Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Boeing CST-100 and ULA Atlas-V Crew Access Tower Taking Shape at Cape Canaveral Launch Site

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: June 30, 2015 at 9:23:48 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Boeing CST-100 and ULA Atlas-V Crew Access Tower Taking Shape at Cape Canaveral Launch Site

SpaceX Rocket Explosion Shouldn't Affect Commercial Crew Plans, NASA Says
by Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | June 29, 2015 07:30am ET

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket exploded about 2 minutes after launching the company's robotic Dragon capsule on a cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA on June 28, 2015.
Credit: Robert Pearlman/collectSPACE.com View full size image
The failure of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket during a cargo launch Sunday shouldn't have a big impact on the company's ability to fly astronauts to orbit and back a few years from now, NASA officials said.
The two-stage Falcon 9 exploded Sunday (June 28) shortly after launching SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule on an attempted cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA. The cause of the accident remains unclear at the moment, though SpaceX representatives have said they suspect some sort of issue with the rocket's second stage.
The Falcon 9 and Dragon aren't just a cargo-launching duo; SpaceX will also use the rocket and a modified version of the capsule to ferry astronauts to and from the orbiting lab for NASA, under a $2.6 billion deal that was announced in September. [See photos from the failed SpaceX launch]
NASA also awarded Boeing $4.2 billion to complete work on its CST-100 crew capsule. The space agency wants one or both companies to be flying astronauts to and from the orbiting lab by the end of 2017. (Since the space shuttle program ended in July 2011, NASA has been solely dependent on Russia's Soyuz capsule to provide this taxi service, at a cost of around $70 million per seat.)
That timeline is still achievable for SpaceX despite Sunday's mishap, said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations.
"We can actually learn from this failure — understand a weakness or a flaw in the design that we might not have seen for a while, and so this could actually lower some of the speculation about how we want to move forward and how we want to work on the crew design," Gerstenmaier said in a press briefing Sunday.
"At this point, I don't anticipate it impacting the schedule," he added. "In fact, it could help us to nail down designs and move forward."
SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell voiced similar sentiments.
"This is a tough business. Any launch provider has to have considered this in their operational plans going forward," Shotwell said in Sunday's briefing. "So I don't anticipate this to impact any program that we have ongoing. We must find this cause of the failure, we must fix it and obviously we're going to get back to flight."
But funding issues could cause some slippage from that December 2017 target date, Gerstenmaier said. The White House asked for $1.2 billion for NASA's commercial crew program in its 2016 federal budget request, but Congress thus far seems willing to appropriate only $900 million to $1 billion.
"We really need full funding for crew," Gerstenmaier said. "We really need to keep moving forward technically, and to do that, we need the funding level we requested."
SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion NASA contract to fly at least 12 unmanned resupply missions to the space station. Sunday's launch kicked off mission number seven; the previous six had all been fully successful.
Sunday's mishap was the third cargo-mission failure in the last eight months. In October, spaceflight company Orbital ATK (which signed its own $1.9 billion resupply deal with NASA) lost its Cygnus freighter just seconds after liftoff when Orbital's Antares rocket exploded. And Russia's robotic Progress 59 spacecraft fell back to Earth in May without reaching the space station, victimized by an apparent problem with the third stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched it.

Copyright © 2015 TechMediaNetwork.com All rights reserved.

AmericaSpace
For a nation that explores
June 29th, 2015
Boeing CST-100 and ULA Atlas-V Crew Access Tower Taking Shape at Cape Canaveral Launch Site
By Mike Killian
The first crew access tower tiers begin to take shape at Space Launch Complex-41 for flights aboard the Boeing CST-100. Credits: NASA/Cory Huston
In 2017 the United States will once again see the return of American human spaceflight to our own shores, courtesy of SpaceX and Boeing and their Dragon and CST-100 crew capsules. Boeing however is NASA's primary crew contract winner, receiving a much larger piece of the multi-billion dollar pie to fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) aboard their CST-100 capsule ($4.2 billion for Boeing and $2.6 billion for SpaceX).
With two years left before an expected inaugural launch there is still a lot of work to be done, but one visible sign of progress at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is the new Boeing/ULA (United Launch Alliance) crew access tower now being built just down the road from ULA's Atlas Space Launch Complex-41 (SLC-41), which is where Boeing's flights will take place from atop the proven ULA Atlas-V rocket.
Artist's concept of Boeing's CST-100 space taxi atop a man rated ULA Atlas-V rocket showing new crew access tower and arm at Space Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Credit: ULA
The entire tower will be erected over six to seven weeks this summer, rising like an erector set, and it's the first of its kind intended for a vehicle that will carry humans into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station since the one built at Launch Complex 34 for the Apollo missions in the 1960's. The fixed service structures used for crew access for NASA's 30-years of space shuttle launches from Launch Complex 39A and 39B were built in the late 1970's at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), which neighbors the Cape at the north side of Merritt Island.
When finished the new SLC-41 Atlas-V commercial crew tower will rise over 200 feet tall, some 20 stories, and the first segments are already rising above the Cape's flat landscape.
"Safety of our NASA astronauts and ground crews is at the forefront as we construct the crew access tower," said Mike Burghardt, the launch segment director for Boeing's Commercial Crew Program. "This is an exciting time in space. The crew tower embodies the fact that very soon we'll be launching crew missions again from the Space Coast."
The tower will be comprised of seven major tier segments, or levels, and each will measure about 20-foot square and 28-feet tall. Building them away from the pad allows ULA to maintain their busy Atlas launch manifest, which will launch again as soon as July 15, and also allows for foundation work for the tower at SLC-41 to move forward at the same time the tower itself is being built. Cranes move the largest pieces into place, while welders and riveters connect the thick steel beams together to form the central spars of the tower.
"The first truss segment will be transported out to the pad and installed in the July time frame," said Howard Biegler, ULA's man in charge of the company's Human Launch Services division, in comments to AmericaSpace several months ago. "That will be an above ground segment. The rest happens quick over the course of a six or seven week period. So the remaining pieces of the tower goes up rather quickly."
Each tier segment will be moved to the launch complex one by one, then will be stacked, and Biegler expects the major bulk of that work to be complete by the end of summer.
Foundation work at the pad to support the tower began last January. The site has already been excavated, and ten 42-inch-diameter piers have already been drilled and poured. The old Mobile Service Tower (MST) railroad tracks from the Titan Centaur days is being removed as well, then the dowels will be installed to secure the crew access tower.
Once the seven tiers are built and outfitted with everything (except wire harnesses and elevator rails) they will be trucked over to SLC-41 and stacked between launches. The tower will then be outfitted with all the wiring, lines, support facilities, stairs and elevators the astronaut crew and ground support staff will require. A set of slidewire baskets will be ready to help anyone on the tower to evacuate in a hurry in the unlikely event of an emergency as well.
"After the tower buildup comes the extensive work to outfit the tower with over 400 pieces of outboard steel that have to be installed," added Biegler. "That takes much longer, and will be done in parallel with the arm buildup. The completely integrated and tested crew access arm and walkway should be brought out to the launch site around May 2016, with all the site construction, testing and certifications done by September 2016."

VIDEO: Boeing/ULA Crew Access Tower Takes Shape
It should be noted that, although there won't be any crewed flights in 2016 anymore, ULA designed their game plan from day one to support a December 2016 launch (as was NASA's intention a couple years ago). They have never slipped off of their September 2016 completion date.
"This is an extremely exciting time," said Rick Marlette, deputy project manager for ULA's launch pad construction." "It's great to be doing the construction after so many years and we're bringing Atlas back to its heritage from the Mercury Program of flying astronauts into space."
In the meantime, at ULA's 1.6 million square foot Decatur, Ala. facility, the company has already started work building the two Atlas-V rockets that will launch Boeing's CST-100 space capsule on its first uncrewed and crewed test flight, both scheduled for 2017. Both rockets, each designated as AV-073 and AV-080, will be the first to be certified by both NASA and ULA to fly people to and from the International Space Station.
We continue to reach out to SpaceX regarding progress at nearby KSC LC-39A, but the company will not release any details except through Elon's Twitter account. Boeing and ULA, however, speak with us about their Commercial Crew Program progress, even inviting us to their operational facilities on occasion for progress updates.

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