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Space Launches, Landings & Destinations v4


SpaceChampion

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

What is Bezos attempting to accomplish.  SpaceX has performed again and again.  Blue Origin hasn’t made it to orbit yet.  Why would NASA go with Blue Origin?

The answer to the second question is that he's tried to buy enough support in Congress to apply political pressure on NASA, not sure if that's enough to get his way this time.  It's hard to read him when his stated motivations are so at odds with slow and disappointing performance of his space company.  But I think he's been consistent with the tactics he's used at Amazon.

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Boeing attempting a do-over of the launch of its Starliner capsule Friday at 2:53PM ET.

This was the other capsule NASA contracted (at twice the cost!) to deliver astronauts to ISS.  In it's first launch attempt a year and half ago it fail to make it to the space station due to a software problem.

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The company has seen its once-close relationship with the space agency dwindle since the beginning of its Starliner program. Focusing more on SpaceX, NASA officials overlooked Boeing’s software problems that led to Starliner’s failure. Two investigations, one related to potential fraud in its Starliner program and a criminal probe into Boeing’s bid on a lunar lander contract, pushed the company’s reputation in deeper trouble, locking Boeing out of the first major contracts in NASA’s Artemis program. For Boeing, another Starliner failure is not an option.

No humans aboard.  Just trying to make it this time, conduct a mission to ISS and back successfully before they will be certified by NASA to fly astronauts.

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Thirty minutes after liftoff, when Starliner was supposed to enter orbit, a series of software failures led the capsule to think it was in a vastly different phase of its mission, causing its suite of onboard thrusters to fire haphazardly, expending crucial amounts of fuel. An unexpected communications blackout prevented mission control from fixing the spacecraft remotely. Once Boeing got Starliner in a shallow orbit, it decided to send the capsule home early. Hours before Starliner was due to reenter, engineers scrambled to patch another software glitch that would have caused the capsule’s service module — the bottom portion that ejects before reentry — to crash into the capsule itself. Once “catastrophic spacecraft failure” was averted — as NASA safety adviser Paul Hill would describe it months later — Starliner landed safely in the New Mexico desert.

NASA and Boeing convened an independent team of veteran engineers to investigate the causes of Starliner’s failures, eventually recommending 80 different fixes — 61 to Boeing’s software and 19 to the capsule’s communications system. Boeing and NASA agreed to a test redo since Starliner never demonstrated its ability to dock to the station.

 

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The new Russian module (named Nauka which means Science) docked with the International Space Station. Unfortunately, shortly after docking, it mistakenly fired its thrusters causing the station to rotate in an uncontrolled way. They couldn't stop the firing of the thrusters for around 45 minutes, but eventually managed to correct the attitude of the station by using thrusters on the Progress vehicle currently docked at the station.

As far as they can tell, there is no obvious damage to the station, but the Starliner launch is delayed while they do a more through assessment.

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So it seems we have quite possibly located a couple of asteroids full of organic molecules.  I think I’m going to post this in “The Expanse” threads in books and entertainment as well…

https://futurism.com/the-byte/objects-complex-organic-matter-asteroid-belt?fbclid=IwAR0Ox1gXj2WdVQGWNNGkYalfDYe0lws1qOQOap567-VPO6jqcvCVc_raf4c

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No joy for Blue Origin or Dynetics, protest dismissed.  SpaceX can now go ahead and working on necessary modifications to Starship for the landing humans on the Moon for the first time in 50 years.

https://www.gao.gov/press-release/statement-blue-origin-dynetics-decision?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=gaolegal

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On Friday, July 30, 2021, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied protests filed by Blue Origin Federation, LLC, of South Kent, Washington, and Dynetics, Inc.-A Leidos Company, of Huntsville, Alabama. The protesters challenged their non-selection for awards and the award of optional contract line item numbers to Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), of Hawthorne, California, under Option A to Appendix H of Broad Agency Announcement (the announcement) No. NNH19ZCQ001K. Broad Agency Announcements typically provide for the acquisition of basic and applied research for new and creative research or development solutions to scientific and engineering problems. The rules for these procurements are not the same as those for standard competitive federal procurements, as agencies generally enjoy broader discretion in selecting the proposals most suitable to meeting their research and development needs when utilizing broad agency announcement procedures. The announcement was issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), for a demonstration mission for a human landing system for lunar exploration.

NASA made award to SpaceX for a total evaluated price of $2,941,394,557. After noting that SpaceX submitted the lowest-priced proposal with the highest rating, and that the offers submitted by Blue Origin and Dynetics were significantly higher in price, NASA also concluded that the agency lacked the necessary funding to make more than one award.

In the challenge filed at GAO, the protesters argued that the agency was required to make multiple awards consistent with the announcement’s stated preference for multiple awards. Alternatively, the protesters alleged that the agency was required to open discussions, amend, or cancel the announcement when NASA, after the receipt of proposals, determined that it had less funding than it needed to support multiple HLS awards. The protesters also argued that NASA unreasonably evaluated all three of the proposals. Finally, the protesters argued that NASA improperly waived a mandatory solicitation requirement for SpaceX.

In denying the protests, GAO first concluded that NASA did not violate procurement law or regulation when it decided to make only one award. NASA’s announcement provided that the number of awards the agency would make was subject to the amount of funding available for the program. In addition, the announcement reserved the right to make multiple awards, a single award, or no award at all. In reaching its award decision, NASA concluded that it only had sufficient funding for one contract award. GAO further concluded there was no requirement for NASA to engage in discussions, amend, or cancel the announcement as a result of the amount of funding available for the program. As a result, GAO denied the protest arguments that NASA acted improperly in making a single award to SpaceX.

GAO next concluded that the evaluation of all three proposals was reasonable, and consistent with applicable procurement law, regulation, and the announcement’s terms.

Finally, GAO agreed with the protesters that in one limited instance NASA waived a requirement of the announcement for SpaceX. Despite this finding, the decision also concludes that the protesters could not establish any reasonable possibility of competitive prejudice arising from this limited discrepancy in the evaluation.

GAO’s decision expresses no view as to the merits of these proposals. Judgments about which offeror will most successfully meet the government’s needs are reserved for the procuring agencies, subject only to statutory and regulatory requirements. GAO’s bid protest process is handled by GAO’s Office of General Counsel and examines whether procuring agencies have complied with procurement laws and regulations.

Today’s decision was issued under a protective order because the decision may contain proprietary and source selection sensitive information. GAO has directed counsel for the parties to promptly identify information that cannot be publicly released so that GAO can expeditiously prepare and release a public version of the decision. When the public version of the decision is available, it will be posted to our website, “www.gao.gov.”

For more information, please contact Kenneth E. Patton at 202-512-8205, Ralph O. White at 202-512-8278, or Sarah Kaczmarek at 202-512-4800. More information about GAO’s Bid Protest process is also available on the GAO website.

 

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FAA still needs to approve launching Starship & Super Heavy to orbit before the full stack can be launched, which could take months.  Bringing Booster 4 to the orbital launch mount is likely just for static fire tests and other tests like for pressurization.  But once again FAA is going to look obstructive if the delay is very long -- so it might be to encourage them to speed up too.

 

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Starship 20 rolling to the launch pad today, right on target for their August 5th mating with Super Heavy on the Orbital Launch Platform.

Some caveats:  probably just doing a fit check, after which they will unstack it and roll Starship back to complete wiring and placing the thermal tiles to it's belly.

 

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On 8/4/2021 at 6:14 PM, Altherion said:

Tim Dodd has a tour of the Starbase factory with Elon Musk as the tour guide. It's almost an hour long and not all of it is about space (Musk also talks about the engineering process in general and how it was applied at Tesla in particular), but it's quite interesting if you like technical details about Starship.

Part 2 of 3:

 

 

 

Speaking of timelapse video... I hope eventually one emerges of the Nauka module spinning the ISS round and round.  Like, on a telescopic lens from the ground.

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11 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

NASA 1 year Mars habitat simulation. Who's in?

I would be if it didn't have the requirement to be an American.  I'd also have a lot of questions about how it is being organized, because there is no point doing it if is structured to find the same lessons learned already acquired in past Mars analog work.  I've done 30-day analog expeditions.  There are certain things you need to work out before you do these year-long experiments, and it's not apparent it was done.  And I know other parts of NASA has done some of this work, so not sure what is going on here.

But also the premise that you'll have a small crew of 4 to 8 people isn't right any more.  The old paradigm was small crews, limited time, limited weight for payload so limited mass budget for science equipment, tools, vehicles, etc, so you had to study it extensively for time and work efficiency before going to long duration psychology studies.  If a crew isn't working on valuable science then the psychological conditions of your simulation is dubious in applicability.  

We already know that the really weird behaviour doesn't come up until the 9th month anyway.

But if SpaceX's Starship can deliver 100s of people and 100s of tons to Mars, this paradigm is overturned.  The psychological conditions are going to be very different than we expected not that long ago.

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7 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

I would be if it didn't have the requirement to be an American.  I'd also have a lot of questions about how it is being organized, because there is no point doing it if is structured to find the same lessons learned already acquired in past Mars analog work.  I've done 30-day analog expeditions.  There are certain things you need to work out before you do these year-long experiments, and it's not apparent it was done.  And I know other parts of NASA has done some of this work, so not sure what is going on here.

But also the premise that you'll have a small crew of 4 to 8 people isn't right any more.  The old paradigm was small crews, limited time, limited weight for payload so limited mass budget for science equipment, tools, vehicles, etc, so you had to study it extensively for time and work efficiency before going to long duration psychology studies.  If a crew isn't working on valuable science then the psychological conditions of your simulation is dubious in applicability.  

We already know that the really weird behaviour doesn't come up until the 9th month anyway.

But if SpaceX's Starship can deliver 100s of people and 100s of tons to Mars, this paradigm is overturned.  The psychological conditions are going to be very different than we expected not that long ago.

So still very much an if at this stage. There is some merit in running a simulation with a large group of people in the hopes that the first mission will be a large group of people. But since it is still possible / likely that the first mission will be a small group of people there is probably more merit in doing a small group simulation first.

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17 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

So still very much an if at this stage. There is some merit in running a simulation with a large group of people in the hopes that the first mission will be a large group of people. But since it is still possible / likely that the first mission will be a small group of people there is probably more merit in doing a small group simulation first.

What is the basis of the first clause in your last sentence? That is, why is it likely that the first mission will be a small group of people? As far as I can tell, if Starship works, we have a way of launching many people to Mars. If Starship doesn't work, we don't have a way of launching anyone to Mars because there is no other program that is anywhere close to reaching Mars with people on board. Even Starship is at least half a decade away from that and SpaceX at least has functional engines and a prototype of the whole rocket in testing.

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