Moderators: richierich, ua900, PanAm_DC10, hOMSaR
Francoflier wrote:Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrq71ocWMcg
Pretty impressive footage. Quite funny to see the stubby Orion assembly just lifting off seemingly on its own.
They actually used a refurbished ballistic missile booster for the test. The capsule was just a boilerplate which got discarded. The pictures early in the video show the actual size of the escape system, and it's actually quite massive and gives a good sense of just how big the SLS/Orion assembly will be.
It's good to see some progress on the Orion/SLS front. It has been painfully slow so far, especially compared to the breakneck pace of the commercial space launching scene nowadays.
casinterest wrote:Why did they not try to parachute the capsule in at all? Seems like a waste of money to just let it be destroyed.
nycbjr wrote:its great to see progress (finally) on the SLS, but I'm afraid we may never see it completed. It's so much cheaper to use commercial these days. I'm also afraid this admin doesn't have the stones to fully fund it. I'm afraid one more delay and even congress will allow its cancelation, silly since it's nearly ready.
Francoflier wrote:nycbjr wrote:its great to see progress (finally) on the SLS, but I'm afraid we may never see it completed. It's so much cheaper to use commercial these days. I'm also afraid this admin doesn't have the stones to fully fund it. I'm afraid one more delay and even congress will allow its cancelation, silly since it's nearly ready.
The problem with commercial launchers is that none of them has the capacity the SLS has and none of them could launch Orion and its service module on the missions that are planned for them.
The only one that might come close is SpaceX's Starship, but despite their enthusiasm and optimism, it will not be ready to launch for a long while and it will take much longer yet to get approval from Nasa to launch humans in it...
zanl188 wrote:casinterest wrote:Why did they not try to parachute the capsule in at all? Seems like a waste of money to just let it be destroyed.
Capsule was a mockup and had no further use.
Nomadd wrote:zanl188 wrote:casinterest wrote:Why did they not try to parachute the capsule in at all? Seems like a waste of money to just let it be destroyed.
Capsule was a mockup and had no further use.
Capsule was a mockup and the rocket wasn't the one that will launch the real capsule. Compared to SpaceX using a production capsule, avionics and rocket, I have to wonder about the value of testing with completely different equipment than you'll fly with.
casinterest wrote:It seems this test was for a minor part, and while yes it removes unwanted variables, it makes this Orion solution look like it will have an availability a lot father off into the future. I think Blue Origin and Spacex will make Orion/SLS a waste of Money.
Tugger wrote:Video from Starliner of the entire launch to landing timeline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4CeipvvYb4
Tugg
Erebus wrote:Some updates here:
Northrop Grumman completes a full scale test fire of the SLS booster. Builds on previous tests with improvements.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/09/02/sls-fsb-1-hotfire-test/
Test footage:
https://youtu.be/EOyBNUJ5bA8?t=1206
Comes just as NASA announces a 30% increase in costs unfortunately.
zeke wrote:I was watching some video of the Orion spacecraft being moved around, they showed a NASA super guppy being used.
Are they still in service or was that old footage ?
LTEN11 wrote:zeke wrote:I was watching some video of the Orion spacecraft being moved around, they showed a NASA super guppy being used.
Are they still in service or was that old footage ?
Still being used.
WIederling wrote:LTEN11 wrote:zeke wrote:I was watching some video of the Orion spacecraft being moved around, they showed a NASA super guppy being used.
Are they still in service or was that old footage ?
Still being used.
How many rolls of speedtape?
Francoflier wrote:It looks like the core stage of SLS went through its wet dress rehearsal, part 7 of the 'Green run'.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54583587
It seems there was a bit of an unspecified hiccup towards the end of the test which was ended a few minutes early.
NASA will now decide if they move on to the 8th and last test: a full duration test fire of all 4 RS-25s.
The first launch is still scheduled for November 2021.
dobilan wrote:Maybe they are simply using too old tech. Too complex, too many components, too failure prone. But ss said above, at least it looked nice.
dobilan wrote:Maybe they are simply using too old tech. Too complex, too many components, too failure prone. But ss said above, at least it looked nice.
Francoflier wrote:Yeah so that went about as expected...
At least it looked pretty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFTiJXj-dFs
MCF (Main Component Failure) for engine 4 was called around T+40s, though all parameters appeared normal afterwards and apparently a small flash was seen around the base of engine 4 just before shutdown.
FGITD wrote:Best to play it safe. Spend a few billion more, regroup in 2035 and see if they can't get a full duration test done.
texl1649 wrote:Apparently only went half as long as planned. First thing to happen early for SLS is a shut down, appropriate.
estorilm wrote:Wow, the SpaceX fandom is in full swing!
FGITD wrote:I would agree, there’s some ribbing but I don’t see much actually fanboy vs fanboy.
I think since Musk has seemingly toned down a little or because the programs are all actually in development, the “Elon time” and X jokes have died off a bit. They are for the most part doing what they said they would.
I want SLS to succeed, in no small part because I have doubts about Starship, but also because I want to see NASA do well and get it right. But it’s challenging to cheer the program on when it was meant to be a shining example of reuseability of components, and so far it seems like it was just a way to keep paying the same contractors. What right exactly, did any of the STS contractors have to be involved in SLS? The program differences are night and day. One is a deep space program, and the other was a LEO dump truck.
I’m afraid the risk tolerance at NASA has gotten so low that any program will take billions of dollars, and years more than planned. They’re in a bind. Launch a test and it blows up...years of congressional inquiries, safety investigations, etc etc etc all likely negate whatever information they learned in the first place. It’s the downside of being a government agency
GDB wrote:FGITD wrote:I would agree, there’s some ribbing but I don’t see much actually fanboy vs fanboy.
I think since Musk has seemingly toned down a little or because the programs are all actually in development, the “Elon time” and X jokes have died off a bit. They are for the most part doing what they said they would.
I want SLS to succeed, in no small part because I have doubts about Starship, but also because I want to see NASA do well and get it right. But it’s challenging to cheer the program on when it was meant to be a shining example of reuseability of components, and so far it seems like it was just a way to keep paying the same contractors. What right exactly, did any of the STS contractors have to be involved in SLS? The program differences are night and day. One is a deep space program, and the other was a LEO dump truck.
I’m afraid the risk tolerance at NASA has gotten so low that any program will take billions of dollars, and years more than planned. They’re in a bind. Launch a test and it blows up...years of congressional inquiries, safety investigations, etc etc etc all likely negate whatever information they learned in the first place. It’s the downside of being a government agency
Totally agree, STS has cast a long shadow, worth remembering that it was 2-3 years late since, as with every aspect of it, it was massively oversold, due to political pressure which birthed the highly compromised, 14 Astronaut killing design in the first place.
Even the Marxist-Leninists in the Kremlin ran the numbers and saw they made no sense, in costs, missions per year etc.
Hence they suspected a military role beyond just launching Spy Sats, not helped when Vandenberg was cited as a possible launch site too. This during the era of Apollo-Soyuz and Detente.
Which is why they did Buran, ironically a better system had it got the chance.
The original ideas for Shuttle-C made sense, with the Orbiter replaced by cargo, minimum change and all that.
With far fewer STS launches, none of that Congressman In Space, Teacher In Space and they even apparently had plans for a Kid In Space.
Spacelab missions, at least before a proper station was built, which Shuttle-C could have made easier, launching and servicing Hubble, other than those hard to justify, even the idea of repairing commercial satellites in orbit was more expensive than making and launching a new one on a conventional rocket, hardly surprising when each STS mission and servicing afterwards cost as much as an Apollo flight.
"On auxiliary power unit 2, we saw a low indication on the hydraulic reservoir level, and the hydraulic pressure. Those two 'low cuts' went through their checks over a series of milliseconds," said Honeycutt.
"And on the three checks that it took, it stayed low and it sent the command to the flight computer to advance the shutdown."
He said that this issue would not have caused any interruption on a real flight of the rocket.
Nomadd wrote:The problem doesn't sound bad. The reaction to the problem is the trouble. The other guys will diagnose an engine problem and have a replacement with corrective measure swapped in with static fires done a week later. The guys estorilm is trying to defend can't seem to install an extra Tie wrap without thinking about it for six months.
Trying to claim that the RS-25 is superior to the Raptor when it's only advantage is ISP, which is solely because it's a different fuel, is particularly absurd, even without considering the fact that the RS-25 costs over 100 times as much.
texl1649 wrote:I do think that in a sane world NASA would have spent less on SLS somehow, and more to develop a man rated FH derivative as an alternate option. I don’t think for TLI it could hit the same capabilities as SLS but it would be a very useful vehicle in concept, and should be a relatively easy (again, compared to SLS) thing to develop from an existing rocket/systems.
https://thespacereview.com/article/2737/1
mxaxai wrote:texl1649 wrote:I do think that in a sane world NASA would have spent less on SLS somehow, and more to develop a man rated FH derivative as an alternate option. I don’t think for TLI it could hit the same capabilities as SLS but it would be a very useful vehicle in concept, and should be a relatively easy (again, compared to SLS) thing to develop from an existing rocket/systems.
https://thespacereview.com/article/2737/1
The problem here is that Orion is NASA's deep space spacecraft, and with a TLI mass of ~26 tons I doubt that FH could launch it to the moon. Obviously Orion was designed for SLS, so SLS' TLI payload capacity matches well with Orion's launch mass. If they were to switch to FH, they'd have to ask SpaceX to develop a deep-space rated version of Crew Dragon, a smaller variant of Orion, or a completely new capsule.
However, Bridenstine then laid out one scenario that has huge implications, not for a 2020 launch, but one later on. Until now, it was thought that only NASA's Space Launch System could directly inject the Orion spacecraft into a lunar orbit, which made it the preferred option for getting astronauts to the Moon for any potential landing by 2024. However, Bridenstine said there was another option: a Falcon Heavy rocket with an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage built by United Launch Alliance. "Talk about strange bedfellows," he mused about the two rocket rivals.
This plan has the ability to put humans on the Moon by 2024, Bridenstine said. He then emphasized—twice—that NASA's chief of human spaceflight, William Gerstenmaier, has yet to bless this approach due to a number of technical details. His reservations include the challenge of integrating the Falcon Heavy rocket in a horizontal position and then loading Orion with fuel in a vertical configuration on the launchpad. The Falcon Heavy would also require a larger payload fairing than it normally flies with. This would place uncertain stress on the rocket's side-mounted boosters.
"It would require time [and] cost, and there is risk involved," Bridenstine said. "But guess what—if we're going to land boots on the Moon in 2024, we have time, and we have the ability to accept some risk and make some modifications. All of that is on the table. There is nothing sacred here that is off the table. And that is a potential capability that could help us land boots on the Moon in 2024."
With this comment, Bridenstine broke a political taboo. For the first time, really, a senior NASA official had opened the door to NASA flying its first crewed missions to the Moon on a Falcon Heavy rocket built by SpaceX. An official with the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If ULA is unable to essentially produce a Delta IV Heavy from scratch in less than 12-18 months, Falcon Heavy would be next in line to launch Orion/ESM, a use-case that might actually be less absurd than it seems. Thanks to the fact that SpaceX’s payload fairing is actually wider than the large Orion spacecraft (5.2 m (17 ft) vs. 5 m (16.5 ft) in diameter), any major risks of radical aerodynamic problems can be largely retired, although that would still need to be verified with models and/or wind-tunnel testing. The only major change that would need to be certified is ensuring that the Falcon second stage is capable of supporting the Orion/ESM payload, weighing at least ~26 metric tons (~57,000 lb) at launch. The heaviest payloads SpaceX has launched thus far were likely its Iridium NEXT missions, weighing around 9600 kg (21,100 lb).
GDB wrote:Then there is the other object lesson of the Shuttle era, not putting all your eggs into one basket, COTS should address that for LEO, beyond that, for all the understandable irritations and anger around SLS, it will still likely launch crews before any Starship, it might be the bridge between renewed beyond LEO operations and the hopeful eventual maturity of Starship and other newer players.
WIederling wrote:GDB wrote:Then there is the other object lesson of the Shuttle era, not putting all your eggs into one basket, COTS should address that for LEO, beyond that, for all the understandable irritations and anger around SLS, it will still likely launch crews before any Starship, it might be the bridge between renewed beyond LEO operations and the hopeful eventual maturity of Starship and other newer players.
Anything substantial known about how the Chinese went by their Moon sample return mission?
More qualified COTS stuff?
Back when, to get high performance we went for some industrial ( even P packaging ) semiconductors for MIRO.
Nothing available in MIL. Worked nicely, ...
GDB wrote:WIederling wrote:GDB wrote:Then there is the other object lesson of the Shuttle era, not putting all your eggs into one basket, COTS should address that for LEO, beyond that, for all the understandable irritations and anger around SLS, it will still likely launch crews before any Starship, it might be the bridge between renewed beyond LEO operations and the hopeful eventual maturity of Starship and other newer players.
Anything substantial known about how the Chinese went by their Moon sample return mission?
More qualified COTS stuff?
Back when, to get high performance we went for some industrial ( even P packaging ) semiconductors for MIRO.
Nothing available in MIL. Worked nicely, ...
While China is not as secretive as Cold War USSR was, it's not open either, there is hope that science findings from it's Lunar and Mars missions will be fully shared. the operative word here is 'hope', not certainty.
Any industrial/technical spinoffs I imagine they'll keep for themselves, whether that's in advance of the state of the art generally, who knows?
Unlike the US Space Program then, any industrial/commercial spinoffs didn't do the USSR much good.
Not that sort of a system.
Some answers as to why, (rather beyond the scope of spaceflight however);
An early doc from my favorite film maker, (who this month dropped 6 films over 8 hours on the BBC i-player and available on this site too), this one filmed just before the USSR collapsed had both good access and with as it turned out, great timing too, if you have i-player access a better version on there;
https://thoughtmaybe.com/pandoras-box/