The impulses accelerate at NASA while SpaceX gets closer to crew launches and Russia prepares the next Soyuz • The Register



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As NASA celebrated another successful landing on Mars, the agency has spent the last seven days dealing with some issues much closer to home in the last full circle of space.

NASA: We will not have what he smokes

The week started with The Washington Post Give Elon Musk the rarest gift: an advertisement he would probably prefer to do without. The report was released as NASA announced its intention to closely examine the culture of its two commercial team subcontractors, Boeing and SpaceX, in the workplace.

the To post Rated that NASA was annoyed by Musk's famous podcast, where he was relaxing with the help of marijuana and a shot of whiskey. The US Space Agency, according to WaPo sources, has not really appreciated this behavior. It is more than happy to throw money at its contractors, regardless of delays and cost overruns. But relax for a little while? This calls for a thorough investigation.

A spokesman for NASA, who did not want to lose sight of what motivated the review, said it would "ensure that companies comply with NASA's requirements for workplace safety. including respect for a drug-free environment ".

SpaceX is likely to feel a little wronged. After all, he managed to create a reusable rocket in less time than it took NASA to find a way to reject its own reusable rocket engines into the ocean. She (and her competitor Boeing) will launch crewed missions well before NASA's management the same thing.

While the safety of the crew needs to be examined more closely, NASA should also look at what parts of the agency have smoked themselves. The Orion capsule, announced for the first time in 2004 under the name Crew Exploration Vehicle (first flight in 2008 – it was our time), probably would not be performing a crewed mission until 2023, and the Space Launch System (SLS) because of its shooting in space. suffered delay after delay.

This is an appointment! The latest schedule of NASA's commercial crew will see the first unmanned launch on Jan. 7. May be

Assuming that NASA's workplace sniffer dogs do not cause too much distraction, SpaceX and Boeing feel confident about putting the astros into orbit.

The first mission will be SpaceX, with the launch of its unprepared Demo-1 mission to the International Space Station scheduled for January 7, 2019. The mission will take off from the former Shuttle Shuttle and Apollo 39A at the NASA Kennedy Space Center. .

The director of NASA pointed out in a tweet that the date of January 7 was not fixed in stone and could change depending on factors such as the range or availability of the ISS.

The Crew variant of the Dragon 2 capsule will feature docking and mooring operations prior to landing. SpaceX must then test the system's Abort Abilities before launching the system in June for a crew test. Boeing will follow a little later, with his non-crew trials in March and a crew taking off in August.

If everything goes as planned (and thank goodness, it has not been the case until now – the first flights were scheduled to take place in 2015), the first operational missions should take place in August and December. 2019.

Russia will transport a trio of sailors to the ISS on December 3

While NASA decided to take a close look at the practices of its American subcontractors in the workplace, it gave the green light to Russia to send Anne McClain, Oleg Kononenko and David Saint-Jacques aboard the Soyuz MS-11 space shuttle. months after MS-10 brought his own crew back to Earth with a shock following a launcher failure in flight.

At the time, NASA had announced "that a thorough investigation into the cause of the incident would be conducted", which Roscosmos achieved in record time, pointing to a collapsed sensor during of the assembly.

After the launch on December 3rd, the trio will make a relatively civilized ride to the ISS. It will take him only six hours to reach the platform in orbit where he will launch a mission of six months and a half. SpaceX is expected to launch a Dragon freighter cargo ship the next day, which will arrive two days later on December 6th. ®

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