Boeing Releases Details On New Crew Capsule

FleaPlus writes "Boeing has released a number of new details on its CST-100 manned space capsule, being developed in collaboration with commercial space station builder Bigelow Aerospace. Competing with SpaceX's Dragon capsule, the vehicle is designed to be compatible with existing Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 rockets, and is planned to carry seven people in a capsule 'a little smaller than Orion, but a little bigger than Apollo.' Funding was jump-started this year with $18M of fixed-price Commercial Crew Development money from NASA, which requires completion of several fabrication and demonstration milestones this year (heat shield, escape system, landing tests, etc.) in order to get the full payment."

Comments

Re:Competing with SpaceX on their own launcher?

[AJWM]

More like designing to a standard set of interfaces between launcher and spacecraft, which is indeed good. Just as Boeing's capsule can launch on Falcon 9 as well as Atlas V and Delta IV, then presumably SpaceX's Dragon capsule could be launched on an Atlas or Delta as well as a Falcon. If one component is ever grounded for an unforseen problem, you've got a fallback position.

It's not even that odd. Having a second source for a critical subsystem makes a lot of sense, and savvy customers tend to encourage their vendors in this direction.

In other news...

[djupedal]

...Airbus just announced their competitor to Boeing's CST-100 spacecraft. "It's a little larger than Orion, and much bigger than Apollo," Osteltder said of the DTU-1000 spacecraft. "It carries eight, but it's not really that small – it's larger and more spacious than the Orion."

Re:Competing with SpaceX on their own launcher?

[someone1234]

>Having a second source for a critical subsystem makes a lot of sense, and savvy customers tend to encourage their vendors in this direction.

It is not enough to be savvy, they need to be powerful customers who can avoid a vendor lock-in.
It helps a lot if you are a customer who can set the standards because you are the only customer.

Little bigger than Apollo?

[Macrat]

Apollo was barely big enough for 3. Something only a "little" bigger is supposed to hold 7?

Do they sit on each other's laps?

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[Ravenger]

Apollo was designed to go to the moon - trips of ten days or more, and needed to carry all the consumables and equipment needed for the trip. The new capsule is designed for short duration flights to the space station, so presumably it won't need to carry lots of supplies and equipment, hence more space for crew.

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[Morty]

Thanks to squares and cubes, a small increase in capsule diameter gives a big increase in floor surface area and total volume. Also, Apollo trips were to the moon and back, which made the time between stops somewhat longer, so it needed to carry more food, water, etc.

The bigger surprise is that the CST-100 will seat 7 astronauts while the larger Orion was only designed for 6. TFA says that CST-100 will be "less spacious" than Orion, which probably is code for "astronauts will be packed like sardines."

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[JustOK]

hence more space for crew.

or more crew for space, whichever.

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[Teancum]

The Skylab Rescue Mission used the Apollo capsule to seat at least five astronaut. Yes, it is cramped and would not be an ideal situation for a long-term mission, but it does work and the standard Apollo capsule could hold more than just the standard three astronauts.

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[rickb928]

The SM carried consumables like oxygen, propellant, fuel cells, which allowed Apollo to carry other consumables such as food, and of course return payload like lunar rocks, film, etc... These are not needed as much for a ferry to the ISS, so a slightly-larger-than-Apollo capsule could carry quite a few passengers. Mess around with the seating arrangements, and you could fit 7 into a similar capsule. Of course it would be a double-decker, probably, but that works.

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[DerekLyons]

Apollo was barely big enough for 3. Something only a "little" bigger is supposed to hold 7?
 
Do they sit on each other's laps?

Actually, they do practically sit in each others laps. Most people don't realize that beneath the couches of the Apollo command module was more-or-less open space - the crew slept down there during flight. Using this space to carry people was first planned back in the 1970's when they modified one command module into the Skylab rescue configuration.
 
So yes, making the capsule just a little taller and a little wider enlarges the crew compartment enough to pack in seven seats.
 
The previous posters are partly wrong on supply weight and volume though though: First, the majority of the supplies in the capsule were carried at the astronauts feet in the Lower Equipment Bay (the astronauts actually sat off center in the spacecraft), and you'll need almost the same amount for a station taxi. (The Apollo's configuration was to control the center of gravity, offsetting it controlled re-entry attitude and allowed the spacecraft the limited ability to 'fly' a non ballistic trajectory during re-entry. Almost certainly the station taxi will do the same.) There were also considerable supplies carried in the service module.
 
Supplies save less than you might think because of the increase in crew size. Both will require roughly 42 person days of supplies - 3 crew times 14 days for Apollo, 7 crew times 6 days for the new module. Yes, six days. Two days to fly to the station, two days to fly from the station to re-entry, and two days for contingencies. (No, you can't shorten the fly to or fly home portions, those are dictated by orbital mechanics.)
 
Considerable weight savings will also come from the the weight reduction in the electrical and electronic systems in the past forty or fifty odd years. (The Apollo guidance system, which weighed a couple of hundred pounds, would weigh less than ten today.)
 
But real biggie in terms of weight savings will be in the thinner heat shield (Apollo's needed to be able to stand a high velocity return from the moon, which a station taxi will not). Additional weight can be saved by using modern materials (composites, AL/Li alloys, etc.) for structural components. More weight can also be saved by shrinking the propulsion system - a station taxi has no need to brake itself into lunar orbit or blast itself free from the same.

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[sznupi]

Times en route to rendezvous are typically in the range of two days or so. That's still short enough, I guess, for people to not go crazy; having in their mind a specious space station to which they will dock.

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[espiesp]

Re-Provision at the ISS?

Where do you figure the ISS gets it's supplies from anyhow? Aliens?

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

ISS gets most of its consumables from unmanned Russian Progress capsules. Once the Shuttle stops flying, Progress will be ISS' only resupply. Orion was never intended to resupply consumables to ISS, although it was planned to use it for some (pressurized) scientific material ferrying. An (Orion-like) ISS crew-exchange vehicle resupplying two days of food and oxygen from ISS stores isn't as far-fetched as it immediately sounds, considering per-pound launch costs on a man-rated pressurized vehicle (Orion/CST-100), versus an unpressurized, unmanned vehicle (Progress).

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[AJWM]

ISS gets most of its consumables from unmanned Russian Progress capsules. Once the Shuttle stops flying, Progress will be ISS' only resupply.

Not quite. There's also the European ATV, the first of which, Jules Verne, flew in 2008. It has about three times the capacity of a Progress. Oh, and Progress is pressurized, being basically the hull of a Soyuz. It just doesn't have a full life-support system. You may be thinking of the replaced re-entry module, which on Soyuz is of course pressurized but on Progress contains fuel tankage (routed externally so that a leak will not contaminate station atmosphere).

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[CaptDeuce]

Apollo was barely big enough for 3. Something only a "little" bigger is supposed to hold 7?

As others have pointed out, there was room in the Apollo space craft in the lower bay (i.e, under the seats) that could "snugly" fit two additional astronauts. The amount of supplies would offer little space savings since the majority of consumables (water and oxygen) were provided by the Service Module. Food did not take up much space since it was all dehydrated. The water was generated as a byproduct of the fuel cells.

One of the largest cubic space savings inside the spacecraft would come from all the avionics. Check out the Command Module interior. Note the size of Command Module Computer (lower right of the Left Side of spacecraft diagram). Examine the Data Storage Equipment (upper right of the Right Side diagram). The control panel was huge. As noted in the wikipedia entry "In total, the command module panels included 24 instruments, 566 switches, 40 event indicators, and 71 lights." Now it could be replaced by four flat screen displays, much smaller and less power hungry instruments, and a lot fewer switches (10-15% maybe?) My guess that equipment specific to Apollo missions would be a wash compared to future missions. Though I do wonder how much space can be recovered by ditching the film and their cameras.

Now consider that the Boeing spacecraft will be a little larger. I haven't gone over the figures but I would expect that seven economy class airline seats will fit comfortably inside. In any case I expect it would be much more comfortable without that pesky gravity that forces you to keep shifting you body weight to keep your ass from getting numb.

Re:Little bigger than Apollo?

[ItsJustAPseudonym]

Electronics technology has come a long way since Apollo, too. The computers and instruments can probably be a lot smaller than before, which would allow more space for humans.

Wait, wait...

[nametaken]

"Bigelow Aerospace"?

I realize I represent the lowest common denominator here, but this reminds me of bad Rob Schneider movies.

Re:Wait, wait...

[Teancum]

While I get the reference here, what seems to be your problem with Bigelow Aerospace? That the company seems to have taken over the U.S. Air Force's "Operation Blue Book", or that they don't seem credible in terms of building spacecraft?

Of anybody who is sending stuff into space, they are the only American company that has any recent experience in actually building and launching a spacecraft capable of supporting a manned spaceflight. SpaceX is working on the Dragon, but it has only one "test flight" and even that wasn't a functioning vehicle. Only Bigelow has actually put something into space to demonstrate real capabilities.

Yes, there is the Space Shuttle, but that is a 1970's design and that hardly counts as "recent" experience by a company that no longer exists (Rockwell International) on a vehicle that is being discontinued and deserved to be in a museum a couple decades ago.

Re:It uses Tardis technology . . .

[Sehnsucht]

That would be TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), turn in your geek card.

Re:Competing with SpaceX on their own launcher?

[Teancum]

More like designing to a standard set of interfaces between launcher and spacecraft, which is indeed good. Just as Boeing's capsule can launch on Falcon 9 as well as Atlas V and Delta IV, then presumably SpaceX's Dragon capsule could be launched on an Atlas or Delta as well as a Falcon.

These kind of standards are hard to come by, particularly when rocket manufacturers are slow to adapt to changing technologies as well. For example, the Falcon 9 is one of the first spaceflight vehicles designed from the ground up with TCP/IP as a major communications sub-system within the rocket itself. It would seem logical now but such a connection on most other rockets simply doesn't exist (RS-232 and variants is actually quite a bit more common).

One area that has had at least some effort in terms of standardization has been developing a launch faring for satellite launches. Still, even for something as simple as a way to mount a spacecraft on the top of a rocket, there is unfortunately quite a bit of variation for how that is done. Added on top of that is an issue of docking standards, something that the ISS has been useful for at least in terms of "forcing" some sort of international standard to be developed even though there is a separate Russian and American standard.

The largest problem with establishing a standard is to convince those involved that by sticking with the standard more can be accomplished instead of rolling your own specification. This is a problem for more than just spaceflight, but competing standards and specifications for spaceflight does add quite a bit to the cost and design of spacecraft. It is also something that government involvement can be used to not just establish but also mandate standards (in terms of requiring government purchased hardware to conform to specific standards).

Re:No bucks, no Buck Rogers

[Artifakt]

I've always wondered, did Von Braun deal with those statements as he was portrayed in the Right Stuff? Werner was both a pretty smart guy, and a former Nazi - I would kind of expect he would integrate the idea of using propaganda to manipulate the public in about 0.037 seconds and be enthusiastically telling the press whatever would push the right buttons.

Re:Competing with SpaceX on their own launcher?

[sznupi]

Actually, both docking standards are sort of Russian ;p

Apart from the one with obvious heritage, there's also APAS, used by Shuttle (and Shenzhou, btw) - with the first version designed by Soviets for use in Apollo-Soyuz project; first spacecraft equipped with it was Soyuz (Apollo carried an adapter).

Next redesign was built for Buran, to use with Mir. Buran of course never flew to Mir, however...when the Shuttle was visiting there, it was carrying a docking collar designed for Buran. On hich current version is based.

Re:No bucks, no Buck Rogers

[Teancum]

Von Braun not only was skillful in terms of public relations, he teamed up with one of the best in America too: Walt Disney (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Von_Braun#Popular_concepts_for_a_human_presence_in_space)

"Manipulating the public" is a pretty harsh term for what is being done here, as I would call it "space advocacy". The one of the things that made what the Nazi's did in terms of propaganda that was "evil" is that they didn't allow dissenting opinions from being expressed. There is nothing to suggest Von Braun was supportive of squelching dissenting opinions, but he certainly knew how to use a soapbox in a representative democracy to express his point of view. He also seemed to be a very skillful politician and a rather proficient engineering manager (perhaps his best skill).

Re:Short duration

[QuantumG]

The Soyuz is designed for long duration missions. What I'm talking about here is endurance. The Soyuz TMA configuration can stay at the station for 6 months and operate as a lifeboat because it was designed for that. Boeing is specifically saying their vehicle will not.