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SpaceX Developing Orbital Crew Capsule
iamlucky13 writes "Private aerospace firm SpaceX has revealed that it has secretly been working on a crew and cargo vehicle since late 2004. Development of the capsule, named Dragon, has so far been funded by SpaceX and its partners, which includes the Canadian company that built the robotic arm for the International Space Station. Dragon would be launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 and dock at the ISS with assistance of the robotic arm. While SpaceX founder Elon Musk is prepared to complete development of the capsule with his own resources, SpaceX is seeking funding from NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, which makes up to $500 million available through 2010 for private spacecraft development."
Dang... I just saw this on slashdot a few minutes after I submitted it myself. For the curious, here's my version of the submission, which includes some different info and a link to a SpaceRef story which has more pictures of the capsule:
SpaceX has revealed that for the past few years they've been secretly developing the Dragon space capsule, which will be the first privately-built manned orbital spacecraft. The company has already built a full-scale working prototype and thoroughly tested its life support system, with the capsule development using 'only a small part of the $100 million [CEO/founder Elon Musk] has invested in SpaceX to-date building the Falcon 1 [orbital rocket] and getting started on the larger and more powerful Falcon 9.' According to Musk, 'I feel very confident about being able to offer NASA an ISS-servicing capability by 2009 and am prepared to back that up with my own funding.' It's believed that Musk will also compete for crew/cargo delivery contracts to private space station modules built by Bigelow Aerospace.
All in all, I'm very excited about this announcement. I'm sure SpaceX wishes that they could have gotten their Falcon I rocket off the ground before announcing the capsule, but the deadline for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems (COTS) program was a few days ago. The COTS program is the means by which NASA hopes to award competitive contracts to delivery crew and cargo to the International Space Station, in order to reduce reliance on the Russians and promote the development of private spaceflight. Since the capsule is a critical part of their COTS proposal, SpaceX pretty much had to let the secret out.
Also, until we see figures on how much they've spent on development themselves, I bet it pales in comparison to what they ask for from NASA.
From the article:
Musk declined to say how much he has spent on Dragon so far, but said it was only a small part of the $100 million he has invested in SpaceX to-date building the Falcon 1 and getting started on the larger and more powerful Falcon 9.
Also, from what I understand, SpaceX isn't asking for one of the typical cost-plus contracts, but this is part of a competitive bid for a delivery contract from the COTS program. If another company has a solution which can deliver to the ISS at a better price, NASA will buy from them instead.
The Dragon capsule is the centerpiece of the proposal SpaceX submitted March 3 under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program.
An appropriate acronym, COTS, already used for "Commercial, Off The Shelf"...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
For 1st stage rockets that aren't going to burn for very long, the reduced tank volume possible with kerosene / LOX can be enough of a total weight savings to offset the lower ISP and greater mass of kerosene / LOX over hydrogen / LOX.
On upper stages, where you are going to carry the fuel higher, and burn the engines longer, the mass efficiencies and higher ISP of hydrogen / LOX win out.
Hence the Saturn V switched fuels as it went through its stages.
Musk supposedly has never said how much of his own cash he's invested in SpaceX, but the article, as well as other estimates, place it at around $100 million so far. No mention of other contributions.
SpaceX is almost entirely self-funded by Elon Musk, with a few small investments by "friends and family." He has mentioned though that after the first Falcon I flight he'll be pursuing some outside funding to raise another $50 - $100 million for the development of things like the next-generation Merlin 2 engine (which would be the largest rocket engine in the world). If the company's launch products are successful, he plans on an eventual IPO in "three to four years."
> full-sized prototype == big tin can.
No, it's a full sized prototype with all internal systems working. Your average tin can on a shelf in Walmart generally doesn't come fitted with seats and working controls, etc.
> tested life support? He clearly says that the life
> support system used is not up to spec and will not fly.
No. Read the article again. It says the life support system has been thoroughly tested. It is just a case of the whole system does not meet the arbitrary pile of paperwork test required for NASA, and the reaction control system and heat shield are not fitted. Both clearly essential for a spaceflight (or one that returns to Earth), but the rest of the vehicle is functional.
Very true. If you want to attribute anything to Von Braun, attribute in-orbit assembly. His proposals for military installations on the Moon in the late 50s were elegant and advanced. He relied on what today we would call medium-lift launch vehicles and in-orbit assembly. At the time the army had a proven capability to fire off hundreds of these rockets a month and had shown they can man and supply outposts in much harsher conditions. The only thing lacking was a mandate. From an economical point of view medium-lift launch vehicles make a lot of sense. See The case for smaller launch vehicles in human space exploration by Grant Bonin, part 1 and part 2.
How we know is more important than what we know.
That's true, but government's performance is also harder to judge than a publically listed company. Large parts of the budget are vague (or completely misleading) and i doubt there is much (if any) independent auditing.
Nevermind the fact that the vast majority of the budget goes to items which are inherently non-profit, so how can you compare efficieny when you can't compare an expense to "what the market will bear"?
Okay, so I'm not a petrol engineer... but then when does that sort of thing stop any good slashdotter?
RP-1 is a highly refined kerosine fraction.
Jet-A / Jet-A1 is a slightly less refined kerosine fraction.
K-1 Kerosine is yet another kerosine fraction. In some places, they skip out on K-1 and just sell Jet-A1 as kerosine for simplicity's sake.
There are other jet fuels that take a "wider cut" and include some napatha and gasoline fractions.
If you want, you can run turbines on all kinds of crazy stuff, although with modern catalytic oil processing, that's far less useful than it used to be.
Diesel engines can be made to burn Jet-A or RP-1.
Either way... the hardware to pump jet fuel/kerosine/etc. sorts of fluids is pretty well understood and easy to get ahold of. Not so for hydrogen.
Gentoo Sucks
Whatever the differences in approaches, there is no contest between them. One of Boeing and Lockheed will get the $* billion CEV contract. SpaceX is working on a vehicle for ISS resupply, which is a separate, much less expensive ($500m), and better structured program.
Not to nitpick, but Boeing and Lockheed are actually both on the list of vendors expressing interest for the COTS program. I have no idea if they ended up submitting a proposal, though.
Also, LOX/Hydrogen are cryogenic which means that they must be maintained at extremely cold temperatures. This necessitates all sorts of additional requirements such as more robust seals (Challenger) and insultating foam (Columbia) on the external tanks. Moreover, there is a huge logistics and support footprint for cryogenic fuels. They must be stored near the launch site and the spacecraft fueled immediately prior to launch and de-fueled if there is an abort. This further constrains flexibility of operations. In other words, while the Isp is much higher for cryos, there are other factors that in some cases trump the extra power per mass of propellant.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
> "arbitrary pile of paperwork test"?
Yes, arbitrary in the sense that much of the paperwork is needless. Much of the space qual specs were developed before the major space agencies had launched manned vehicles / and / or were developed during the early years of manned spaceflight. There are many places where they could be relaxed with today's knowledge, and other places where they could be tightened up.
> I think you're taking your anti-NASA hyperbole a little far here.
Not anti NASA. Anti NASA and anti ESA in terms of the paperwork requirements. The level of paperwork is certainly worse for both of those agencies than the Russian requirements.
> Do you have any idea how difficult it is to safely launch a person into space and bring them back again?
Yes, I used to be a payload test engineer on a number of payloads for manned missions to Mir, and had to write the documentation to go with the payloads in question amongst other things. Oh, and I run a small rocket propulsion consultancy as a sideline nowadays, so yes, I also know my delta V from my c*.
> Nevermind. You answered my question in your post.
Good, I'm glad.
> Arbitrary pile of paperwork, indeed.
Yes, arbitrary.
I take it that as well as your expert knowledge on paperwork for manned missions, that you have seen the SpaceX Dragon capsule in the flesh then ?