Main Engine Cut Off - T+4: Boeing’s CST-100, SpaceX’s Dragon 2, and a Scorched Falcon 9

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

Boeing announced a 6 month delay in the schedule for their CST-100 crew vehicle. SpaceX’s Dragon 2 is in the lead to be the first Commercial Crew vehicle to fly. The most recently-returned Falcon 9 took a ton of damage on its way back to the drone ship and won’t fly again, but will provide a ton of data for SpaceX to use to make improvements to future Falcon 9 stages. Boeing delays first crewed CST-100 flight to 2018 - SpaceNews.com Starliner’s first complete hull mated at Kennedy; crew launch delayed to 2018 | NASASpaceFlight.com Elon Musk on Twitter: “Most recent rocket took max damage, due to v high entry velocity. Will be our life leader for ground tests to confirm others are good.” Elon Musk on Twitter: “@bittdk Better. Not there yet, but a solution is likely.” Landed SpaceX rocket suffered ‘max’ damage - Florida Today Email feedback to [e-mail] Follow @WeHaveMECO Support Main Engine Cut Off on Patreon

Last week, Boeing announced a six-month delay in their launch manifest for their CST-100 crew vehicle that they've been working on as part of the NASA Commercial Crew Program. A Boeing spokesperson came out and talked about three different issues that were causing a delay in the program itself. The first she pointed to were issues reducing the spacecraft mass. That's not too surprising that they're finding this type of issue now because they're just starting to get into hardware fabrication for the spacecraft. This past week was the first time they mated the upper and lower domes of the pressure vessel for the static test article of the CST-100, so they really just started to put hardware together for this thing. That being the case, it's not that surprising they're finding issues with the hardware itself

that they need to work out, but that's what this part of the process is for, so you can say that it's going well, though there's a few delays here. The second issue she talked about were aerodynamic issues on the actual launch and ascent profile for the Atlas V that would carry the CST-100 to orbit. The CST-100, or Starliner, would launch on an Atlas V 422 variant, which means it would have two solid rocket boosters and two Centaur upper stage engines. I've seen talk of vibration and pressures on the spacecraft and launch vehicle itself that need to be addressed, but apparently Boeing has some fixes in mind, and they'll be doing some testing of those fixes in a wind tunnel shortly. The third issue the Boeing spokesperson outlined were some software requirements that

NASA gave to Boeing for the spacecraft. And she said that it'll take about three months of work to complete. Now, as a software developer myself, I assume that three months of work will actually balloon into something more like six months of work. So my gut says this isn't the last delay we'll hear about CST-100. The ground systems at Kennedy seem to be coming along pretty well. The crew access tower is almost complete. They really just need to stack the last piece on top, which has the crew access arm and all that kind of stuff. So the ground systems seem to be worked out, but the actual spacecraft hardware still needs some work.

The launch system needs some work and the software. So those are three things that could quickly balloon out into more delays down the line. Now in terms of the schedule for Boeing, this delay leaves them at something like this. In October 2017, they'll complete their pad abort test, and then in December of 2017, they hope to complete an uncrewed test flight, which will be up to orbit and test out all of their different systems and operations for the spacecraft, something akin to the Orion EFT-1 mission back in December of 2014. Following that, in February 2018, would be their first crewed flight, which would take one NASA astronaut and one Boeing test pilot up to the ISS.

This would be a full-up dress rehearsal for their ISS missions in the future, and that would be the first time that they actually take humans aboard, so that would be a pretty interesting mission to watch. On the SpaceX side of things, they completed their pad abort test back in May 2015, so almost exactly a year ago at this point, and in spring 2017, they hoped to complete their uncrewed test flight up to orbit. And then in fall 2017, SpaceX would complete their first crewed flight up to the ISS, which would be just like that Boeing flight. It would fly up to the ISS with a couple astronauts inside, dock with the ISS, and then return to Earth after that. So as of right now, SpaceX remains in the lead to carry astronauts up to the ISS for the first

time from American soil since STS-135 back in 2011. And that's not that surprising given that SpaceX has been working on hardware for years at this point. As I said, Boeing is just getting into hardware with CST-100 now, which means they'll be finding these different issues and working through these different problems as they go. But SpaceX has been flying hardware that is relevant to this mission for years. They've been flying Falcon 9s, they've been flying the Cargo Dragons up this mission for years. They've been flying Falcon 9s, they've been flying the cargo dragons up to the ISS, so they've had operational missions up to orbit, up to the ISS, on top of a Falcon 9 with a Dragon capsule. Certainly there are changes

from the cargo dragon over to Dragon V2, and they certainly have to human rate that capsule, but largely they have all of this flight data to work on in their development of Dragon 2. They have actual ascent data from Dragon capsules themselves, which are largely the same size in terms of a launch vehicle. They have all of that data about birthing with the ISS, all those different operations that they've worked out with communication with the Dragon on its way to the ISS, on its way back from the ISS. They've done recovery operations of cargo Dragons, so they've got a lot of experience to use and apply to these human flights. But in terms of a future farther out than the Commercial Crew Program, let's talk about the difference between CST-100 and Dragon 2. As of right now, CST-100 is only

set for two different types of missions, NASA missions up to the ISS, and missions to the Bigelow commercial space stations in the 2020s. And the reason I'm saying that is because if you look at the players in those Bigelow missions, it's pretty obvious that the CST-100 will be the preferred way to get there. Purely by looking at the players alone, you can see that. Bigelow and Boeing are the ones working on CST-100. Bigelow will launch their own commercial space station on top of a ULA rocket, which is owned by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. And Boeing's own Starliner spacecraft will be launched on a ULA Atlas V as well. So really, there's only three

players here, Boeing, Bigelow, and Lockheed Martin. So for that reason, those seem pretty linked in terms of those missions that will be happening up to those Bigelow space stations. So really, until the 2020s, and maybe even at the mid-2020s at that point, if we expect, you know, a delay here or there for the Bigelow space stations, CST-100 is only flying crew missions up to the ISS for NASA. On the other hand, Dragon 2 is going to quickly ramp up their flight rate because there are so many more missions for that spacecraft to support. Not only will Dragon 2 be used for crew missions to the ISS, but you could see them switching over their cargo flights to a Dragon 2 as well. As of right now, SpaceX intends to fly the cargo variant of the

Dragon up to the ISS in support of those cargo missions, but in a few years you could see them want to make the switch to Dragon 2 to optimize their production flow of these different capsules. Instead of having a production line for the cargo variant and their human variant, they could want to unify those into a single model, which would be the Dragon 2. they could want to unify those into a single model, which would be the Dragon 2. So you could see the Dragon 2 being used for crew and cargo up to the ISS, but also to support SpaceX's own exploration goals. And that includes missions like Red Dragon to Mars.

We're actually going to see a Dragon 2 set down on the surface of Mars sometime in 2018, maybe 2020. Beyond the initial Red Dragon mission, SpaceX is going to continue to send those missions as they prep for their own Mars colonization goals. They're going to be scouting out different sites that they could colonize, they're going to be sending different hardware that they might use once they start colonizing the surface. Dragon 2 is going to be used pretty heavily in terms of their actual Mars exploration goals. But in addition to that, SpaceX is going to need to do their own test flights as well to work out some kinks in their own exploration plans. You could see them sending humans around cislunar space to test out different operations that they might need, different communications they might need, all those

things that are going to be necessary for their actual missions out to Mars, they're going to need to test closer to home first. And Dragon 2 could be a very valuable testbed for all of that work. And this is all without even talking about cost of launching these two different crew vehicles. The CST-100 launches on an Atlas V 422 variant, as I said, which includes two solid rocket motors and two upper stage engines. The baseline Atlas V variant, the 401, goes for around $164 million, which is much, much higher than a Falcon 9 even to begin with. But a 422 variant could quickly get up to the $200 million range. Each solid rocket motor is around $10 million, so that puts you at $184 million already, and we're not quite sure what those

upper stage engines cost, but you could see that quickly getting up to the $200 million range. On the other hand, the Falcon 9 that launches the Dragon 2 right now sits around $60 million, but once they start getting this reusability down, they're hoping to cut that down to $40 million. So the disparity in cost there also plays pretty big into the future plans for Bigelow. I'm not sure how they're going to sell missions up to their commercial space stations for 200 and some million dollars to get a crew of, you know, six up to the space station. That seems like a pretty tall order and a pretty big budget that I'm not quite sure would work out the way they want it to. budget that I'm not quite sure would work out the way they want it to. All in all, flight rate is king, and I think Dragon 2's versatility both here at Earth and beyond Earth, as well as SpaceX's exploration goals over the next 5-10 years, have a lot higher prospects for the amount of flights

that Dragon 2 will take than the CST-100. Dragon 2 could very quickly affect CST-100 in the same way that Falcon 9 affected the Atlas V and Delta IV, which is making ULA rethink the way they operate their business. Switching over from the crew vehicles to actual launch vehicles, I want to follow up a bit on the first stage from the Falcon 9 that launched the JC-SAT-14 up to GTO a couple of weeks ago. That stage after landing on the drone ship successfully sailed back into Port Canaveral and is now inside SpaceX's hangar at Pad 39A along with the other two cores that have been returned successfully. From the photos that SpaceX released, you could see that the stage

that was returned from GTO launch is just beat up in all ways. I mean, we're talking holes in the grid fins, scorch marks near the grid fins and lower down by the legs, just all sorts of burn marks and different things that really show what it went through on its way back into the atmosphere. Elon Musk tweeted that the stage took what he called max damage and would not fly again on another flight, though I'm not quite sure that means that it can't fly on another flight. It would certainly take refurbishment to fly again, but really that's not in SpaceX's best interest at this point. While they won't be able to fly the stage again, what they do get from it is a ton of useful data. The stage survived the most extreme heating it will ever experience on a launch, and it still landed, broken grid fins

and all. So really that shows good things for the future, that this thing can survive that kind of re-entry heat and still land on a drone ship at sea. Think about if they did not recover the stage. All they would know is that it didn't survive re-entry heating so all of the rocket must need upgrades to survive that kind of heat. But instead they know what parts survive the heat well and will need no changes in the future. They also know what parts didn't survive at all and need massive changes and refurbishment in the future. So they'll be able to understand exactly what parts need to be buffed up to withstand those crazy re-entry heating levels that they experienced from a GTO launch.

So I think this will lead to amazing improvements in the Falcon 9's reusability when it comes to flight patterns like they have for these GTO launches and, again, for future Falcon Heavy flights. This is another example of SpaceX using this iterative type development at its finest. They're completing these missions and building up a nice streak of on-time successful launches, but they're incrementally working their way towards reusability. The first thing they had to do was return one of these stages from a GTO flight so that they could see what happened when it got back. Now they've done that so they can see what they need to rework in order to make these things reusable for these kinds of flights, and they'll roll those changes

into a future version and they'll repeat. This is what SpaceX does best, and it's amazing to see them doing it at such a fast rate. Another piece of reusability that's pretty interesting to watch is they're starting to experiment with fairing reusability. Elon Musk replied to a tweet recently, and someone asked how did the fairing recovery attempt go this time around on this most recent launch, and he replied better. Not there yet, but a solution is likely. So it's interesting to know that these experiments have been happening over the past couple of launches, and they're really working their way towards reusable fairings. The last time I heard about it, it would have attitude control on each fairing to survive re-entry correctly,

and then parachutes packed inside of the fairing itself, which would deploy once it's lowered in the atmosphere, and then those fairings would be a captured by a helicopter, sort of like the plans for the ULA reusable engines, which would dive back into the atmosphere, launch a parachute and helicopter would pick them up on their way back to sea. So all in all, it's interesting to see them inching their way towards fairing reusability. I'm not sure we'll ever see that with the Falcon 9, but who knows if they do that Raptor upper stage improvement to the Falcon 9 and they're carrying heavier payloads for the Department of Defense, maybe they'll have bigger fairings in the future and they can roll these improvements into those. So that's all I got for you this week. If you're enjoying the show, I would appreciate a rating on

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