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Cygnus Launches In First Mission Since Antares Rocket Explosion (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: An Atlas V rocket carrying a Cygnus cargo spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station has lifted off from Cape Canaveral. This is the first flight of the Cygnus since the previous spacecraft was destroyed during an Antares rocket explosion in 2014. Ars reports: "Sunday's successful launch was the fourth attempt this week to get CRS Orb-4 into space. Three previous launch attempts—one per day since Thursday—were scrubbed due to foul weather at Cape Canaveral. The CRS-4 Cygnus capsule is currently en route to the ISS, carrying about 7300 pounds (about 3300kg) of food, hardware, and scientific equipment for the Expedition 44 crew on board the ISS (which includes US astronaut Scott Kelly, who is more than halfway through a year-long stay aboard the station)."
I remember when Cygnus was a major name in writing FOSS for Linux and Unix platforms until Red Hat acquired them. They've really taken off since then - literally - by the look of it, given where they are today
The vitally important Tang and freeze-dried waffles have arrived! Let the science commence!
wasted on corporate welfare.
...but it was the Antares which exploded, wasn't it? I know that payload-rocket coupling is a serious concern, but was it thought to be involved in this case?
Maybe because ULA has been gouging the Air Force and NASA doesn't want to get stuck in the same boat? The Air Force is still trying to phase out the Billion dollars a year they pay to ULA for "assured space access". At the same time their launch costs have at least 166%.
while this example of government selected (as opposed to free market selected) corporate welfare proves itself to be both expansive and unreliable, soyuz launches regularly takes place both cheaply and more reliably (though far from slashdot notice) .
there is no free market here and as such whole idea of privatizing this is flawed. this is same as a government program, with whole cost on government and all profits, regardless of success, to corporates.
Because SpaceX is all cool and hip and they wear t-shirts in the control center and stuff. That's gotta mean they know what they're doing, right? And ATK is using refurbished Russian engines so as to carry on the other meme--you know, that we can't do anything or build anything in the US anymore.
RD-180 situation?
those refurbished engines are why their rocket went boom earlier
ATK is switching to new russian engines as a result (even though their engine problems are likely the results of manufacturing defects and age and they licensed the engine design for the purpose of making new ones)
It's hard to decipher what snark the AC parent is trying to say, but the Atlas which ULA provided for this launch uses Russian engines in the first stage so he needs to revise his second witty remark to make even a semblance of sense.
I know its popular to hate on cyngus for basically recycling unused parts, but you gotta give it to them, at least they slap together this stuff into something workable. Sure it might blow up from time to time, but its better than letting the stuff rot in a warehouse.
I'm not sure you can take credit for overcoming your rocket disaster when you "solve" the problem by using some other company's rocket.
Why didn't NASA just buy station resupply flights from ULA instead of making a bad deal with the incompetent SpaceX or ATK the having to buy backup them as well?
Though worded as a troll, this is a very good question if it would be reworded as such:
Why is NASA letting the Orbital CRS-4 mission ride on a ULA rocket through a third-party contractor?
The whole idea of the CRS missions was to encourage the development of new technologies to free us from the use of the Altas and Titan rockets. Sure, the rocket is pushing a Cygnus capsule to the station, but the rocket used is no less important (in my personal opinion the rocket is more important for the CRS objectives) and this is a completely wasted chance to refine the Antares design, even if it would have taken considerably more time to get the cargo to the station. From the launch on an Atlas, it looks like Antares development is over and thus Orbital should lose their CRS contract.
If Orbital cannot produce a suitable rocket, then the mission should have been scrubbed and the cargo launch contracted to either ULA or SpaceX. Letting a CRS launch "default" to an Atlas rocket when the independently-designed (ha! not even that, Antares uses Russian engines) rockets is unavailable or unreliable is completely contrary to the goals of the CRS program, and rather entrenches NASA into the Atlas.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The Air Force wants very reliable rockets to launch its billion dollar satellites. The Atlas V has had 60! successful launches in a row. The Atlas V should be carrying astronauts.
However, the commercial sector, and ISS cargo, want a cheaper rocket, that will explode from time to time. The Falcon 9, and Antares, are great for this. I'm guessing there is some stupid 'buy american' policy that is responsible for putting Cygnus on an Atlas V.
The Delta IV is probably going to be killed off. That should save some money.
The Atlas V has had 60! successful launches in a row.
That's a mighty big number, 60 factorial. Approximately 8.3209871 x 10^81, in fact. That's not far off from the total number of elementary particles in the universe (10^86).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
That argument might hold some water if their prices had stuck at the same high rate for a long time (with increases for inflation). But those prices jumped by more than an order of magnitude when Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged thereby creating a monopoly in the defense launch industry (ULA). No doubt that the commercial launch industry isn't as safe as the defense launch market, but there is a point at which reliability becomes moot. By some estimates you could launch 4 Falcon 9 rockets for every ULA launch. That might not fly when you're launching some billion dollar satellite but if you're launching some communication satellites or lower end spy satellites you'd be a fool to launch them on a rocket more expensive than the spacecraft itself.
"The whole idea of the CRS missions was to encourage the development of new technologies"
Not really, the idea was to bring down launch costs using contractors on a fixed contract cost. NASA doesn't really care how they achieve this, they can use a rocket design from the 60's as long as it is reliable and cheap. It is pushing contractors towards newer methodologies (UAL Vulcan, SpaceX Falcon reusable) but doesn't necessarily require new technology.
I came here to write a snarky comment about deciding to out source lifting services when your cobbled launch system goes boom. However, the more think about it, this seems like the smarter thing for Cygnus to do.
Get out of the lifting business. ULA and SpaceX (last launch not withstanding) have a reliable proven launch systems.
Bezos is coming to the party possible soon.
What they should instead do is get everybody at the table and agree to an interface that everybody would use for connecting their space craft to the lifting system. That way if your X launch system. You receive a standard launch container. You'd latch it onto a testbed that would do gyro/tip weight balancing calculations.
Have your software take the balancing calculations to figure out angular moment, etc, then mount the container in the fairing, put it on top of the rocket, and away you go.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
"The whole idea of the CRS missions was to encourage the development of new technologies"
Not really, the idea was to bring down launch costs using contractors on a fixed contract cost. NASA doesn't really care how they achieve this, they can use a rocket design from the 60's as long as it is reliable and cheap. It is pushing contractors towards newer methodologies (UAL Vulcan, SpaceX Falcon reusable) but doesn't necessarily require new technology.
Though techinically you are correct that the contracts do not state the technologies required, it is pretty much implied that new technologies would be developed in order to meet costs. Nobody was expecting that a simple restructuring of the paperwork involved, including the addition of a middleman between NASA / DOD and ULA, would lower launch costs.
Each launch using the legacy technologies is another launch opportunity for testing new technologies lost.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Because its a service provider contract. SpaceX and Orbital have been contracted to provide a service, not a product. You don't cancel your flight when an A319 shows up at the gate rather than a 737. While there are a lot of milestones involved in the CRS contract, essentially it boils down to, we give you $X for Y lbs of payload delivered to ISS. As long as you can get it there safely without damaging ISS, then go for it
Because its a service provider contract. SpaceX and Orbital have been contracted to provide a service, not a product. You don't cancel your flight when an A319 shows up at the gate rather than a 737.
I'm aware of the issues behind the CRS program. I'm pointing out though, in terms of your analogy, that in fact it was fully expected and desired that the A320 would be designed and produced more affordably than the 737, and that defaulting to having the Airbus development team charter a 737 as a backup is not only a waste of a launch that could have gone towards developing the A320, but rather further entrenches us in the dependence on Boeing's product.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Orbital is developing a new launch vehicle (Antares 200) to replace the Antares 100 which should fly next year. The two Atlas launches are a temporary measure to allow it to meet the requirements of the contract after the loss of CRS-3. It's like United Airlines having a contract with NASA to fly employees between field sites. If after a crash, United decides to stand down its A320 fleet for a few weeks while it fixes the problem and continues to deliver service with the 737. The whole point of CRS is to enable a more Commercial delivery model, which means far less oversight and direction from NASA, in exchange for lower costs by giving the commercial providers the flexibility to choose their approach
Orbital is developing a new launch vehicle (Antares 200) to replace the Antares 100 which should fly next year. The two Atlas launches are a temporary measure to allow it to meet the requirements of the contract after the loss of CRS-3. It's like United Airlines having a contract with NASA to fly employees between field sites. If after a crash, United decides to stand down its A320 fleet for a few weeks while it fixes the problem and continues to deliver service with the 737. The whole point of CRS is to enable a more Commercial delivery model, which means far less oversight and direction from NASA, in exchange for lower costs by giving the commercial providers the flexibility to choose their approach
I must admit that I have not been keeping up with Antares development and I did not see that the -200 launches have been moved forward. So long as the development of alternative launch vehicles (we will ignore the elephant in the room, i.e. the engines) progresses that I would agree that the implied goals of CRS are being fulfilled.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.