SpaceX and Boeing are on their way to launching US astronauts, NASA says
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  1. #1

    SpaceX and Boeing are on their way to launching US astronauts, NASA says

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    New details about NASA's Commercial Crew Program were revealed today during a press conference held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Both SpaceX and Boeing have completed the first milestones in their plans to send humans into space from US soil for the first time in years.

    SpaceX has completed the first certification milestone in its CCP commitment, and will spend much of 2015 testing abort solutions for its formerly cargo-only Dragon capsule. (Abort procedures are more critical in crewed missions.) A launchpad abort will be tested in the next two months at Cape Canaveral, and an in-flight abort test will follow "later this year," according to SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell. Uncrewed missions to the ISS with the new capsule will start in 2016, and the company is still working out the makeup of its first test flight crew.

    "I don't ever want to have to write another check to Roscosmos."

    The CCP was started after the shuttle program was put to rest in 2011. Last April, NASA announced it wouldn't work with Russia any longer when it came to transporting American astronauts to the International Space Station. Instead, NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to build this new fleet of crewed spacecraft back in September. "I don't ever want to have to write another check to Roscosmos," NASA's administrator Charles Bolden said during today's press conference. As of right now, the CCP should allow for an average cost of $58 million per seat, as opposed to the average of $70 million per seat it was costing the agency to fly with the Russians.

    SpaceX's goal is to fly over 50 Falcon 9 missions before attempting the first crewed launch in early 2017. Those missions will accommodate four crew members with space for cargo. The company will operate these CCP missions similarly to its cargo missions. That means the mission control centers, flight simulators, and other flight capabilities will be located at both Johnson Space Center and at the company's base in Hawthorne, CA.

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    The company is also working on outfitting its Dragon capsule with propulsive landing, Shotwell said, which could improve reusability by dispensing with the need to splash down in water. Instead, the capsule would land right at Johnson Space Center, using rockets on the bottom to help control the descent. That's not the only new technology the company is working on. It hopes to outfit its Falcon 9 rockets with wings and retrorockets so they can land on autonomous barges in the ocean.

    Boeing will launch the first crewed mission

    Commercial Crew Program Manager Kathy Lueders said that the first crewed mission in 2017 will belong to Boeing despite the fact that SpaceX already has a working spacecraft. To fill that first mission, the astronaut office is looking at naming a "small cadre" of astronauts that would follow both companies. The first crew will be selected from that group, which will be named "before long," according to Johnson Space Center director Ellen Ochoa.

    Boeing has completed the first two certification milestones for its CST-100 spacecraft. NASA has signed off on parts of its commercial crew operation, including designs for the control center, training systems, flight simulators, and software. Boeing has also started building its crew access tower on the Atlas V launchpad, and that construction will continue in between uncrewed Atlas V launches.

    The first test hardware for Boeing's spacecraft will be delivered to Kennedy Space Center next month, and the first hardware for the actual crewed vehicle will be assembled later in the year. The initial crewed test flight will contain one Boeing test pilot and one NASA astronaut. In the meantime, Boeing is also spending time refurbishing the Kennedy Space Center facility that will be used for constructing its spacecraft.

    Both capsules are designed to be reusable

    The CST-100 will undergo a critical design review in March, and if approved, will let the company launch "full-bore" into manufacturing, according to VP and General Manager of Boeing Space Exploration John Elbon. Boeing's spacecraft can fit up to seven crew members, and is also being designed with reusability in mind. According to Elbon, the plan is for the capsule to be recovered, refurbished, and reused up to 10 times.

    When asked how this all fits in with the 2016 budget, Bolden said he's "very optimistic." "Congress has, I think, kind of started to understand the critical importance of commercial crew and cargo. They've seen, as a result of the performance of our providers, that this is not a hoax. It's not a myth. It's not a dream," he said. "It's something that really is happening."

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  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by irpat54 View Post

    As of right now, the CCP should allow for an average cost of $58 million per seat, as opposed to the average of $70 million per seat it was costing the agency to fly with the Russians.
    Wow, I wonder if that comes with a free checked bag?

    Amazing stuff Pat.


  3. #3
    USMC 2571
    Guest Free Member
    Interesting, Pat---I read where there might be a discount for weekend flights, where the price would be only 50 million. And free bags checked, Ken, but only if less than 25 pounds. No free meals served, either. They have to watch costs, like the airlines do.


  4. #4
    USMC 2571
    Guest Free Member
    Just as an aside, every time I see something like this, I think (probably irrelevantly) that we can do something amazing like this and yet we can't even take care of other seemingly less complicated tasks at home like tackling this or that problem---that might be because as a country we put far less effort into those things than private industry puts into their projects......


  5. #5
    that's about it, get the Government out of most things, get rid of about 2/3 of the regulations and get out of the way, most of our problems in this country would be solved in less the 3 years or so..


  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by irpat54 View Post
    that's about it, get the Government out of most things, get rid of about 2/3 of the regulations and get out of the way, most of our problems in this country would be solved in less the 3 years or so..
    I know govt will pay the airfare once they launch manned ships, but do you know if Boeing and SpaceX are using all private money to fund R&D, or are they receiving govt funding?


  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by ameriken View Post
    I know govt will pay the airfare once they launch manned ships, but do you know if Boeing and SpaceX are using all private money to fund R&D, or are they receiving govt funding?
    I don't know about Boeing, but SpaceX does their own separate from the Gov. they are all Privately funded, of course they do have the resupply contract from NASA..


  8. #8
    Funding[edit]
    SpaceX is a privately funded space transportation company.[27] It developed its first launch vehicle—Falcon 1—and three rocket engines—Merlin, Kestrel, and Draco—completely with private capital. SpaceX contracted with the US government for a portion of the development funding for the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which uses a modified version of the Merlin rocket engine.[27] SpaceX is developing the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle, the Raptor methane-fueled rocket engine, and a set of reusable launch vehicle technologies with private capital.

    As of May 2012, SpaceX had operated on total funding of approximately $1 billion in its first ten years of operation. Of this, private equity provided about $200M, with Musk investing approximately $100M and other investors having put in about $100M (Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, ...).[28] The remainder has come from progress payments on long-term launch contracts and development contracts. As of April 2012, NASA had put in about $400–500M of this amount, with most of that as progress payments on launch contracts.[29] By May 2012, SpaceX had contracts for 40 launch missions, and each of those contracts provide down payments at contract signing, plus many are paying progress payments as launch vehicle components are built in advance of mission launch, driven in part by US accounting rules for recognizing long-term revenue.[29]

    In August 2012, SpaceX signed a large development contract with NASA to design and develop a crew-carrying space capsule for the "next generation of U.S. human spaceflight capabilities", in order to re-enable the launch of astronauts from U.S. soil by 2017. Two other companies, Boeing and Sierra Nevada Corporation, received similar development contracts. Advances made by all three companies under Space Act Agreements through NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative are intended to ultimately lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for both government and commercial customers. As part of this agreement, SpaceX was awarded a contract worth up to $440 million for contract deliverables between 2012 and May 2014.[30][31]

    At year-end 2012, SpaceX had over 40 launches on its manifest representing about $4 billion in contract revenue—with many of those contracts already making progress payments to SpaceX—with both commercial and government (NASA/DOD) customers.[32] As of December 2013, SpaceX has a total of 50 future launches under contract, two-thirds of them are for commercial customers.[33][34] In late 2013, space industry media began to comment on the phenomenon that SpaceX prices are undercutting the major competitors in the commercial commsat launch market—the Ariane 5 and Proton[35]—at which time SpaceX had at least 10 further geostationary orbit flights on its books.[34]

    In January 2015, SpaceX raised $1 billion in funding from Google and Fidelity, in exchange for 10% of the company, making the company valuation at $10 billion. Google and Fidelty join the then current investorship group of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Founders Fund, Valor Equity Partners, Capricorn.[36][37] The investment may be related to SpaceX's launch of a satellite construction business and global satellite internet service effort.[38] Google has been searching for a satellite internet partner since the split with O3b and OneWeb.[39]


  9. #9
    USMC 2571
    Guest Free Member
    Very interesting---thanks again, Pat. Good post/thread.


  10. #10
    My guess is that they won't be giving away any Jimmy Carter goobers.


  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Old Marine View Post
    My guess is that they won't be giving away any Jimmy Carter goobers.
    what??? no peanuts on the flight... that's it I'm not going.. I'll go Virgin Air and hope the pilots have things worked out..


  12. #12
    this is what they tried with their last launch, but it ran out of steering hydraulic fluid and didn't make the mark and fell over..




  13. #13
    Phantom Blooper
    Guest Free Member
    Do you think with the 106,967 members on LN we can raise a big enough slush fund to send a few here too be lost in space....?


  14. #14
    Marine1011
    Guest Free Member
    You mean any two in particular?


  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Phantom Blooper View Post
    Do you think with the 106,967 members on LN we can raise a big enough slush fund to send a few here too be lost in space....?



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