLS ready to launch and you can stick the thing on top?

Methinks there is a difference.

[tater]

Brilliant idea to have ESA do the SM 

The problem is that if it's worth doing, it's worth doing ourselves---and Orion isn't worth doing.

[Gaarst]

Where is it written that Airbus will be late ? Didn't see anything about it

[tater]

Given the awful fixed costs of just keeping the program in place, a delay of even 6 months would probably in fact cost more than the SM itself. 

Edited May 20, 2016 by tater

[PB666]

24 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

Where is it written that Airbus will be late ? Didn't see anything about it

They have not yet designed some of the components that go in the service module. The video was talking about having space margins of less than a centimeter.

[fredinno]

6 hours ago, PB666 said:

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36343542

Well who wants to bet it will not meet the deadline?

 

 

 

 

So far, the 2018 deadline has had a few months of margin, so it might just be ok. NASA might have to give up launching an Orion on the 2018 flight if things get really bad, meaning the required unmanned Block IB test flight in 2021 would carry the Orion, followed by a SLS to launch Europa Clipper, and EM-2 in 2022/3. 

 

But SLS/Orion has been following its time schedule a bit better than CCDev, so I'm not betting any delays into 2017.

[cantab]

Well, I'd be disappointed and a bit embarassed if ESA lets the project down. One of the issues can be that every member wants its slice of the pie, and that's not usually the most efficient way to do things.

[fredinno]

On 2016-05-20 at 2:14 PM, cantab said:

Well, I'd be disappointed and a bit embarassed if ESA lets the project down. One of the issues can be that every member wants its slice of the pie, and that's not usually the most efficient way to do things.

But it helps collect funds from each of the small european nations.

[DDE]

Oh, who's willing to bet that once Orion is complete, NASA won't be allowed to launch or land people in it and will instead rely on SpaceX to ferry its crew separately?

I'm not kidding you, its one of the Augustine Commission's proposals.

[Nibb31]

4 hours ago, DDE said:

Oh, who's willing to bet that once Orion is complete, NASA won't be allowed to launch or land people in it and will instead rely on SpaceX to ferry its crew separately?

I'm not kidding you, its one of the Augustine Commission's proposals.

That idea was carried around in the Constellation days, when Orion was getting too heavy for Ares I. They considered flying Orion empty, without a LAS, and sending crew up separately. It was a stupid idea, but the whole Constellation plan was deeply flawed from the start.

This is no longer a concern with SLS. It's pretty much the opposite. SLS is oversized for just sending an Orion.

[DDE]

7 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

That idea was carried around in the Constellation days, when Orion was getting too heavy for Ares I. They considered flying Orion empty, without a LAS, and sending crew up separately. It was a stupid idea, but the whole Constellation plan was deeply flawed from the start.

This is no longer a concern with SLS. It's pretty much the opposite. SLS is oversized for just sending an Orion.

Exactly. It's good enough for four-five of them.

But it does show how, in the scramble to both develop an Apollo Mk 2, and to expand commercial spaceflight, NASA ends up stuck between the two. If Orion is just a return vehicle for larger missions, then they could have probably avoided bluntly replicating Apollo but with microcomputers.

[wumpus]

18 hours ago, DDE said:

Oh, who's willing to bet that once Orion is complete, NASA won't be allowed to launch or land people in it and will instead rely on SpaceX to ferry its crew separately?

I'm not kidding you, its one of the Augustine Commission's proposals.

The 2018 first flight is not planed to be crewed, thus making it far easier to keep the program going without worrying about losing a crew.  My personal guess is that the program will grind to a halt before a crewed launch, but that launching a uncrewed Orion will let the program lumber on for years.

[DDE]

5 minutes ago, wumpus said:

The 2018 first flight is not planed to be crewed, thus making it far easier to keep the program going without worrying about losing a crew.  My personal guess is that the program will grind to a halt before a crewed launch, but that launching a uncrewed Orion will let the program lumber on for years.

Precisely, because the program schedule is almost disturbingly slow. I seriously wonder if it's the optimal way to do it, compared to a more rushed schedule.

I remember a very old jocular presentation I saw, about managing projects. The Smart Guy's proposed progress graph was a long flat line with the peak the end.

[kerbiloid]

11 minutes ago, wumpus said:

My personal guess is that the program will grind to a halt before a crewed launch

They should change the ship's name, it's unhappy — It's at least the third attempt to use it (Nuke Orion, Constellation, now again)

Edited June 9, 2016 by kerbiloid

[fredinno]

15 hours ago, DDE said:

Precisely, because the program schedule is almost disturbingly slow. I seriously wonder if it's the optimal way to do it, compared to a more rushed schedule.

I remember a very old jocular presentation I saw, about managing projects. The Smart Guy's proposed progress graph was a long flat line with the peak the end.

It probably isn't, but a lot of the "slowness" of SLS/Orion right now is because half the time spent on the program was just drawing up concepts. They were going for a JUPITER-DIRECT-based solution, and all the non-shuttle derived concepts were too expensive for the low SLS launch rate. There were only really 2 proposals that really had a chance- Shuttle-C 2.0 (payload on the side of the rocket), and SLS/Jupiter DIRECT (Inline).
 

We could have gotten the test flight around by now if they concentrated on choosing either concept, instead of considering every possible combination in the book.

 

[Nibb31]

The reason it takes time is because they get a fixed amount every year to spend on development instead of a one-time development budget.

Of course, this is much more expensive in the long run, but as I've already explained, the purpose of NASA isn't to complete projects efficiently.  It's job is to spend a steady flow of R&D money to maintain a workforce of highly specialized workers and contractors.

[James Kerman]

A new study critical of the Orion: http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/07/orion-spacecraft-over-budget-analysis/

[kerbiloid]

Looks like in its first crewed flight (straight to the Jupiter) it will be powered with a brand new EmDrive, instead of those old rockets engines. It's not a delay, it's a standby.

[lugge]

I stopped reading after:

Quote

Orion is the next-generation vehicle that the US space agency (Nasa) will use to send astronauts beyond Earth, to destinations like asteroids and Mars.