cargo ships

holmec · Nov 23, 2006

Ok, so I now learned that ESA will have its first ATV up mid 2007, and JAXA will have its HTV up in 2008. They launch these cargo ships themselves on their own launch systems. So what does that mean for the COTS winners? Am I crazy (please no comment) or is COTS a way or venue for commercial companies to get in to the ISS gig? Up till now its been RSA and NASA the sole providers of cargo. And NASA is not planning on stopping deliveries because they already included this in the Constellation system. So COTS was said to be a "backup" for NASA, but I'm wondering if there is more to the story than that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

bpfeifer · Nov 23, 2006

The COTS developers are talking about demonstation flights to the ISS in 2008 or 2009. This is long before the CEV will be available. ISS participating countries are requireed to provide supplies for their own astronauts. This means that if the Shuttle retires in 2010, and the CEV is not yet delivering supplies to the ISS, then the US must purchase supply runs from other nations. They way this president acts unilaterally, I'm sure our leaders don't want to rely on foreign relations as they had to do when the Shuttle was grounded. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Brian J. Pfeifer http://sabletower.wordpress.com The Dogsoldier Codex http://www.lulu.com/sabletower </div>

steve82 · Nov 23, 2006

"I'm sure our leaders don't want to rely on foreign relations as they had to do when the Shuttle was grounded. " Has nothing to do with politics. NASA is fed up dealing with IPs.

MeteorWayne · Nov 23, 2006

Ip's? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> But the Krell forgot one thing John. Monsters. Monsters from the Id. I really, really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function </div>

erioladastra · Nov 23, 2006

"first ATV up mid 2007, and JAXA will have its HTV up in 2008" That is the plan but neither will meet their dates. My money would say 2008 and 2009, respectively.

erioladastra · Nov 23, 2006

"Ip's? " International Partners. And no, NASA is only fed up with one IP, Russia. ESA and JAXA are challanging but not that hard to work with. And really NASA wants Russian support but just will not have it in the critical path.

steve82 · Nov 23, 2006

Agreed. Never put an IP in the critical path.

kane007 · Nov 23, 2006

Well, circa 2018 the Ares V should be spaceborn. Anyone heard if this BA booster would also be used for delivering any cargo to LEO or beyond? Outside the scope of the constellation program.

nyarlathotep · Nov 24, 2006

No, it will only be delivering cargoes to LEO.

elguapoguano · Nov 24, 2006

How many years behind schedule are the ATV and HTV already? Quite a few if I'm not mistaken. It is a possibility that neither could ever fly... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Don't let your sig line incite a gay thread ;>) </div>

no_way · Nov 24, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />How many years behind schedule are the ATV and HTV already?<hr /></blockquote> Cant be any more behind schedule than the White Elephant itself, and even then there have been dozens of different schedules to be behind at ...

erioladastra · Nov 24, 2006

"Those are best-case"First Flight" dates. Add five years to either if there are serious problems on the test flights. " Well for ATV that is just a politcal date so the program doesn't get canceled. The first ATV test flight is also a fully functional one.

shoogerbrugge · Nov 24, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Agreed. Never put an IP in the critical path. <hr /></blockquote> *cugh* Soyuz TMA, Progress M *cugh* As with any multinational undertaking you are depedent. That doesn't make it more vunerable, as long as you pick the right partners. Russia was at the time a good choice as they had experience and a running system, although it didn't run that smoothly at times. I personally doubt that the HTV will ever make it to the ISS. Not much real progress seems to be made. ATV on the other hand is going through its latest test and will be shot to the ISS some time soon (by ESA standards that means 2 to 3 years)

holmec · Nov 25, 2006

ESA is still claiming June 2007 for its ATV launch, not fessing up to any delays. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

holmec · Nov 25, 2006

"NASA is fed up dealing with IPs." Is it NASA or USAF? Sounds political to me no matter what. Anyway you have to learn to work with 'IPs' you can't go it alone. Not any more. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

holmec · Nov 25, 2006

Maybe with so many different cargo ships going to ISS, someone would implement a permanent orbiting tug that picksup canisters that are launched from the ground and docks them to ISS..kinda like a gofor. Perhaps it will save weight and cargo cost. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

nyarlathotep · Nov 25, 2006

It wont save much weight, but not having to provide electrical, guidance, propulsion and rendezvous systems would cut down an ATV sized container from $500m to less than $50m a unit.

holmec · Nov 25, 2006

Sure but not much adds up over 10-100 of missions. I'm thinking more in the long term. We should face it, sending cargo up to orbit is probably not going away. It could probably be one of those potential space business things. The thing is that space stations would benefit from a tug by maintaining orbit and moving cargo around. Maybe a tug can retrieve space junk or change the orbit of some satelite. It just seems to me its inevitable that were going to have space tugs in orbit. I'm just waiting for someone to come up with a long term one. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> "SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off </div>

tohaki · Nov 25, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />I personally doubt that the HTV will ever make it to the ISS. Not much real progress seems to be made. ATV on the other hand is going through its latest test and will be shot to the ISS some time soon (by ESA standards that means 2 to 3 years)<hr /></blockquote>I agree, ATV will fly, but HTV might not.

steve82 · Nov 25, 2006

"Is it NASA or USAF?" The problem with dealing with IP's is a combination of things. The main problem is legal-all of the Export Control and ITAR regulation compliance adds a huge layer of overhead to the program and to any normal interactions with them that we would normally do with a technical interchange meeting or a simple engineering discussion. You don't save that much money having an IP supply something at "no cost" because you add tremendously to your own cost in trying to manage the interfaces across political boundaries. It's just symbolism bringing them aboard. But to say it's "just politics" is a misnomer, because it's the law of our land and we have to follow the rules.

erioladastra · Nov 25, 2006

"As with any multinational undertaking you are depedent. That doesn't make it more vunerable, as long as you pick the right partners. Russia was at the time a good choice as they had experience and a running system, although it didn't run that smoothly at times. " Yes, I am not saying that they have not also been a great help at times. However, there is a big difference between a partner that you can easily work with and one that is a nightmare, day to day, even when they play a critical role when the Shuttle was not flying. Besides this partnership has cost a great deal more and that money could have been used for other projects (e.g., finishing CRV).

shoogerbrugge · Nov 25, 2006

I think the benefit in the US-Russian partnership on the ISS has mainly been at the US side. The amount of money spend on Zvezda and Zarya by the the US was about 220m USD. The delay's both modules encurred were great excuses for extra on the ground testing (and finding out that they weren't ready) for US modules. The CRV was supposed to be taken to the ISS by the Shuttle, so if a shuttle accident would have happened the CRV(crew return vehicle) could have taken only people back, not towards the ISS and it couldn't have done reboosting and logistical flights. So in the end Russian involvement has saved the US money and kept it flying. The thing that soured the relationship is politics. Politics prevents cash transfers from one IP to another. Imagine going in a Joint Venture with another company but not being allowed to pay the other partner. That's the whole issue, politics.

PistolPete · Nov 25, 2006

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr />Maybe with so many different cargo ships going to ISS, someone would implement a permanent orbiting tug that picksup canisters that are launched from the ground and docks them to ISS..kinda like a gofor. Perhaps it will save weight and cargo cost.<hr /></blockquote> Perhaps you should look at this: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/parom.html It is a space tug that that the Russians are working on as part of a system to replace it's Progress and Soyuz space vehicles. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai </div>

erioladastra · Nov 25, 2006

"So in the end Russian involvement has saved the US money and kept it flying. " Well I didn't mean to get intoa debate on this. I don't disagree with your points, except for saving money. We have huge costs day-to-day with staff over there/here, translating everything, huge outlays in work hours for extra negotiations that are not present for the other IPs, increased travel etc. My point on CRV was that we would have had more monetary options and might today actually have it rather than not have anything and waiting for CEV. The US was not ready as you stated (especially the lab module) but we likely would have delayed everything rather then the way things played out costing more. And I didn't say they didn't play a key role especially after Columbia but there role was more critical partly because we shot ourselves in the foot. But I can't say for sure, it is really hard to say what would have cost more/less. "The thing that soured the relationship is politics. " I disagree. I think the politics has been pretty postive. It has actually been working with them day to day. Something that can take an hour to negoitiate with the Europeans will take 2 weeks witht he Russians. And then they will do whatever they want anyway. Things like ramming Progresses in so that their antennae get caught on hand rails is another example. Sorry, don't mean to go on too much. Just trying to illustrate that there is a LOT more than just Soyuz return vehicles and shuttles involved. I think that is a bigger reason Griffin wants to keep the IPs out of the critical path. Now of course, it is a lot like a marriage. By divorcing, you get rid of all the bad things, but you lose all the good things too. I am not trying to say one thing or the other is right, just trying to help explain.

shoogerbrugge · Nov 25, 2006

sorry for dragging you in an unwanted direction. I guess you do have vallid points, especially in the backroom operations of actually running the ISS. I do wonder whether all documents get translated in French and Japanese as well? Your second part mainly referred to a clash of spacefaring cultures, not policies, although I wholehartely agree with your observation. If the intention is to get back on track, and talk about cargo ships I have another 2 eurocent to throw into the debate. I remember when COTS results were announced that SpaceX and Kistel (back from the dead) were chosen. Both were focusing on launch hardware. While my choice would have been a different company that instead of offering launch hardware offered a logistical system using a Parom like spacetug, which seemed much smarter and simpler then developing a new LV. The company had said they had lost because they had a bad design but because of a requirement change, it shifted away from cargo to personell. Is this actually a smart move?

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holmec

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