When will the commercial team be launched?

The SpaceX Crew Dragon probe that will fly on a non-departed test flight arrived in Florida last week for launch preparations. This mission is scheduled for launch in August, according to NASA calendars announced earlier this year, but is expected to largely slide. (credit: SpaceX)

by Jeff Foust
Monday, July 16, 2018

Earlier this year, NASA announced an updated schedule of commercial test flights. According to this schedule, Boeing would launch an unmanned test flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in August, followed by a crew test flight in November. SpaceX would also launch an unmanned flight test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft (aka Dragon 2) in August, with a crew test to follow in December. If all went as planned, both companies would be online to be certified by NASA early in 2019 to transport astronauts into routine ISS missions, ending the Soyuz seats to which NASA will no longer have access by the end of 2019.

We are now in mid-July and these dates remain NASA's official schedules for commercial crew missions. Still, there are few signs that one or the other company is on track to launch an unmanned mission next month, or crewed missions later this year, creating fears of potentially prolonged delays in the program.

This frustration spread at the end of last month at a press conference at NASA's Kennedy Space Center the day before the launch of a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship. During the question-and-answer session, reporters asked Kirk Shireman, NASA's ISS Program Manager, for the schedule of commercial crews.

"I can tell you that the commercial crew program, the International Space Station program, Boeing and SpaceX all work closely together," he said. "We evaluate exactly when the opportunities might be and when they will be ready, but we are not ready to set a date, an official date, I would say, at that time." We are working on that. is close to when we will be able to do it. "

But the fact that NASA still refers to the previous official schedule during the briefing has pushed others to backtrack. "These last dates are August, November and December, so I think we can forget about these dates," said a reporter, Ken Kremer.

"To be honest, I have been covering NASA for a long time, and I know no one else than you who says that there will be a flight in August," veteran reporter Bill Harwood said. CBS. "If it's not real, I do not know why you keep telling us."

Shireman said the commercial crew program is talking to companies and is sending them target dates. "There is a meeting between the commercial crew program and SpaceX, and the commercial crew program and Boeing, and they agree on a date and that's the target date," he explained. "So, what you see is this target date."

He acknowledged, however, that NASA has not done a good job in explaining everything that is involved in these missions. In addition to the readiness of the vehicles themselves, there is also the schedule of other sightseeing vehicles – including Cygnus, Dragon, HTV, Progress cargo spacecraft and Soyuz crew spacecraft – coming and going from the station blocking the commercial teams. The demonstration flight can not go to the station.

"We are still negotiating to know what these dates will be," he said of the update dates for commercial crews that take all of these factors into account. "They will be available soon."

. in a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the commercial crew program. This report indicated that in addition to the target dates for commercial crews provided by the companies, NASA is doing its own badysis of the schedule, focusing in particular on the certification dates which, according to the current schedules, are January 2019 for Boeing and February 2019 for SpaceX.
According to NASA's badysis, the agency does not expect that one or the other will be certified early in 2019 – or perhaps before the end 2019. In April 2018, the program's risk badysis revealed that there was no one reaching its currently proposed certification milestone, "the report says. "The average certification date of the badysis was December 2019 for Boeing and January 2020 for SpaceX."

The NASA badysis provided a range of dates for both companies. This fork suggested that Boeing could be certified as early as the spring of 2019, but that it could slip up in September 2020. For SpaceX, the company could be certified as early as mid-2019, but could slip up to In November 2020.

This poses a problem for NASA because its access to Soyuz seats, including three acquired from Boeing for flights in 2019, expires late in the year. NASA has talked about some ways to find extra time, such as slightly stretching the ISS crew's rises so that Soyuz's latest mission can use NASA's astronauts early in 2020. A Another possibility, mentioned earlier this year, is to change the test flight of a commercial crew vehicle to carry three astronauts instead of two and stay at the station for weeks or even months .

A problem highlighted in the GAO report, however, was a lack of communication about expected delays. "We found that both contractors have schedules that indicate delays for at least one key event, but NASA officials told us that they lacked confidence in these dates until 39, they are officially communicated to NASA ". "As a result, NASA runs a multi-billion dollar program with no confidence in its calendar information at the approach of several major events, including decrewed flight tests and crew."

The report also notes that, in the quarterly program reports that NASA is required to provide to Congress, only the targeted launch dates are provided by the contractors, not their own risk badessment, probably more skeptical . "Given the frequency with which contractors delay key events in their schedules, the program's program risk badessment provides valuable information about potential delays that NASA is not currently providing to Congress," said the GAO.

The GAO recommended that NASA provide these risk badessments in these quarterly reports. The agency, however, rejected this recommendation, the only five in the report that the agency said it would not implement at all. NASA believes that this reporting approach is appropriate and consistent with past congressional guidelines, the agency said in a response signed by NASA's badociate director Bill Gerstenmaier, the chief engineer. Ralph Roe and the Chief of Security and Mission. Terry Wilcutt's insurance.

"As we approach the launch, we expect NASA's partner schedules and internal evaluations to be in agreement," they added. "There will be no requirement for a detailed NASA risk badessment.The risk badessment of the partners program will match NASA's badysis or NASA will discuss our position as we have done in the past. "

GAO continued to advocate for the inclusion of risk badessments in congressional reporting. "The two contractors have repeatedly stated that their schedules are aggressive and that the dates are ambitious," he said in his response to NASA's response to his recommendations. "The recent badysis of the program's risks indicates that further delays are likely, but this information is not presented to Congress in NASA's quarterly reports." Without this information, Congress knows nothing about it. not the full extent of potential delays to inform decision-making. "

For the moment, there is little reason to believe that either of the two companies will be conducting test launches next month, or perhaps for some time to come. Last week, SpaceX announced that the Crew Dragon spacecraft that would fly on this non-takeoff test flight arrived at its Florida facility after completing the thermal and acoustic vacuum test at the Plum Brook facility from NASA in Ohio. The company, however, has not disclosed what additional tests and preparations are planned for the vehicle, and the company's launch schedule is already set in mid-August with other Falcon missions 9.

This probably means more press conferences where NASA officials are in a hurry to explain the schedules of commercial crews and the uncertainty as to when Boeing and SpaceX vehicles will finally be ready to fly.

Jeff Foust ([email protected]) is the editor and publisher of The Space Review, and a senior writer of SpaceNews. It also operates the Spacetoday.net website. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author alone.

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