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NASA Asks Boeing, SpaceX To Stop Work On Next-Gen Space Taxi
BarbaraHudson writes Due to a challenge by Sierra Nevada, NASA has asked the winners for the next earth-to-orbit launch vehicles to halt work, at least temporarily. "After rewarding Boeing and SpaceX with the contracts to build the spacecrafts NASA is now asking the companies to stop their work on the project. The move comes after aerospace company Sierra Nevada filed a protest of the decision after losing out on the bid. Sierra Nevada was competing against Boeing and SpaceX for a share of the $6.8 billion CCP contracts. The contracts will cover all phases of development as well as testing and operational flights. Each contract will cover a minimum of two flights and a maximum of four, with each agency required to have one test flight with a NASA representative on board.... According to NASA's Public Affairs Office, this legal protest stops all work currently being done under these contracts. However, officials have not commented on whether-or-not the companies can continue working if they are using private funds."
I really doubt SpaceX is going to stop work on a vehicle they were developing before they were awarded the contract.
Boeing, on the other hand...
Filing a protest after someone else gets the contract is pretty much automatic.
A space plane isn't inherently unreliable. Placing said space plane below the level of cryogenic fuel tank insulation, with ice subject to crashing into it at hundreds of miles an hour is, in retrospect, pretty silly. Dream Chaser (DC) sits at the top of the rocket stack - it's smaller than the space shuttle, so this is feasible.
Building a craft with waaay more requirements than you are actually going to use, because the Air Force says so, is bad plan. Building to spec can be far more effective.
Each of the three finalists had a craft with at least one unique attribute.
Boeing's CST-100 is the only one with the built-in ability to re-boost the ISS. It has airbags to supplement the parachutes, and a lever-arm on the parachute rig to angle the capsule on the descent (not sure why, I guess for a better landing).
The Dream Chaser is the only one with an airlock - important for any potential in-flight repair missions (self or other objects). The lifting body design means it can land anywhere with a long enough runway, and in theory can land with lower force than the other two. Also potentially launcher agnostic.
Spacex's Dragon v2 doesn't rely on the RD-180 engine, is the furthest along with hardware development, and while NASA isn't using it for this contract, potentially reusable like the DC. It will land under parachutes with a propulsive tap at the end to soften the landing in addition to landing legs, with the potential for propulsive landings in the future - with accuracy similar to a helicopter. It's also by far the cheapest contract bid.
Also, for the record, Sierra Nevada has pretty reasonable grounds for a complaint. They don't contest contracts often, and this one seemed to change at the last minute (remember the announcement that we'd have a winner just before or after Labor Day weekend?). The full scoring should be able to justify the final decision. If it doesn't there's a problem. This probably won't take very long to resolve.
For the record, as a huge fan of Spacex, I don't think the DC needs to be trashed on - it was a good (not great) proposal stuck between the big PR darling and the politically best-connected contractor in the business.
The USAF X-20 DynaSoar was a one-man winged space glider with metallic TPS; it had WINGS (like the shuttle)
The DreamChaser is an HL-20 derivative lifting body (no wings) which was loosely-derived from the unmanned Soviet BOR lifting body which the Soviets had loosely-derived from thier study of three families of earlier American lifting bodies: the HL-10, the M2 series, the X-24(A and B) and the USAF "PRIME"
There are so many differences between the Shuttle and the DreamChaser that anybody attacking the DC based on their ignorant pet theories about the shuttle program is simply an idiot; just a tiny subset of differences:
1. Shuttle was winged space plane, DC is lifing body
2. Shuttle rode on side of stack and was part of launch vehicle, DC rides on top of stack and is launch vehicle agnostic.
3. Shuttle had complex hydraulic controls, thus requiring hydrazine-fueled APUs during launch and entry phases, DC has none of this
4. Shuttle was the size of a small airliner, with huge cargo bay for heavy payloads, making it too heavy to have an abort system, DC has an abort system
5. Shuttle was so big and landed so fast that in required very large runways to safely land, DC can land at most airports
6. Shuttle was very fragile having been built at the cutting edge of 1970s tech, DC is rugged carbon composite and suffered little damage when it rolled on landing when the test vehicle's landing gear (old and borrowed from a fighter jet for that test flight) failed - a crew and cargo would have survived.
7. Shuttle ran on hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells (Apollo derived tech) thus limiting its on-orbit time to a few days, DC could stay on-orbit (unmanned or at ISS) for half a year
8. Shuttle was not suffiently automated to fly unmanned, DC is full-automated and can be operated manned, or unmanned depending on mission
9. Shuttle used highly-toxic fuels like hydrazine, DC does not.
10. Shuttle used very fragile 1970's era thermal tiles, DC (like Dragon) uses much newer and better materials (not the SAME materials as Dragon, but newer just as Dragon uses newer)
I could add more and the guys from Sierra could probably add another hundred differences, but I believe I have shown enough to illustrate how ignorant it is to say shuttle was bad and therefore DreamChaser is bad