Jon Shaban (@Jon_Shaban) 1/27/20, 11:08 AM
The #Starlink may have scrubbed today, but #SpaceX has it's crew on the #GoSearcher working with what appears to be a #CrewDragon capsule.
https://twitter.com/jon_shaban/status/1221827307486240769 Brief time lapse video at the link.
—- Whither Crew Dragon?
Crew Dragon’s In-Flight Abort Test seems to have proceeded flawlessly. Kathy Lueders, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, suggested recently that SpaceX’s crewed Demo-2 mission might be ready for launch as soon as the first half of March. Yet when asked for a date at the Dragon IFA post-flight press briefing, Elon Musk said that although the SpaceX rocket and capsule should be in Florida by the end of February… the “consensus answer” (between the SpaceX, Commercial Crew, and NASA folks preparing to go onstage) was to say that a crewed launch would not occur until Q2 (April-June).
Why not launch ASAP? I see a complex list of reasons why a slight delay makes sense:
First, I assume SpaceX and NASA’s Dragon reviews will go well, the two additional full-system parachute tests in February will be as successful as the others so far, and that everything could be “quadruple checked” by March if needed.
- In early April, Soyuz will bring up the next three-person crew to the ISS — and three will leave the following week, leaving the space station crewed by only three people, including only one astronaut, Chris Cassidy, to do all NASA experiments, maintenance, etc. until the next Soyuz flight in October! (I note the next Cygnus cargo freighter delivery was moved up from April to early February, when there will still be two NASA astronauts aboard the ISS.)
- No Soyuz seat has been purchased beyond April, though NASA mentioned purchasing one more, “so we have options.”
- Why not send Dragon in March? Because Dragon — like Soyuz and Starliner — is limited to about six months in space per mission. If launched in March, it would need to return before October, resulting in a reduced ISS crew again, if no other personnel have arrived.
- The Starliner Question
Besides the pad abort test parachute bungle, NASA expects to take at least two months studying the Orbital Flight Test failures of Starliner’s software and engines: its Mission Elapsed Timer was 11 hours off; eight thrusters malfunctioned and one did not fire at all.
Will thruster redesign be required? And if the software problem is just a software problem, how long will it take to fix? (Boeing originally said the 737-Max airliner problem was a simple software fix, but the planes remain grounded over a year later.)
• Will NASA require another uncrewed orbital flight test before allowing crew to fly in the Starliner? Common sense would suggest yes, but Boeing has historically received “special treatment” from the agency. (An independent investigation revealed corruption and con games or outright fraud by Boeing to extort more money [pay us or we’ll quit the program] from NASA for what was a “fixed price” commercial crew contract.) A reporter asked the Boeing rep at the Starliner OFT post-flight conference if Boeing would ask for more money or quit if NASA required another unmanned flight. Boeing said they were “all in.” Whatever that is supposed to mean in this case.
• The Russians. They pushed back hard against the uncrewed Dragon mission in 2018; NASA had to talk them down. They ended up sequestering themselves in the Russian section of the ISS during the automated docking in case of a catastrophe. (Even though Soyuz and several of the other cargo vessels already use automated docking.) Imagine the Russian reaction to a mission of an unproven Starliner with a less than stellar history. (Although I suppose Boeing would gladly pay off the Russians to make any complaints disappear.)
• Boeing of course wants to fly a crewed mission as soon as possible, too. Even if NASA signs off on a next mission for Starliner, their launch provider ULA has military missions planned for SLC-41 (the pad Starliner uses) in May and September, plus the Mars 2020 rover that must launch within a limited window in July.
So it’s hard to figure when the three-person Starliner crew might launch. Could the Starliner crew launch in April? Seems doubtful. Might they be delayed up to six months, or a year? Possible.
The best plan at this point would indeed seem to be for astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to fly the Dragon to the ISS in April, and stay until October (the original plan for the Demo-2 mission was for them to stay only two weeks!). NASA keeps saying no decision has been made, but such a scenario has been discussed for months, so it’s hard to believe Bob and Doug have not been training for this eventuality.