SpaceX’s plans for a reusable Dragon spacecraft FLEET detailed by Gwynne Shotwell

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SpaceX's plans for a reusable Dragon spacecraft fleet detailed by Gwynne Shotwell

President and COO Gwynne Shotwell says that SpaceX is simultaneously building a fleet of reusable, orbital Dragon spacecraft designed to support a range of NASA and commercial astronaut and cargo launches over the next 5-10 years. Speaking shortly after SpaceX’s successful November 15th...

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President and COO Gwynne Shotwell says that SpaceX is simultaneously building a fleet of reusable, orbital Dragon spacecraft designed to support a range of NASA and commercial astronaut and cargo launches over the next 5-10 years.

Speaking shortly after SpaceX’s successful November 15th operational astronaut launch debut, also known as Crew-1, Shotwell revealed that the company is already in the process of building several more Crew and upgraded Cargo Dragon spacecraft on top of the vehicles already in the late stages of preparing for their first or second flights.

The comments ultimately confirm an unsurprising reality of the new Dragon 2 spacecraft: thanks to reusability, SpaceX intends to accomplish more than ever before with far fewer vehicles, likely saving a great deal of time and resources over the next 5-10 years.

Jim Bridenstine, Kathy Lueders, Hiroshi Sasaki, Steve Dickson, and Gwynne Shotwell spoke during a Crew-1 post-launch press conference on November 15th. (NASA)


Specifically, Shotwell revealed that SpaceX intends to build three reusable Cargo Dragon 2 capsules, one of which is already completed and in Florida preparing for its December 2nd CRS-21 launch debut. On the crew side of things, SpaceX will build “three more” Crew Dragon capsules on top of the flight-proven Demo-2 and currently orbital Crew-1 capsules. It’s unclear if this means that the new Crew Dragon capsule flown on SpaceX’s January 2020 In-Flight Abort (IFA) test will be refurbished for additional flights.

Excluding IFA Crew Dragon capsule C205, SpaceX thus intends to operate a fleet of at least three Cargo Dragon 2 and five Crew Dragon capsules, representing eight reusable spacecraft each capable of at least five orbital missions.

(NASA)Crew-1 Dragon capsule C207 safely arrived at the ISS on November 16th and is expected to return to Earth sometime in April or May 2021. (Sergey Kud-Sverchkov)


Reiterated by both Shotwell and director Benji Reed, the company has plans for as many as eight or more Dragon missions – including Crew-1, launched on November 15th – between now and February 2022.

“Over the next 15 months, we will fly seven Crew and Cargo Dragon missions for NASA. That means that starting with Crew-1, there will be a continuous presence of SpaceX Dragons on orbit. Starting with the cargo mission CRS-21, every time we launch a Dragon, there will be two Dragons in space – simultaneously – for extended periods of time. Truly, we are returning the United States’ capability for full launch services and we are very, very honored to be a part of that.”

Benji Reed, SpaceX –November 10th, 2020

After mirroring Reed’s seven-flight estimate for the next year or so, Shotwell later added that she had been hedging by adding a fully private Crew Dragon mission recently announced by Axiom Space and scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) late 2021. She also hinted at the possibility of “some other fun missions which I’ll chat about later.” All told, SpaceX appears to be gearing up for an incredibly busy year and a half of three NASA Crew Dragon missions, four uncrewed Cargo Dragon launches, and even one private astronaut launch.

Indeed, official NASA planning documents confirm plans for eight Crew and Cargo Dragon launches – including Crew-1 – between November 2020 and March 2022. In other words, even excluding the possibility of Axiom’s first private Dragon launch in November or December 2021, SpaceX is already tracking towards an average of one Dragon launch every two months (or less) for the next 16 months.

Crew Dragon Demo-2 capsule C206 was recovered on August 2nd, 2020. (NASA)


To complete that extremely ambitious manifest, SpaceX and NASA will have to lean more heavily than ever before on Falcon 9 and Dragon reusability, putting to the test whether upgraded Dragon 2 capsules are dramatically more reusable than their Dragon 1 predecessors. For reference, SpaceX’s Dragon 1 capsule turnaround record was just shy of 15 months between orbital launches. To complete five CRS2 cargo launches and three or four Crew Dragon launches in 16 months, SpaceX will have to break its orbital spacecraft turnaround record at least twice, if not three or four times.

The sooty booster at the top of this photo is likely B1058, preparing to launch CRS-21 from Pad 39A just 17 days after Crew-1 (center) lifted off. (SpaceX)


SpaceX’s next NASA astronaut launch (Crew-2) is already scheduled to crush that Dragon reuse record by as many as five months (~33%) when it launches in March 2021 – marking Demo-2 capsule C206’s second orbital mission. Meanwhile, Cargo Dragon 2’s CRS-21 launch debut is expected to fly on Falcon 9 booster B1058, making it NASA’s first orbital launch on a twice-flown and thrice-flown booster.

 

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Space Travel + Astronomy

From the best places to see the northern lights to advancements toward space tourism, Travel + Leisure has the latest news for those with their eye on the sky.

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Meet the People Who Paid $55 Million Each to Fly to the International Space Station

It's the dawn of a new era in human spaceflight — one where pretty much anyone with deep enough pockets can fly to space. Private company Axiom Space has announced its first all-commercial astronaut crew, which is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) for an eight-day mission early next year.

The three paying customers — each of whom shelled out $55 million for the trip — are American investor Larry Connor, who will serve as pilot, Canadian investor Mark Pathy, and Israeli investor Eytan Stibbe. The three will fly under the command of former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, now a vice president at Axiom Space and veteran of four spaceflights.

López-Alegría will oversee the crew's intense training program, which will be comparable to that of professional astronauts. Once the crew reaches space, it won't be all about doing backflips in zero-gravity; each private astronaut will perform scientific research and experiments during the mission (though we're sure there will be time for a few backflips, too.)

"We sought to put together a crew for this historic mission that had demonstrated a lifelong commitment to improving the lives of the people on Earth, and I'm glad to say we've done that with this group," Michael Suffredini, Axiom Space president and CEO, said in a statement. "This is just the first of several Axiom Space crews whose private missions to the International Space Station will truly inaugurate an expansive future for humans in space — and make a meaningful difference in the world when they return home."

The Axiom Space crew won't actually be the first private citizens in space; in fact, seven others have flown to the ISS in the past as commercial astronauts, otherwise known as "space tourists." But they've always been accompanied by a crew of professional astronauts or cosmonauts, and they've always flown on a government spacecraft. (All seven launched on Russia's Soyuz system.) The Axiom crew, however, is the very first all-private crew, and they'll be flying commercial, too. They'll be hitching a ride in SpaceX's Crew Dragon, which became the first private spacecraft to successfully bring astronauts to the ISS and back to Earth in 2020.

Before SpaceX's monumental achievement, crewed flights had been monopolized by government agencies, namely NASA and Russia's Roscosmos, in conjunction with other international partners. But these agencies are now opening up the skies to commercial opportunities, paving the way for the private space tourism industry to flourish.

Axiom plans on flying up to two missions to the ISS each year, starting with this Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) in 2022. In 2024, it'll attach its own modules to the orbiting laboratory, with the hope of eventually building its own space station for both government and private missions. So, that dream you've had of taking a trip to space? Well, it's on its way to becoming a reality.

 

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SpaceX was 3 Crew Dragon customers each with their own assigned capsules (4 currently active):
1. NASA (Endurance, Freedom)
2. Axiom (Endeavor)
3. Jared Isaacman (Resilience)

SpaceX training begins this month for first commercial spacewalk mission – Spaceflight Now

spaceflightnow.com

SpaceX training begins this month for first commercial spacewalk mission​

Artist’s concept of a crew member performing a spacewalk outside of a Crew Dragon spacecraft. Credit: SpaceX / Polaris Program

The four-person crew who will fly on the all-private Polaris Dawn mission — set to include the first commercial spacewalk and the debut of SpaceX’s extravehicular spacesuit — will begin training this month for their ride on a Dragon spacecraft to an altitude more than three times higher than the International Space Station.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman and pilot commanding the Polaris Dawn mission, said in a recent interview that the crew would begin training after SpaceX completed a busy stretch of crew rotations to and from the space station.

SpaceX launched a Dragon flight with four commercial astronauts to the space station April 8. That mission, flown for the Houston company Axiom Space, returned to Earth April 25. A NASA crew mission launched on a SpaceX Dragon capsule April 27 to begin a four-and-a-half month expedition on the station, followed by the return of an outgoing crew on a different Dragon spacecraft May 6.

The four-week campaign was the busiest stretch of operations for SpaceX’s human spaceflight program. Less than two years have elapsed since the company’s first crew mission for NASA.

With those missions accomplished, Isaacman tweeted Sunday that the Polaris Dawn crew will begin training later this month for their pioneering flight, which aims to reach farther from Earth than humans have flown since the last Apollo moon mission in 1972.

In an interview last month, Isaacman revealed new details about the Polaris Dawn mission, the first of three flights he has booked with SpaceX, culminating in a mission aboard the company’s huge next-generation Starship rocket. Isaacman and SpaceX announced the three-flight Polaris Program in February.

Details about the second and third Polaris missions — on a Dragon spacecraft and on SpaceX’s Starship, respectively — have not been released.

The Polaris Dawn mission is scheduled for launch no earlier than November.

Isaacman will be joined on the Polaris Dawn mission by Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a veteran fighter pilot and retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Two SpaceX employees, Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon, will also fly to orbit on Polaris Dawn.

Gillis and Menon supported the recent Axiom and NASA crew missions as part of SpaceX’s ground team. With those jobs now complete, the four Polaris Dawn crew members are available to begin their “jammed” training schedule, Isaacman said.

SpaceX is developing a new spacesuit designed to protect crew members on spacewalks. Isaacman’s crew will be the first to test the new suit on an excursion outside the Dragon spacecraft.

The design and appearance of the suit haven’t been revealed by SpaceX. The suit is an upgrade of the custom-fitted pressure garments worn by astronauts during launch and re-entry inside the Dragon spacecraft. Those suits would pressurize to keep the crew alive in the event of an emergency.

Isaacman said there are changes in materials on the upgraded suit to better shield astronauts from micrometeoroids and orbital debris — tiny space rocks or space junk fragments that could strike a crew member while they are outside the spacecraft on a spacewalk.

The new suit will look more like SpaceX’s in-cabin pressure suits than the NASA’s older, bulky spacesuits used for excursions outside the International Space Station, Isaacman said.

“You’re adding lots of redundancies in the suit that don’t exist today, since it’s more last line of defense,” Isaacman said, referring to the differences between SpaceX’s current suit and the new extravehicular spacesuit. “You have a new visor, new seals, then mobility, joints everywhere for increased mobility and dexterity in the fingers and such. I think, visually, it will be more along the lines of what it currently looks like, but very much like a new suit.”

The Polaris Dawn mission patch. Credit: Polaris Program / John Kraus

Isaacman said the crew will wear the new suit during launch and re-entry because there’s not enough room inside the capsule to carry the suit and change into it once in space. Two of the Polaris Dawn crew members will actually head outside for the spacewalk — also known as an EVA, or extravehicular activity.

SpaceX’s new spacesuit will be the first fresh U.S. design capable of a spacewalk since the current generation of NASA suits debuted in the 1980s, early in the space shuttle program.

NASA is in the final stages of selecting a company to develop and provide spacesuits for the agency’s Artemis missions to the moon. SpaceX’s suit may be a candidate for the contract.

The Polaris Dawn crew members know the details of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, so much of the training will focus on preparing for the spacewalk — the first EVA to be performed by non-government astronauts or cosmonauts.

Like NASA’s spacewalk training, preparations for the Polaris Dawn mission will include practice runs underwater, allowing the crew to get a feel for how the suit handles without the pull of gravity, Isaacman told Spaceflight Now last month.

SpaceX is also adding suspension rigs to the company’s training facility in Hawthorne, California.

“We can work inside the Dragon simulator and kind of practice the egress, where the mobility aids are, and such,” Isaacman said. “So it’ll be combination of Hawthorne and some actual underwater training.”

Isaacman, 39, founded Shift4 Payments, an online payment application, and has a net worth of $1.3 billion, according to Forbes.

Besides the spacewalk, the Polaris Dawn crew will test a laser communications system to link up with SpaceX’s Starlink internet network. The mission will also collect data on the radiation environment in the Dragon spacecraft’s orbit, which will reach into the lower segments of the Van Allen radiation belts.

Anna Menon, Scott Poteet, Jared Isaacman, and Sarah Gilles pose with prototypes of Starship vehicles in South Texas. The four will fly into orbit on the Polaris Dawn mission. Credit: Polaris Program / John Kraus

Isaacman commanded the Inspiration4 mission last September, the first all-private crew mission to low Earth orbit. Isaacman and his three private citizen crewmates spent three days in orbit on SpaceX’s Dragon Resilience spacecraft, performing experiments and supporting fundraising efforts for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Like Inspiration 4, the Polaris Dawn mission will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Polaris Dawn will spend up to five days in orbit, Isaacman said.

Isaacman will likely fly again on the Dragon Resilience spacecraft, one of four crew capsules in SpaceX’s fleet.

“It’s a very high probability it will be Resilience,” he said.

SpaceX will remove the cupola viewing window added to the nose of the Dragon Resilience spacecraft for the Inspiration4 mission.

“You’re going to switch that back to basically a docking mechanism because that’s going to be going hatch for egress and ingress during the EVA,” Isaacman said.

The Polaris Dawn mission will likely target a peak altitude of about 870 miles (1,400 kilometers), higher than NASA’s Gemini 11 mission crewed by commander Pete Conrad and pilot Dick Gordon in 1966, which set the altitude record for an astronaut flight in Earth orbit at 853 miles (1,372 kilometers), according to NASA.

“There’s very little reason to go much higher than 1,400 kilometers,” Isaacman said. “You’re just dramatically increasing radiation (exposure), and you probably won’t learn a whole bunch more from it. We’re already anticpating getting a lot of really good data after just a couple of laps at a 1,400-kilometer orbit. I don’t expect to go much farther than that.”

“We’re talking about adding a lot of cameras because it’s going to be a highly elliptical orbit,” he said. “If you just assume it’s 1,400 (kilometers), it’ll be like 190-by-1400. If you can get some good footage of that and just compress it, you’re going to have the Earth shrinking and increasing in size. I think it’ll be pretty cool.”

The Dragon capsule will fire Draco thrusters to lower its altitude in before the spacewalk.

The spacecraft doesn’t have an airlock, so the spacewalk will require the entire capsule be depressurized in space. The crew members will float out of the hatch and remain tethered to the spaceship at an altitude of approximately 300 miles, or 500 kilometers, according to Polaris Program website.

“It will still be a pretty high EVA compared to anything in recent times,” Isaacman said.

 

[jamahir]

The spacecraft doesn’t have an airlock, so the spacewalk will require the entire capsule be depressurized in space. The crew members will float out of the hatch and remain tethered to the spaceship at an altitude of approximately 300 miles, or 500 kilometers, according to Polaris Program website.

Wow !

In an interview last month, Isaacman revealed new details about the Polaris Dawn mission, the first of three flights he has booked with SpaceX, culminating in a mission aboard the company’s huge next-generation Starship rocket. Isaacman and SpaceX announced the three-flight Polaris Program in February.

Nice !

 

[nope]

as far I can see no comes close to space X