Henry Spencer takes a look at the increasingly public problems with NASA’s Ares I and Ares V boosters, which are designed to carry the agency’s new Orion spacecraft to Earth orbit and the moon, respectively.
NASA thought it could easily adapt legacy shuttle hardware to the task. Not so much. Considerable upgrades were required, especially after Orion began to gain weight. That, in turn, caused the weight and cost of the rocket to grow as the schedule slipped. Meanwhile, Ares V might not be as cost effective to fly as NASA has stated.
Spencer believes that NASA’s savior could be its investment in the COTS program, which is providing funding to Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation to develop commercial transportation to the International Space Station. SpaceX is developing a human and cargo-rated versions of its Dragon spacecraft, which Musk says could also fly to the moon. Orbital’s program is building a robotic freighter.
“If COTS works out well and Ares continues to blunder on, I expect that Congress will quickly run out of patience and force NASA’s hand by cutting off Ares funding,” Spencer writes.
“The one ray of hope for NASA is that with the White House about to change hands, there will almost certainly be a new NASA administrator next year. Immediately upon assuming office, he or she might declare the Ares programme a write-off and order a major change of direction, blaming the problems on the previous administration. But this would have to be done quickly, while it’s still plausible to blame his or her predecessor.”
NASA’s Orion spacecraft apparently has a viable escape engine should its underpowered Ares rocket be able to lift the capsule off the ground. NASA’s full press release follows.
HAMPTON, Va. - NASA completed a full-scale rocket motor test on Thursday, July 17, to further development of the Orion jettison motor, which will separate the spacecraft’s launch abort system from the crew module during launch. Orion, the Constellation Program’s crew exploration vehicle now under development, will fly to the International Space Station and be part of the spaceflight system to conduct sustained human exploration of the moon.
NASA and Aerojet successfully fired the jettison motor at the Aerojet facility in Sacramento, Calif. The demonstration is part of a series of developmental tests that pave the way for delivery of the motor to be used for the first full-scale test of the launch abort system at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico late this year.
Continue reading ‘Well, the Escape Engine Works at Least….’
Congratulations are apparent due to NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. He is now the proud father of a five pound bouncing baby year gap in U.S. human spaceflight.
Doug Cooke, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for exploration, confirmed this week that the space agency has given up on its Quixote like efforts to get its new Orion spacecraft flying by 2013. However, he still expects they will be able to launch its new human space vehicle in March 2015 - almost five years after it retires the space shuttle.
The main problem: money. NASA has not been getting enough of it under George W. Bush - who proposed the program in the first place. His plan to send humans back to the moon and on to Mars has been apparently limping along like Tiny Tim since he announced it four years ago.
With the economy slipping, banks failing, mortgages defaulting, inflation accelerating, gas prices rising, the dollar sinking, unemployment increasing, the national debt soaring, and two wars a-waging, the next President already has his hands tied trying to find more money for NASA. And without the extra funding, the schedule will likely slip even further as engineers struggle to overcome numerous technical problems with the Orion capsule and its shuttle-derived Ares boosters.
As for the technical difficulties, Cooke’s reaction is pretty much what you’d expect: it’s all normal for projects like this, nothing to see here, please move along. “What you’re seeing is sausage-making,” he told Newsweek. “I’m really satisfied with the work that’s getting done.”
Could be a pork product. Or the chickens - in the form of Mr. Griffin’s mission architecture - are coming home to roost and crapping all over everything.
In the latest of a series of critical investigations, NASA’s Office of Inspector General released a report on Wednesday concerning the agency’s decision to build a new rocket test facility for its Ares program at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. An excerpt from the report follows:
“The NRPTA [National Rocket Propulsion Test Alliance], formed by an agreement between NASA and the Department of Defense (DoD), was established to shape the Government’s rocket propulsion testing capability to efficiently meet national test needs through intra- and inter-agency cooperation. The NRPTA reviews testing needs and recommends solutions that provide the best overall value to the taxpayer. NASA’s Rocket Propulsion Test Management Board (RPTMB) serves as the NASA decision-making body for rocket propulsion testing.
“We found that NASA’s Upper Stage Engine (USE) Element Manager, located at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, reviewed the J-2X rocket propulsion testing options and selected the A-3 test stand to be built at Stennis without the required formal reviews or recommendations of the NRPTA, or NASA’s RPTMB. This occurred because NASA did not appropriately engage the NRPTA as required by the NRPTA Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). The NRPTA MOA and the RPTMB Operating Procedures require member reviews and recommendations prior to major test facility investments or modifications. In addition, we found that the processes contained in the the NRPTA MOA and the RPTMB Operating Procedures are not included in either a NASA Policy Directive or NASA Procedural Requirements.
“Although the Rocket Propulsion Test (RPT) Program office used the NRPTA to gather information on potential J-2X testing options, NASA did not make a request for NRPTA member reviews and recommendations and subsequently made a unilateral decision to build the A-3 test stand at Stennis. The USE Element Manager stated that he selected the A-3 without, or prior to, receiving any recommendations from the RPTMB or NRPTA because the selection needed to be made in March 2007 to maintain the critical path of the Ares Project. We confirmed that the test facility was on the Ares Project’s critical path. However, we found that the schedules projected for the A-3 and upgrading AEDC’s J-4 facility, which presented a competing option, were the same, 3½ years. Although the critical path of the Ares Project may explain the timing of the decision, it does not adequately justify the decision to build the A-3 exclusive of cost and technical risk comparisons with other facilities as would have been provided if the appropriate request was made of the NRPTA.”
NASA has released the schedule for its remaining ten space shuttle missions. The plan includes nine flights to the International Space Station and a Hubble servicing mission in October. Endeavour is set to close out the shuttle era beginning on May 31, 2010 - about 10 months short of the 30th anniversary of the program’s inaugural mission on April 12, 1981.
Meanwhile, NASA has ramped work on the shuttle’s successor, Constellation. In lieu of actual test flights (which won’t begin until next year), the space agency has created a really snazzy video showing how Constellation will place us on a path back to the moon beginning in 2013….or 2015.
And how is work going on the Ares rockets and Orion capsule? Officially, everything’s coming up Milhouse. In fact, you can read about how well things are going on NASA’s official Constellation website. Or read this story about Ares in the Houston Chronicle.
Others aren’t so sure.
Continue reading ‘Space Shuttle to Remain Forever 29; Successor Program Going Great…or Not’
NASA’s preliminary design review (PDR) for its new Orion spacecraft has slipped two months as engineers continue to work through one minor little problem: the capsule is too heavy for the Ares I rocket to launch to orbit.
NASA Space Flight reports that engineers are hoping to deal with the system’s negative-mass-to-orbit problem in order to conduct the PDR in November. Weight and performance problems have long dogged the agency’s Apollo-style capsule and shuttle-derived booster.
Quoting an internal NASA document, the website says that the slip in the PDR will ripple through Orion’s schedule. The Critical Design Review will slip more than six months from September 25, 2009 to April 2, 2010. However, the agency expects the Design Certification Review to slip only two months from mid-January to March 2013.
NASA Spaceflight also reports that engineers are trying to work out scenarios for astronauts to survive up to 36 hours should Orion land in the ocean far from assistance.
Some updates on human spaceflight from around the web (and the world)….
ISS to Double Crew Size: Aviation Week
“NASA and its partners on the International Space Station (ISS) are in final preparations for the shift from a full-time crew of three to a crew of six on the orbiting laboratory, beginning with the STS-124 space shuttle mission upcoming in June.”
ISRO To Seek Human Spaceflight Funding: Aviation Week
“The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) soon will ask the Indian government to approve a human spaceflight mission by 2014-15 at a projected cost of $2.5 billion.”
Rube Goldberg Was a Piker: Rocketsandsuch Blog
This insider blog reports on the NASA’s latest plan to deal with oscillations in its Ares rocket. Is “hare-brained” a compliment?
China Checks Out Relay Satellite: Aviation Week
“China is beginning the geosynchronous orbit checkout of its first relay satellite to increase communications coverage for manned Shenzhou spacecraft.”
British Perspectives on Human Spaceflight: The Space Review
The British once ruled the seven seas, presiding over an empire upon which the sun never set. Now, it doesn’t even send humans into space. Jeff Foust examines whether that will soon change.
Thales Alenia Space’s Answer to EADS Astrium’s Space Jet: Hyperbola Blog
Rob Coppinger looks at an Italian lifting body concept that could send astronauts and tourists into space. It’s got a really cool para-glider landing system.
Point-to-point suborbital transportation: sounds good on paper, but…: The Space Review
David Hoerr takes a look at the feasibility of taking a shortcut through space in order to fly from London to Sydney. Anyone remember the flying car?
NASA needs to make a number of crucial improvements in its Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) if it wants to land humans on the moon and Mars, according to a new National Research Council report.
In an interim report released on Friday, a NRC review committee said that NASA is underfunding research in key areas and has left “mission critical tests” out of its schedule due to budgetary and time constraints.
“Although near term budgetary pressures are clear, the need for adequate testing is a recurrent theme in program failure reports and should be addressed,” the reviewers wrote.
The committee found that NASA was focusing too much of its technology development on getting astronauts back to the moon. “The committee did not find evidence that the extensibility of technologies to the exploration of Mars is a routine consideration. A possible consequence is the development of technologies that will not be extensible to the full VSE,” the report states.
Continue reading ‘NRC: NASA Should Beef up Tech Development for Lunar, Mars Missions’
Flight Global is reporting that NASA has stopped a study by the Aerospace Corporation concerning flight testing of the Ares I launch vehicle and its Orion crew capsule.
Rob Coppinger writes that the El Segundo, Calif.-based company had completed a review of previous NASA programs in 2005 indicating that “full-scale ground testing of launchers was key to flight-test successes in programmes from Mercury to the Space Shuttle.” The partially complete follow-on study, done last year, was designed to help NASA establish a viable ground-testing plan.
Why was the study stopped? Don’t ask Doug Cooke, who oversees the Ares project as deputy associate administrator of NASA’s Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. He told Coppinger that he has no idea why the study ended. Nobody else at NASA could explain the decision, either.
The Government Accountability Office’s report on the NASA Constellation program has some interesting information about the space agency’s efforts to send astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. GAO found that:
- NASA has already spent more than $7 billion on the program since its inception in 2004 - with nearly $230 billion projected over the next 20 years.
- Engineers must close significant knowledge gaps and refine many requirements in order to conduct preliminary design reviews on Ares and Orion scheduled for August and September.
- The space agency’s efforts involve a high-risk strategy of “concurrent” technology development - working on different systems at the same time and integrating them later.