Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: SpaceX, Boeing on track for 2017 piloted test flights

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: January 27, 2015 at 9:44:40 PM CST
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: SpaceX, Boeing on track for 2017 piloted test flights

January 22, 2015
MEDIA ADVISORY M15-013

UPDATE - NASA, Boeing, SpaceX Discuss Plan for Launching American Astronauts from the U.S. in 2017
(Updates how media can participate via phone)
NASA, Boeing and SpaceX will hold a news briefing on NASA Television at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston at noon EST (11 a.m. CST) Monday, Jan. 26, to highlight key development activities, test plans and objectives for achieving certification of two American crew transportation systems.
Under Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts for NASA's Launch America initiative, Boeing and SpaceX will develop safe and reliable crew transportation to and from the International Space Station on American spacecraft launched from the United States. This initiative returns the American industry to the forefront of human exploration technology and operations and ends the nation's sole reliance on Russia for crew transportation to the space station.
The panelists are:
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa
Commercial Crew Program Manager Kathy Lueders
Vice President and General Manager of Boeing Space Exploration John Elbon
President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX Gwynne Shotwell
NASA astronaut Mike Fincke
To participate in person at Johnson, reporters must contact Kyle Herring at 281-483-5111 or by email at kyle.j.herring@nasa.gov no later than 4 p.m. Friday.
Media who wish to ask questions by phone must call Johnson's newsroom at 281-483-5111 no later than 11:45 a.m. (10:45 a.m. CST) Monday.
Those following the briefing on social media can ask questions using the hashtag #askNASA.
For NASA TV streaming video, schedule and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
For more information about NASA's Commercial Crew Program, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
-end-
Stephanie Schierholz
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
stephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov
Kyle Herring
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kyle.j.herring@nasa.gov
Stephanie Martin
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
321-867-2468
stephanie.a.martin@nasa.gov

SpaceX, Boeing on track for 2017 piloted test flights
01/26/2015 04:18 PM
By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

NASA expects to spend some $5 billion underwriting development of commercial spacecraft built by Boeing and SpaceX to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, officials said Monday, ending sole reliance on the Russians for crew ferry flights and eventually lowering the average cost per seat to around $58 million.

Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, said her company's upgraded Dragon V2 ferry craft should be ready for an initial unpiloted flight to the space station in late 2016 with the first crewed flight, likely carrying a SpaceX test pilot and a NASA astronaut, in early 2017.

John Elbon, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space Exploration, said his company's CST-100 spacecraft is expected to be ready for an uncrewed test flight in April 2017, followed by a crewed flight, with a Boeing pilot and a NASA astronaut, in the July 2017 timeframe.
A Boeing CST-100 crew ferry craft is boosted into space by an Atlas 5 rocket in this artist's concept. Boeing and SpaceX officials say they are on track for initial manned test flights in 2017. (Credit: NASA)

Both companies must complete the crewed and uncrewed test flights before NASA certification, which will pave the way for the start of operational crew rotation and cargo delivery flights to the International Space Station later in 2017. Until then, NASA will continue to rely on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to carry U.S. and partner crew members to and from the lab complex.

"Commercial crew is incredibly important to the space station, it's important to reduce the cost of transportation to low-Earth orbit so that NASA has within its budget the capability to develop means to explore beyond low-Earth orbit," Elbon said during a news conference at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. "And importantly, I think, it's beginning a whole new industry. ... We're making great progress on the program."

Said Shotwell: "Our crew Dragon leverages the cargo capability that we've been flying successfully to the International Space Station. However, we understand, and we've been told, that crew is clearly different. So there are a number of upgrades that we've been working for the past few years to assure that this crew version of Dragon is as reliable as it can possibly be. Ultimately, we plan for it to be the most reliable spaceship flying crew ever."

In the wake of the space shuttle's retirement, NASA started a competition to build a commercial crewed spacecraft, with the first in a series of contracts intended to encourage innovative designs for reliable, affordable transportation to and from low-Earth orbit.

Last September, NASA announced that Boeing had won a $4.2 billion Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCAP) contract to continue development of the company's CST-100 capsule while SpaceX would receive $2.6 billion to press ahead with work to perfect its futuristic Dragon crew craft.

A third competitor, Sierra Nevada, was left out, and the company filed a protest with the General Accountability Office, arguing its Dream Chaser spaceplane was unfairly passed over. But the GAO ruled earlier this month that NASA's selection of Boeing and SpaceX was justified, clearing the space agency to proceed with the CCtCAP contracts.

SpaceX and Boeing hold contracts covering two test flights and two operational missions per company with options for additional operational missions between them.

Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft is a state-of-the-art, reusable capsule incorporating weld-less fabrication, flight proven navigation software, powerful "pusher" escape rockets to propel the capsule away from a malfunctioning booster and a parachute-and-airbag landing system.

For NASA flights, the spacecraft will be used to carry four astronauts at a time to the space station, along with critical cargo. It will be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, one of the most reliable boosters in the U.S. inventory.

Elbon said construction has started on a launch pad crew access tower and work platforms needed to service CST-100s in a former shuttle processing hangar. A simulator will be installed at the Johnson Space Center in the same building that once housed shuttle flight simulators and Boeing is working out procedures to use NASA's mission control center for ascent, rendezvous and re-entry.

"The flight software will be delivered later this summer, we'll have the simulator running with the flight software and flight computers and 26 of the 34 flight displays," Elbon said. "So there will be a real opportunity for the crew to interface with that software and understand how the vehicle's going to operate."

Boeing plans a launch pad abort test in February 2017 "where we'll fully check out the abort system" before staging the first unpiloted test flight to the space station the following April. Elbon said Boeing should be ready for the first crewed test flight in July 2017. Assuming the test flights go well and NASA certifies the CST-100, Boeing expects to be ready for its first operational mission in December 2017.

SpaceX already flies to the space station under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA for a dozen uncrewed cargo flights using the company's Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rockets.

The crewed version of the spacecraft will be able to carry up to seven astronauts -- typically four for station missions -- and features futuristic pull-down flat-screen displays, a powerful escape rocket system and sophisticated computer control. As with the automated cargo ships, the crew capsules will be launched atop Falcon 9 boosters.

Shotwell said SpaceX is gearing up for a pad abort test in the next month or so when a Dragon spacecraft will be shot off the launch pad using its escape rockets to demonstrate the ability to pull a crew away from a catastrophic low-altitude booster malfunction. A second abort test will be carried out later this year to demonstrate escape during the most aerodynamically stressful regions of powered flight.

"The Integrated launch abort system is critically important to us, we think it gives incredible safety features for a full abort all the way through ascent," Shotwell said. SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musks hopes to eventually use the abort system for rocket-powered landings at the end of a mission, but initial flights will splash down in the ocean much like Dragon cargo missions.
In this artist's concept, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying astronauts bound for the space station blasts off atop a Falcon 9 rocket. (Credit: NASA)

While SpaceX is a relative newcomer to the rocket industry, Shotwell said the company will have launched more than 50 Falcon 9 rockets by the time astronauts strap into a Dragon V2 for the first piloted test flight. She said SpaceX will install a simulator at the Johnson Space Center for crew training, but likely will monitor ascent, rendezvous and re-entry from the company's Hawthorne, Calif., rocket plant where Dragon supply flights are managed.

"We anticipate doing our uncrewed mission to the International Space Station on this upgraded crew vehicle later in '16, shortly followed thereafter with our crewed flight in early 2017, as shortly as we can make it and still maintain reliability and safety," she said. "We certainly understand the incredible responsibility we've been given to build the systems necessary and capable of flying crew."

Along with ferrying astronauts to and from the space station, the Boeing and SpaceX capsules also will be able to serve as lifeboats for station crew members, remaining attached to the station for more than 200 days at a stretch to give U.S. and partner astronauts a way home in an emergency.

The new spacecraft will be the first American vehicles to carry astronauts on NASA-sanctioned flights since the space shuttle's last mission in 2011 and the first built under more commercially structured contracts intended to lower costs.

The CST-100 and upgraded Dragon also will end America's reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for access to the International Space Station. Under NASA's latest contract with Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, U.S. seats cost around $70 million each. Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA's commercial crew program, said the agency eventually will save, on average, more than $10 million a seat using U.S. spacecraft.

"Overall, when we go through the whole development activity ... we'll have invested about $5 billion," she said. "In addition, when you look at pricing for the missions across the five years we have pricing for, we're able to get an average seat cost of about $58 million per seat."

But NASA's use of Soyuz spacecraft will not end with the advent of U.S. space taxis.

Mike Suffredini, manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said in a Jan. 15 interview with CBS News that NASA still plans to use one seat per Soyuz for the duration of the station program. The Russians, likewise, would be able to launch a cosmonaut on each U.S.-sponsored flight.

Assuming both parties ultimately agree, "the Russians will fly twice a year, or whatever rate they need to do their job, and we will have a crew member on each of their flights," Suffredini said. "We will fly ours at whatever rate we think we need to do our job and they will put a single crew member on it."

During the news conference Monday, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said "I don't ever want to have to write another check to (the Russian federal space agency) Roscosmos after 2017, hopefully. That's why I'm looking to John and Gwynne to deliver. You've heard both of them say they think they'll be flying by 2017. If we can make that date, I'm a happy camper."

But NASA has to be prepared for contingencies and the commercial crew schedule is optimistic. Space station planners do not yet know for sure when a commercial ferry craft will begin operational missions and orders for Soyuz seats must be placed three years in advance.

"So I'm about to tell (Roscosmos) whether I want seats in 2018 right now, and we don't have any more insights (into commercial crew progress) really than the proposals," Suffredini said. "So we've got to go get some seats."

Longer term, he said NASA plans to continue flying on Soyuz after Boeing and SpaceX begin operational missions, but under a barter arrangement of some sort.

"We're assuming two Russian seats a year and we're assuming two Russians will fly in our seats per year," Suffredini said. "And it'll just be a quid pro quo, we won't ask for compensation."

=================================

CAPTION: A Boeing CST-100 crew ferry craft is boosted into space by an Atlas 5 rocket in this artist's concept. Boeing and SpaceX officials say they are on track for initial manned test flights in 2017. (Credit: NASA)

© 2015 William Harwood/CBS News

Private Space Taxis on Track to Fly in 2017
by Miriam Kramer, Space.com Staff Writer | January 26, 2015 05:07pm ET

NASA's Commercial Crew Program aims to encourage private American spaceships to start flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station by 2017. SpaceX and Boeing are on track to meet this deadline, representatives of both companies say.
Credit: NASA View full size image
The private spaceflight companies Boeing and SpaceX are on track to start launching NASA astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017, representatives of both firms said Monday (Jan. 26).
In September 2014, SpaceX and Boeing were awarded contracts under NASA's commercial crew program to help them start flying astronauts on missions to the space station from U.S. soil in the next few years. SpaceX and Boeing are planning to launch a series of tests of their spaceships — capsules called Dragon V2 and the CST-100, respectively — from this year through 2017. The tests will make sure the launch systems are in good shape before the spacecraft make their first official runs to and from the station.
Seats aboard Dragon and the CST-100 should also be cheaper than the current cost to launch people to space. NASA has relied on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to deliver astronauts to the orbiting outpost since the end of the space shuttle program in 2011; at the moment, NASA is paying about $70 million for each Soyuz seat. [The Top 10 Private Spaceships]
The space agency has required that commercial providers like Boeing and SpaceX meet or go below a $58 million average price per seat, according to NASA officials. Both Boeing and SpaceX representatives have said that their per-seat cost is at or below the current price of a Soyuz seat.
"The contracts we've signed with our industry partners Boeing and SpaceX are vivid examples of American innovation at work," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said in a news conference Monday. "We've seen the return of an American launch industry and the in-sourcing of work and jobs back to U.S. shores. Our reliance on a commercial space enterprise where we hand off low-Earth orbit transportation to the private sector is critical to our journey to Mars."

Budgets and contracts
SpaceX is receiving $2.6 billion of the $6.8 billion total contract, with Boeing awarded the other $4.2 billion. Since receiving the funding, the two companies have been steadily working toward meeting various new milestones within the program.
Bolden is also optimistic that the forthcoming federal budget proposal from the White House — scheduled to be released next week — will treat the commercial crew program well.
NASA conduted a briefing on the status of the Commerical Crew Program, at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on Jan. 26, 2015.
Credit: NASA TV
View full size image
"Congress has started to understand the critical importance of commercial crew and cargo," Bolden said. "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. It's something that's really happening. I am optimistic that the Congress will accept the President's proposal for commercial crew for 2016."
SpaceX getting ready to fly
SpaceX's plans under the commercial crew program are expected to heat up this year. The company plans to launch its first abort test for Dragon "in the next month or so," SpaceX COO and president Gwynne Shotwell said during the news conference. The company is then expected to perform a second abort test later in 2015, Shotwell added.
After those two tests — which are designed to show how Dragon V2 would respond in the event of a problem during liftoff— SpaceX representatives are hoping to launch an uncrewed test flight using the company's Falcon 9 rocket in late 2016, with its first crewed mission using the launch system coming shortly after that, in early 2017.
"We certainly understand the incredible … responsibility that we've been given to build the systems necessary and capable of flying crew," Shotwell said.
Artist's concept of Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft near the International Space Station.
Credit: Boeing
View full size image
Boeing getting ready for 2017
Boeing should start launching many of its test flights in 2017, said John Elbon, Vice President and General Manager of Boeing Space Exploration. The CST-100 is designed to fly to space atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
Boeing is expected to perform a pad abort test of its CST-100 spacecraft in 2017, with the first uncrewed flight to the space station launching in April 2017. Boeing's first crewed flight to the station should occur in July 2017 with a Boeing pilot and NASA astronaut aboard, according to Elbon.
The company's first official mission to the station should happen before the end of 2017, Elbon added.
"Lots of great progress," Elbon said. "We're on track, and it's just as exciting as can be to be part of it."

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