CCiCap - Commercial Crew Integrated Capability

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https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-name-astronauts-assigned-to-first-boeing-spacex-flights

July 25, 2018
MEDIA ADVISORY M18-111

NASA to Name Astronauts Assigned to First Boeing, SpaceX Flights




NASA will announce on Friday, Aug. 3, the astronauts assigned to crew the first flight tests and missions of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon, and begin a new era in American spaceflight. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will preside over the event, which will begin at 11 a.m. EDT on NASA Television and the agency's website.
NASA will announce the crew assignments for the crew flight tests and the first post-certification mission for both Boeing and SpaceX. NASA partnered with Boeing and SpaceX to develop the Starliner spacecraft to launch atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and the Crew Dragon launching atop the Falcon 9 rocket, respectively.
U.S. media are invited to attend the event at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and, afterward, speak with the astronauts about their assignments. Media wishing to attend must contact Johnson's newsroom at 281-483-5111 by 4 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Aug. 1.
Johnson Space Center Director Mark Geyer and Kennedy Space Center Director Bob Cabana will join Bridenstine and representatives from Boeing and SpaceX to introduce the crews.
NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry as companies develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems designed to carry crews safely to and from low-Earth orbit. The Starliner and Crew Dragon will launch American astronauts on American-made spacecraft from American soil to the International Space Station for the first time since NASA retired its Space Shuttle Program in 2011.
Commercial transportation to and from the space station will enable expanded station use, additional research time and broader opportunities of discovery aboard the orbiting laboratory. The station is critical for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight, and necessary for a sustainable presence on the Moon and missions deeper into the solar system, including Mars.

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https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1022532538101846019

ASAP chair Patricia Sanders: should be possible now to project dates for uncrewed test flights of commercial crew vehicles. Firm dates for crewed test flights still uncertain.

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Chris G - NSF‏ @ChrisG_NSF 1 ч. назад

#NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) reviews #SpaceX's positive progress (#CrewDragon) &critical #Boeing failure (#Starliner) before 1st #CommercialCrew flights, warns that Boeing's flight schedule is not well understood & in flux. (: @kogavfx)

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/07/asap-boeing-failure-positive-spacex-crew-announcement/ ...

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https://spacenews.com/safety-panel-warns-schedule-for-commercial-crew-test-flights-still-uncertain/

Safety panel warns schedule for commercial crew test flights still uncertain
by Jeff Foust — July 30, 2018


A safety panel said that while a "realistic timeframe" for uncrewed test flights of the Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner vehicles can now be projected, schedules for later crewed test flights are still uncertain. Credit: SpaceX artist's concept and Boeing

WASHINGTON — As NASA prepares to announce the astronauts who will fly the first commercial crew missions, an independent safety board is cautioning that it is still too soon to set dates for those flights.

NASA said in a statement last week that it will name the astronauts who will fly the crewed demo flights by Boeing and SpaceX during an event Aug. 3 at the Johnson Space Center. The event will also announce the crews for the first post-certification missions by each company, which will mark the start of routine transportation of astronauts to and fr om the station by Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon.

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The NASA statement did not explicitly state if the agency will also upd ate the schedule for those flights. The latest public schedules, released by NASA early this year, call for uncrewed test flights by both companies in August, followed by crewed test flights by Boeing in November and SpaceX in December. However, delays of at least several months are widely expected for both companies' test flights.

Members of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) appeared to caution against flying at least the crewed demonstration flights in the near future. "We see both continued progress and a large volume of work ahead" for the commercial crew program, said Patricia Sanders, chair of ASAP, at a July 26 meeting at NASA Headquarters. "It should be possible to project a realistic timeframe for at least the uncrewed test flights."

However, she said that did not extend to the later crewed flights. "Depending on the results of the uncrewed flights as well as the resolution of some outstanding technical issues, firm dates for the crewed flight tests are still uncertain," she said.

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One of the outstanding technical issues is what Boeing called an "anomaly" during a recent hot-fire test of the abort engine system that will be used by Starliner. That anomaly, announced by the company earlier this month, is expected to delay a pad abort test of the vehicle as well as its upcoming demonstration flights, but the company has not said by how much.

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"There was an anomaly on that test that we need to better understand in terms of its potential impact on the design and the operations and the schedule," said ASAP member George Nield at the meeting. "Boeing has asked for some additional time to step back and understand that a little bit better, so we can expect some uncertainty in the near-term schedules."

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SpaceX and NASA are still working two issues with its Crew Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 launch vehicle. One is the redesign of composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) used to store helium in the propellant tanks on the Falcon 9. SpaceX has redesigned the COPV following an accident nearly two years ago that destroyed a Falcon 9 and its satellite payload prior to a static-fire test.

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"There's still a lot of work to do. They jury's still out on this," said ASAP member David West on the COPV redesign. "We look forward to seeing what the result of all this work will mean in terms of a final characterization of the risk and whether or not that risk will be acceptable." If that risk is not acceptable, he added, further risk mitigation measures, which he didn't specify, may be needed.

SpaceX has also been addressing an issue with the Falcon 9's Merlin 1D engine. Examination of some of the first engines found anomalies that were "potentially dangerous, and certainly not desirable," said ASAP member Donald McErlean. SpaceX and NASA have worked on a test plan to address the problem.

SpaceX and NASA, he said, have come up "two principal courses of action in the short term" to correct the problem and two others that would require more modifications to the engine. "The risk is low enough with the two short-term modifications to use those for powering the uncrewed test," he said, "and the decision for powering the crewed test would come later." He didn't elaborate on those courses of action, but said that the panel was "optimistic those courses of action will result in a satisfactory conclusion."

Despite the technical issues that could delay those test flights, ASAP members said they saw no evidence of safety being jeopardized. "The ASAP has not seen any evidence of negative safety impacts based on schedule pressure," Nield said. "I think people are looking for that. They're aware of the danger there."

ASAP members praised SpaceX in particular for its attention to safety issues, such as development of software tools for tracking development and production issues. "Their tool se t, if used comprehensively and broadly across their culture, are actually very encouraging to us as something that could evolve into an admirable advantage," ASAP member Susan Helms said. "It looks like things are on a good path."

"We're at the point where, after many years of those demo flights being distantly in the future, we're reaching the point wh ere the program is rapidly approaching the launch of those demos," said ASAP member Sandy Magnus. "There's a lot yet to accomplish."

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Emre Kelly‏Подлинная учетная запись @EmreKelly 6 мин. назад

Boeing update on Starliner anomaly: Happened during simulated low-altitude abort burn. All four engines were nominal until shutdown 1.5 seconds later; several valves failed to close, causing the leak. Boeing's Mulholland confident confident in corrective actions.

4 мин. назад

Boeing's Mulholland with latest on Starliner mission timeline:

– Uncrewed flight now planned for late 2018 or early 2019

– Crewed flight is now expected mid-2019

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/08/01/boeing-delays-crew-capsule-test-flights-after-abort-engine-problem/

Boeing delays crew capsule test flights after abort engine problem
August 1, 2018 | Stephen Clark


The upper and lower domes of the CST-100 Starliner which will carry the vehicle's first crew into orbit were mated June 19 inside Boeing's Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This vehicle is known as Spacecraft 2 in Boeing's fleet. Credit: Boeing

Boeing has reshuffled a sequence of test flights planned for the company's CST-100 Starliner capsule after stuck valves inside a test version of the ship's service module caused a fuel spill in June, delaying the commercial spacecraft's first unpiloted orbital demo mission until late this year or early 2019, and moving back the first crew launch to mid-2019, a company official said Wednesday.

The upd ated schedule announced Wednesday also calls for a pad abort test next spring in New Mexico to test the spaceship's ability to escape a catastrophic launch vehicle failure and save its crew.

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Boeing has a $4.2 billion contract with NASA to develop the reusable crew capsule, which will launch aboard United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets fr om Cape Canaveral, dock with the International Space Station for stays of up seven months, and return to Earth for landings in the Western United States with the aid of parachutes and airbags.

NASA has also partnered with SpaceX, which is developing the Crew Dragon spacecraft for launch on the company's own Falcon 9 rockets.

The two commercial crew contractors will end NASA's sole reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles to ferry astronauts to and fr om the space station.

John Mulholland, Boeing's vice president and program manager for the CST-100 Starliner program, told reporters Monday that the propellant leak on a test stand at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico was caused by several faulty valves inside the abort propulsion system on a service module testbed.

"That test was designed to verify all of the service module propulsion capabilities, and those include the abort, the on-orbit and the de-orbit propulsion events," Mulholland said in a media roundtable. "It was a robust test program designed to screen out any potential design weaknesses."

The test anomaly, first reported last week by Ars Technica, occurred as engineers test-fired four abort engines at the base of the service module. The CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will fly with a reusable crew module, which comes back to Earth with passengers on-board, and a disposable service module housing the ship's primary propulsion system, solar panels and radiators.

Boeing built a flight-like service module for hotfire testing at White Sands, before managers planned the CST-100 Starliner's pad abort test this summer.

"The initial test that we were performing on that (service module) test article was a low-altitude abort burn," Mulholland said. "That test is designed to simulate a pad abort or a low-altitude abort. In that, we fire the four launch abort engines on the bottom of the spacecraft that will provide the propulsion capability that we need to get away from an impending launch vehicle failure."

Each CST-100 service module carries four launch abort engines, built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. The engines would only fire in flight in the event of a launch emergency, igniting with 40,000 pounds of thrust each for a few seconds to propel the capsule away from its rocket.

The four launch abort engines are joined by 48 smaller thrusters on the CST-100 service module, including a se t of 1,500-pound-thrust orbital maneuvering and attitude control engines used for pointing during a launch abort and for large orbital maneuvers, and pods of 100-pound reaction control thrusters, all manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne.

"During the start-up of that test, all engines responded nominally," Mulholland said. "At approximately one-and-a-half seconds, we issued shutdown commands to the engines, and several of the abort engine valves failed to fully close."


A launch abort engine for the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft during a test-firing in 2016. Credit: NASA

According to a report published by Aviation Week and Space Technology, four of eight valves regulating the flow of propellants into the launch abort engines were stuck open after the shutdown command.

"The result of that was leakage of hypergolic propellant, which was contained at the test site, and there was no damage to the test article, and no personnel injuries," Mulholland said.

The service module's rocket engines consume a hypergolic mixture of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, which combust upon contact with one another. During a real launch escape, the CST-100's launch abort engines would fire for around 4.5 seconds, guzzling huge quantities of propellant to push the capsule away from a failing booster.

The high-pressure flow of propellant into the abort engines requires the use of dedicated valves, Mulholland told Spaceflight Now in an interview last year. Each engine includes a fuel and oxidizer valve.

Boeing and Aerojet Rocketdyne previously completed a series of hotfire tests of individual CST-100 abort engines. In a 2016 press release, Aerojet Rocketdyne said the testing "confirmed the ability for the new valves to modulate propellant flow and control peak LAE (launch abort engine) thrust in the event of a launch abort."

Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne's president and CEO, said the 2016 statement that the valves "enabled the engine to demonstrate precise timing, peak thrust control and steady-state thrust necessary during a mission abort."

Mulholland said Wednesday that managers launched a joint investigation involving NASA and industry engineers to probe the June 2 test anomaly.

"We are confident that we identified the root cause and are implementing correcting actions now," he said, without elaborating on the investigation's findings.

"Our team is off fixing those problems, and the result of that test series is that we will have a better and safer spacecraft," Mulholland said.


The dual-engine Centaur upper stages for the CST-100 Starliner's crew flight test (left) and uncrewed orbital flight test (right) inside United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 factory in Decatur, Alabama. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Mulholland said the investigators identified several corrective actions, such as "a potential combination of operational changes and minor design changes that we believe will allow those valves to fully close with significant margin in all potential operational scenarios."

The propulsion problem caused Boeing to reschedule the pad abort test, during which a CST-100 spacecraft will fire off a launch mount at White Sands to simulate an escape from a launch pad emergency, from this summer to next spring, Mulholland said.

"If you looked at our original sequence prior to the service module hotfire test anomaly, we were going to perform a pad abort test first, followed by an uncrewed flight test and then the crew flight test," Mulholland said. "One of the things that is not required for the uncrewed flight test is the abort capability. The abort capability will not be enabled on the uncrewed flight test, so the optimal sequence then changed to performing the uncrewed flight test first, and then the pad abort test, which we will need to perform before the crew flight test."

The updated schedule outlined by Mulholland on Wednesday calls for the uncrewed test flight to launch on an Atlas 5 rocket at the end of this year or in early 2019 from Cape Canaveral. The CST-100 capsule will make an automated docking to the space station for a short stay, then return to Earth.

After the pad abort test in New Mexico, the crew flight test will be readied for takeoff in mid-2019 on another Atlas 5 flight from Florida's Space Coast, likely with two or three crew members on-board.

Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson, who commanded the last space shuttle mission in 2011 before retiring from NASA, will helm the crew test flight. One or two NASA astronauts will accompany Ferguson, and their identities will be revealed in a ceremony Friday at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The space agency plans to announce Friday which astronauts will ride on the initial Boeing and SpaceX crew missions.

NASA and Boeing have agreed to potentially use the CST-100 Starliner's crewed test flight, which originally was supposed to launch with a Boeing test pilot and a NASA astronaut, to carry a passenger who would stay aboard the space station for a long-duration months-long stay. If NASA chooses to exercise that option, the extra crew member could help ensure the station has a U.S. astronaut on-board after the space agency's agreement with the Russian government for Soyuz crew seats expires.

The Russian space agency — Roscosmos — and NASA have agreed to extend the length of upcoming space station expeditions to more than six months. That will allow NASA's contract for astronauts seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to cover crew returns through at least January 2020, several months later than originally planned.

These measures are aimed at reducing the risk of a gap in U.S. crew access to the space station, a focus of a Government Accountability Office report released last month.

The GAO said a NASA schedule analysis suggested Boeing and SpaceX may not be certified for regular crew rotation missions to the station — a milestone achieved after CST-100 and Crew Dragon crew flight tests — until late 2019 or early 2020, and perhaps months later in a worst-case scenario.


The base heat shield for Spacecraft 1, the CST-100 capsule which will fly on the pad abort test, was installed on the spacecraft earlier this year at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Boeing

Boeing is building three flight-worthy CST-100 crew modules at its manufacturing site at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, housed in a former space shuttle processing hangar.

Spacecraft 1, the first of the line, will be used on the pad abort test in New Mexico. Spacecraft 2, which is nearing completion, will soon be shipped cross-country to Boeing's test site in El Segundo, California, for a battery of tests to subject it to the extreme temperatures, vacuum conditions and acoustic environment it will encounter in flight.

Spacecraft 2 will return to Florida for the crew flight test, while Spacecraft 3 is scheduled to be completed at KSC later this year, when it will immediately proceed into launch preparations for the uncrewed orbital test flight.

According to Mulholland, the Atlas 5 rocket assigned to the CST-100's uncrewed test flight — known by the tail number AV-080 — is complete and ready for transport from ULA's factory in Decatur, Alabama, to Cape Canaveral. The launcher for the crew flight test is "very close to completing also," he said.

The Atlas 5 rocket configuration which will launch CST-100 crews will fly with two strap-on solid rocket boosters and a Centaur upper stage powered by two RL10 engines, not the single-engine Centaur stages flown on all Atlas 5 missions to date. ULA has finished around 90 percent of the qualification required to human-rate the Atlas 5, Mulholland said.

Boeing's previous target dates for the uncrewed and crew flight tests called for launches in August and November, respectively. Any realistic expectation to achieve that schedule had eroded months ago.

The schedule for SpaceX's Crew Dragon test flights is also expected to be delayed, but the company has not announced a new timeframe for the demo missions.

In a July 26 meeting, members of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said technical concerns with both Boeing and SpaceX, and a series of certification reviews required by NASA, continue to create uncertainty in the commercial crew program's schedule.

"The providers have made sufficient headway that there is light at the end of the tunnel," said Patricia Sanders, chair of the safety advisory panel. "It should be possible to project a realistic timeframe for at least the uncrewed test flights."

"We're reaching the point wh ere the program is rapidly approaching the launch of those demos," said Sandy Magnus, an ASAP member and former astronaut. "The momentum of activities is going to continue to build, but there's a lot left to accomplish.

"Having the hardware ready to go is, of course, an important piece, but we still have to get through the certification, understand the risk posture ... The uncrewed demos are an important milestone, and it will be great, I think, for the community to see that, and a very good morale boost."

George Nield, a veteran aerospace engineer and former head of the Federal Aviation Administration's commercial space office, said NASA and contractor officials are on the lookout for the burdens of schedule pressure.

"It's important to point out that the ASAP has not seen any evidence of negative safety impacts based on schedule pressure," Nield said during the July 26 meeting. "I think people are looking for that. They're aware of the danger there."

Nield said the safety panel should "expect some uncertainty in the near-term schedule, particularly for the Boeing provider," as the company works through the launch abort engine anomaly.

When NASA awarded Boeing and SpaceX their commercial crew contracts in late 2016, agency and contractor officials expected to have the new vehicles certified for regular crew rotation missions to and from the International Space Station by the end of 2017.

But technical hurdles and several redesigns of the spacecraft have delayed Boeing and SpaceX's first unscrewed orbital test flights until later this year, at the earliest.

"These development programs are hard, especially for human spaceflight vehicles, wh ere you really work to drive in robustness, redundancy, and optimize mass and volume," Mulholland said Wednesday. "We laid out a very challenging and aggressive schedule, and we have had several slips in that plan based on the challenges that hit us in a number of these integrated tests, and through the design and development process.

"That said, our commitment hasn't wavered to make sure that we do everything that we laid out to do in our plan, which will ensure that when we fly we're going fly with the utmost safety and mission success," he said.

"Every time we lay out a schedule, we believe it's realistic," he said. "There certainly are potential risks in front of us. As we move through the remaining test program, there is always, by its nature, the risk of discovery."

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/08/02/nasas-last-shuttle-commander-to-helm-test-flight-of-boeing-crew-capsule/

NASA's last shuttle commander to helm test flight of Boeing crew capsule
August 2, 2018 | Stephen Clark


Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson is helped into his spacesuit ahead of emergency egress training at United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 launch pad at Cape Canaveral in June. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

NASA's last space shuttle commander — former U.S. Navy fighter pilot Chris Ferguson — will fly Boeing's CST-100 Starliner crew capsule on its first piloted test mission to the International Space Station next year.

Now a Boeing employee, Ferguson will make his fourth trip into space after logging more than 40 days in orbit on three space shuttle missions. The Washington Post first reported Ferguson's assignment to the mission last week, and Boeing has confirmed he will fly on the CST-100 Starliner's first crew test flight scheduled for mid-2019.

Ferguson, 56, will likely be joined by two NASA astronauts on the mission. Their identities will be announced Friday in a ceremony at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, headquarters for agency's astronaut corps.

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NASA is also expected to announce crews for the first flight of SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts on-board, plus which astronauts will fly on the first "post-certification" missions by both commercially-developed vehicles on operational crew rotation flights to the International Space Station.

Boeing and SpaceX are developing the CST-100 Starliner and Crew Dragon spacecraft under multibillion-dollar contracts with NASA.

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner, featuring a reusable crew module, will launch on United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets and return to landings in the Western United States with the aid of parachutes and airbags. SpaceX's Crew Dragon will launch on the company's own Falcon 9 boosters, and splash down in the ocean under parachutes at the end of each mission.


Chris Ferguson aboard the shuttle Atlantis' flight deck during the STS-135 mission in July 2011. Credit: NASA

"We are really excited that on Friday we'll be out in Houston for the upcoming astronaut announcement," said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager for Boeing's CST-100 Starliner.

Ferguson flew F-14 Tomcat airplanes off aircraft carriers in the Navy, and graduated fr om the service's Top Gun school for fighter pilots before his selection as a NASA astronaut in 1998.

He piloted the STS-115 mission by the shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station in September 2006, then commanded two more spaceflights — aboard the shuttle Endeavour in November 2008 on the STS-126 mission, and the final flight of the storied 30-year program aboard Atlantis's STS-135 mission in July 2011.

Ferguson retired from the space agency several months after guiding Atlantis back to Earth on its last flight.

"On the last day (of Atlantis's STS-135 mission), I tried to make it a point to say goodbye to every shift (in mission control) because I knew when they left the control center it was never going to be the same for them, so we tried to make it special for them," Ferguson said in a 2016 interview with Spaceflight Now. "After the last goodbye, I thought, you know what? I have no idea wh ere I'm going to be in a month. I knew we had all the post-flight stuff to do, but I had no idea what my future held. Am I going to go teach at college? What am I going to do?"

He found a job at Boeing, which announced in 2010 it was developing the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in partnership with NASA's commercial crew program, aimed at ending U.S. reliance on Russian Soyuz vehicles for crew access to the space station in the post-shuttle era.

"Now I find myself right back in the fight again, right back in the fight as a stakeholder in making sure that we're successful," Ferguson said in 2016.

The fighter pilot-turned-astronaut-turned-manager will have a renaissance of his flying career on the CST-100 Starliner's crew test flight, which is now scheduled for mid-2019 after an unpiloted demo mission late this year or early next year.

Ferguson's shuttle crew in 2011 left a U.S. flag on the space station for the next astronauts launched from U.S. soil to bring home.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Ferguson said the competition between Boeing and SpaceX is "sort of grown-up capture the flag ... It probably has a lot more significance to me than it does to, say, somebody from our competition."

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Emre Kelly‏Подлинная учетная запись @EmreKelly 10 мин. назад

Shiny new renderings of SpaceX's Dragon and Boeing's Starliner released by @NASAKennedy show some pretty incredible details.

Full res: https://bit.ly/2Km2m7I  | https://bit.ly/2LNlalJ 

https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/132221.jpg


https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/132215.jpg

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2018/08/02/nasas-commercial-crew-program-target-test-flight-dates-3/

NASA's Commercial Crew Program Target Test Flight Dates

Stephanie Martin
Posted Aug 2, 2018 at 2:00 pm

The next generation of American spacecraft and rockets that will launch astronauts to the International Space Station are nearing the final stages of development and evaluation. NASA's Commercial Crew Program will return human spaceflight launches to U.S. soil, providing safe, reliable and cost-effective access to low-Earth orbit on systems that meet our safety and mission requirements. To meet NASA's requirements, the commercial providers must demonstrate that their systems are ready to begin regular flights to the space station. Two of those demonstrations are uncrewed flight tests, known as Orbital Flight Test for Boeing, and Demo-1 for SpaceX. After the uncrewed flight tests, both companies will execute a flight test with crew prior to being certified by NASA for crew rotation missions. The following schedule reflects the most recent publicly releasable dates for both providers.

Targeted Test Flight Dates:
Boeing Orbital Flight Test (uncrewed): late 2018 / early 2019
Boeing Crew Flight Test (crewed): mid-2019
SpaceX Demo-1 (uncrewed): November 2018
SpaceX Demo-2 (crewed): April 2019

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/flight-tests-to-prove-commercial-systems-fit-for-human-spaceflight

Aug. 2, 2018

Flight Tests to Prove Commercial Systems Fit for Human Spaceflight


NASA's Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry as companies develop a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems to carry crews safely to and fr om low-Earth orbit – the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing CST-100 Starliner.
Credits: NASA

The first test flights for new spacecraft designed by commercial companies in collaboration with NASA to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station from the United States are known as Demo-1 for SpaceX and Orbital Flight Test for Boeing.

NASA's goal in collaborating with Boeing and SpaceX is to achieve safe, reliable and cost-effective transportation to and from station on the companies' spacecraft. Both companies have matured their designs, are making significant progress through their extensive testing campaigns, and are headed toward flight tests to validate their systems.

An uncrewed flight test was not a NASA requirement for certifying these systems for human spaceflight. Boeing and SpaceX volunteered to perform these tests to demonstrate their systems are safe for crew.

"This was above and beyond the NASA requirement in the contract," said Kathy Lueders, Commercial Crew Program manager at NASA Kennedy. "Both partners said they really wanted to have an uncrewed flight test to make sure the integrated rockets, spacecraft and re-entry systems are all working as designed to be able to ensure the integrated system is functioning."

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Each test flight will provide data on the performance of the rockets, spacecraft, ground systems, and operations to ensure the systems are safe to fly astronauts. Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft will be launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

"Tomorrow we will meet the astronauts who will be the first to fly the CST-100 Starliner. Our commitment has always been to provide NASA and those crews the highest level of mission assurance," said John Mulholland, vice president and program manager for Boeing's Commercial Crew effort. "We believe the earliest time we can confidently do that will be in mid-2019 after flying an uncrewed flight test late this year or early next year. I'm incredibly proud of the progress our team has made, and it has been inspiring to watch them work through challenges quickly, while developing a brand new human-rated spacecraft that Boeing, NASA and the nation can be proud of."

SpaceX designed its Crew Dragon spacecraft to launch atop the company's Falcon 9 rocket from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

"Safely and reliably flying commercial crew missions for NASA remains the highest priority for SpaceX," said Benji Reed, Director of Crew Mission Management at SpaceX. "We look forward to launching Crew Dragon—designed to be one of the safest, most-advanced human spaceflight systems ever built—and returning human-spaceflight capabilities to the United States for the first time since the Space Shuttle Program retired in 2011. SpaceX is targeting November 2018 for Crew Dragon's first demonstration mission and April 2019 for Crew Dragon's second demonstration mission, which will carry two NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station."

NASA is making crew assignments now for the Boeing Crew Flight Test and SpaceX Demo-2 to support flight training as we return to launching our astronauts from American soil. As a partner approaches its target readiness date, NASA will work with the company and the Eastern Range to identify launch dates within the busy International Space Station schedule to ensure science investigations, as well as logistics activities and critical operations continue while these new spacecraft are tested.

Many of the team members leading the unique public-private partnership believe the agency is on the cusp of something life changing with its Commercial Crew Program.

"I'm excited to be part of the future of space travel," said Jon Cowart, acting deputy manager for the Commercial Crew Program's Mission Management and Integration office at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "When we get to this point the companies will have tested every piece of the spacecraft individually, but there is so much more learning that occurs when the spacecraft is actually operated in space. The systems will be operated in the actual environment to test it and ensure it's ready for crew."

The hardware for these uncrewed missions is being prepared for launch. Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is being outfitted at the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility on the Kennedy and the United Launch Alliance Atlas V dual engine Centaur that will launch Starliner will be shipped to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in August to prepare for the upcoming flight. Separately, SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft for Demo-1 arrived to the Cape in July for final processing. Falcon 9's first and second stages for the Demo-1 mission are targeted to ship from SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California to the company's rocket testing facility in McGregor, Texas for additional testing in August.

Once the uncrewed flight tests are complete and the data reviews have validated the spacecraft systems, NASA astronauts will have their first opportunity to fly in the spacecraft. Crew for Boeing's Crew Flight Test and SpaceX's Demo-2 flights will each include at least a flight commander and pilot aboard to test out the systems.

These flight tests will have similar configurations to the uncrewed tests, but the crew will have the ability to interface with spacecraft displays, communicate with mission control, and practice manual controls during flight. Starliner and Crew Dragon will dock and undock autonomously to the space station before returning the crew safely home.

"The crew right now is actually working on integrated crew simulations on the flight systems," said Lueders. "They are providing input to the partners to help ensure the interior of the cabin is appropriately located and set up so crew can function and conduct key activities. They're verifying crew layout, doing simulations wh ere they're actually practicing their maneuvers, and also checking out the software and the display systems, and everything else for the crew to be functioning safely in the spacecraft."

After successful completion of the flight tests with crew, NASA will review flight data to verify the systems meet the agency's safety and performance certification requirements and are ready to begin regular servicing missions to the space station.

"I see parallels between commercial crew and the early aviation industry, when government nurtured that commercial innovation," said Cowart. "In similar fashion, NASA is empowering private industry to gain solid footing in low-Earth orbit, which will allow NASA to explore new frontiers in deep space."

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Last Updated: Aug. 2, 2018
Editor: Anna Heiney

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Stephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 5 мин. назад

Stage is set Johnson Space Center for today's announcement of the first crews for Boeing and SpaceX commercial spacecraft.

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1-й экипаж CST-100

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1-й экипаж Crew Dragon

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2-й экипаж CST-100

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2-й экипаж Crew Dragon

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