CST-100

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On April 3, Boeing successfully completed a parachute drop test of the company's Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft at the Delmar Dry Lake Bed near Alamo, Nev.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1204/03cst100drop/

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04.04.2012 / 09:11   Состоялись испытания парашюта для корабля CST-100

Пресс-служба компании Boeing сообщила об успешном проведении 3 апреля испытаний парашютной системы для транспортного корабля CST-100. Испытания прошли в районе высохшего соляного озера близ города Аламо в штате Невада. Прототип корабля был поднят вертолетом на высоту 3,5 км и сброшен вниз. По сообщению специалистов Boeing, все элементы парашютной системы сработали штатно и аппарат плавно опустился под тремя куполами на землю.

     - К.И.

[SFN]

http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=2199

[Yutani]

Сбрасывали CST вроде бы, с того же вертолёта, что и Dragon.

[SFN]

Сбрасывали CST вроде бы, с того же вертолёта, что и Dragon.

Совсем того же? Или такого же?  Erickson Sky Crane или Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane

[Александр Ч.]

У Боинга черным по белому написано:

An Erickson Sky Crane helicopter lifted the CST-100 test article to about 11,000 feet and released it.

Спейсекс же меленько и серым по белому:

During the August 12th test, an Erikson S-64F Air-Crane helicopter dropped a test article of the Dragon spacecraft from a height of 14,000 feet, roughly nine miles off the coast of Morro Bay, California.

Чем они отличаются, можно посмотреть на сайте производителя  :wink:

[Петр Зайцев]

Сбрасывали CST вроде бы, с того же вертолёта, что и Dragon.

Совсем того же? Или такого же?  Erickson Sky Crane или Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane

Коллега Yutani торопится с выводами. Это мог быть Skycrane рег. N179AC, мог быть другой. Я пока не видел подтверждения, что знаменитый Элвис сбрасывал. Кстати:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_%28helicopter%29
Статья не упоминает, что Элвис сбросил Драгон. Википедия, что хотеть.

[SFN]

Коллега Yutani торопится с выводами. Это мог быть Skycrane рег. N179AC, мог быть другой. Я пока не видел подтверждения, что знаменитый Элвис сбрасывал. Кстати:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_%28helicopter%29
Статья не упоминает, что Элвис сбросил Драгон. Википедия, что хотеть.

Erickson всем Sky Crane дает собственные имена. Я знаю про Элвис и Ольгу. Поэтому "тот-же" приобретает новый смысл.

[Александр Ч.]

Сбрасывали CST вроде бы, с того же вертолёта, что и Dragon.

Совсем того же? Или такого же?  Erickson Sky Crane или Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane

Коллега Yutani торопится с выводами. Это мог быть Skycrane рег. N179AC, мог быть другой. Я пока не видел подтверждения, что знаменитый Элвис сбрасывал. Кстати:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_%28helicopter%29
Статья не упоминает, что Элвис сбросил Драгон. Википедия, что хотеть.

AirCrane. У Skycrane буквы HT в номере, ЕМНИП.
На каком-то из сайтов под фотографией, подписанной Skycrane, видел комментарий, что на самом деле это Hulk, разница небольшая, но типа справедливости ради

[Yutani]

Сбрасывали CST вроде бы, с того же вертолёта, что и Dragon.

[SFN]

Возник вопрос про вертолет выполняющий дроп тесты
Dragon сбрасывал Erickson AirCrane

[Луноход]

Возник вопрос про вертолет выполняющий дроп тесты
Dragon сбрасывал Erickson AirCrane

Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane

[Дмитрий Виницкий]

Erickson AirCrane - просто тюнинг машины Сикорского
http://www.ericksonaircrane.com/history.php

[Петр Зайцев]

На каком-то из сайтов под фотографией, подписанной Skycrane, видел комментарий, что на самом деле это Hulk, разница небольшая, но типа справедливости ради

"Hulk" - это название конкретного вертолета, так же как Ту-160 "Александр Невский".

[Yutani]

Краткое видео парашютного теста.

[Александр Ч.]

На каком-то из сайтов под фотографией, подписанной Skycrane, видел комментарий, что на самом деле это Hulk, разница небольшая, но типа справедливости ради

"Hulk" - это название конкретного вертолета, так же как Ту-160 "Александр Невский".

Я к тому, что это AirCrane, так же как и Elvis

[Дмитрий Виницкий]

Вполне допустимое название. Оригинальная машина так и называется Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane.

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Boeing CST-100 Drop-Test 8x slow motion

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Боинг планирует испытать CST-100 в орбитальном полете в 2016 и заодно просит побольше денег.

Boeing anticipates CST-100 orbital flight tests in 2016

Boeing expects to finish the design of its CST-100 capsule by early 2014, but officials say the commercial crew taxi may not be ready for orbital flights until 2016, assuming the company receives the anticipated funding from NASA in an award due by August.

Last summer, Boeing's CST-100 schedule called for test flights of the reusable capsule in 2015.

According to John Mulholland, vice president and general manager of Boeing commercial programs, the schedule for CST-100 orbital flight tests and the craft's entry into service will depend on how much money Boeing receives in the CCiCap award and the subsequent certification phase.

Mulholland said in an April 6 interview the CST-100 program should reach its critical design review by early 2014. The review is a major milestone at the close of the project's design phase.

That is contingent upon NASA awarding funding to Boeing in the next round of the agency's commercial crew program. NASA plans to announce winners of the commercial crew integrated capability, or CCiCap, stage of the program in August, distributing between $300 million and $500 million in funding to at least companies.

The CST-100 spacecraft, designed to ferry up to seven astronauts to and from low Earth orbit, is Boeing's proposal for NASA to acquire commercial crew transportation for the International Space Station.

Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp., SpaceX and Blue Origin are currently receiving NASA funding under agreements set to expire this summer.

After the retirement of the space shuttle last year, NASA must purchase seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft until a domestic vehicle is operational.

Congress cut NASA's fiscal 2012 commercial crew budget request by more than half, appropriating $406 million to the program for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. The budget forced NASA to abandon its procurement strategy in the next phase of the program and return to Space Act Agreements, a more flexible, less rigid mechanism to partner with commercial providers.

The appropriation forced NASA to revise its forecast for the beginning of operational commercial crew missions from 2016 to 2017. The start of commercial crew service would come after a series of test flights by the spacecraft's private operators.

Even a $500 million award likely would delay Boeing's flight test program beyond 2015, according to Mulholland.

"With appropriate funding, we still can support a 2015 entry into service. I would say, and I can't be real specific on it, to hold the 2015 date, we would need, it appears, slightly more than the $300 million to $500 million in the base period," Mulholland said.

The CCiCap Space Act Agreements will cover a 21-month base period, but NASA requested proposals lay out a series of optional milestones beyond the base period leading up to crewed test flights.

"We'll be running through qualification tests on all of the engines," Mulholland said. "We'll be doing more drop tests and landing tests. Pretty much every system on the vehicle will be going through some level of demonstration and qualification testing during that 21-month period."

After the 21-month base period ends in May 2014, Boeing's schedule calls for the completion of a structural test article and qualification testing.

"The other large-scale test will be a service module hotfire test," Mulholland said. "We'll have a complete service module with flight computer systems running. We'll have that test outside the 21-month period of performance, same with our qualification test vehicle. We'll be subjecting that to all the different environments we need to be certified for. And then we run into our three larger scale tests. The first one would be a pad abort test at the While Sands Missile Range. That will be done on the same stand that was used on the Orion pad abort test."

The CST-100 capsule, which measures nearly 15 feet in diameter, will initially launch into orbit on United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Mulholland said Boeing plans to sign a firm contract for two Atlas 5 rockets soon after it hopes to receive a CCiCap award from NASA in August. The Atlas boosters will launch an uncrewed orbital flight test of the CST-100 capsule and a full-up demonstration mission with two Boeing astronauts on-board.

An ascent abort demonstration originally planned using a third Atlas 5 rocket has been removed from the Boeing test manifest, according to Mulholland.

After the test program is complete, NASA will certify the spacecraft to fly to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts.

While planning more ambitious tests in the future, Boeing engineers currently are navigating through a series of basic tests to verify the design of critical CST-100 systems such as parachutes, landing airbags, thrusters, propellant tanks and software.

Boeing completed a drop test of a boilerplate CST-100 capsule April 3.

John Elbon, vice president and program manager of Boeing's space exploration division, said engineers are analyzing data "relative to G loading" when the craft touched down in the Nevada desert.

"Overall, the drop test was very successful and we're very happy with the results," Elbon said.

Mulholland said another CST-100 drop in Nevada is scheduled for early May to test the capsule's drogue parachutes, which were not part of the April 3 test. Other milestones left in Boeing's current development agreement with NASA include a June hotfire of the CST-100's orbital maneuvering engine at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, a test of the capsule's landing airbags, and a software preliminary design review.

A cold flow test of the service module propulsion system is also on tap for June, along with a test of a service module propellant tank.

The CST-100's systems-level preliminary design review finished in early March.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1204/11cst100/

[Salo]

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/asd_04_26_2012_p04-01-451887.xml

JSC To Support Training, Early Flight Ops For Boeing CST-100
By Mark Carreau
Source: Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

April 26 , 2012

HOUSTON — Boeing is turning to the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) at NASA's Johnson Space Center to support the training for and early flight operations of the company's seven-person CST-100 entrant in NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative.

Under the terms of a recent addition to their April 2011 CCDev-2 Space Act Agreement, Boeing intends to reach a larger pact with MOD later this year to provide launch-to-landing operations from the Mission Control Center (MCC) at Johnson for its first several flights. Boeing will reimburse NASA for the training and flight control services.

"Adding MOD to our team leverages NASA's experience in crewed space operation to ensure mission success for our CST-100 spacecraft," said Chris Ferguson, director of Crew and Mission Operations for Boeing's Commercial Crew Program and a former shuttle commander, in a statement. "As we continue to mature our spacecraft design, MOD technical support will ensure the CST-100 is built with the operators in mind." NASA's MCC here has overseen all of the agency's human spaceflight missions since the Gemini era.

Boeing is among four U.S. companies awarded a portion of $270 million in NASA CCDev-2 funding in April 2011. The capsule-shaped CST-100 is in competition for continued development support under a third round of Space Act Agreement funding. NASA plans to announce the participants in the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap), the third phase of the commercial crew initiative, in the July/August time frame.

NASA intends to nurture the development of at least two companies that can transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station by 2017, if the agency's budget permits. The initiative is managed from NASA's Kennedy Space Center with support from Johnson.

If successful in its pursuit of CCiCap funding, Boeing will continue with its development of a flight training program and provide the instruction plan to MOD for training Boeing customers, which will primarily be NASA-led space station crews. Boeing would provide the overall supervision and retain responsibility for final training certification, according to a company spokeswoman.

NASA personnel would staff the Johnson MCC during the CST-100 launch-to-space station docking and undocking-to-landing phases of flight.

In addition, the company will establish a Boeing Mission Control Center at Kennedy and staff it with company personnel.

"While this facility can act in the capacity of a Mission Control Center for human spaceflight, Boeing will use the MOD/Houston MCC as the controlling entity for its first several flights," the company says.

The reusable CST-100 is designed to carry a combination of passengers and cargo to multiple low-Earth-orbit destinations, including the planned Bigelow Aerospace orbital complex.

Boeing has targeted 2015 for the first test flight, with the United Launch Alliance Atlas V serving as the launch vehicle.