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SpaceX Claims Crew Transfer Ability By 2011
If NASA decides by this summer to proceed with the development of crew transfer capability under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk says his company could be ready to conduct crew flights to the space station by early 2011.
NASA is funding SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. to develop cargo capability for the International Space Station (ISS) under COTS, but so far has held off on greenlighting the crew transfer portion of the program, known as "COTS D." Only SpaceX has been actively working on a COTS D concept, with Orbital focused exclusively on cargo at this point.
SpaceX's first cargo-only COTS demonstration is set for March 2010. The company's Falcon 9 vehicle will boost the Dragon spacecraft, which is designed to dock with the ISS.
(NOTE: the first cargo flight to ISS is scheduled for 2010, but 2 unmanned Dragon test flights are scheduled for early and mid 2009.)
Adding crew capability to the current Falcon/Dragon combination will only involve incremental changes, Musk said. "In fact it's a very small increment, and intentionally so," he said.
Both hardware elements already are designed to NASA's human rating standards, and the Dragon already has windows designed into it, Musk pointed out. "You don't really need windows for cargo," he said during a May 14 luncheon in Washington sponsored by the Space Foundation.
Life support is a requirement even for the cargo-only version, Musk said, because of "biological cargo" such as lab mice that must be taken up. The only significant development item for adding crew capability is the escape rocket. Most of the effort and expense would go into abort testing on the ground and at high altitude.
Musk acknowledged that many are skeptical of SpaceX's ability to carry out COTS D, and many of those skeptics are lawmakers. While he concedes that there could be delays, "I don't think it's a question of if COTS-D will work. It's a question of when it will work," he said.
NASA already has committed itself to relying on COTS as the primary means of cargo transport to the ISS after the space shuttle retires in 2010, and recently awarded SpaceX a contract potentially worth up to $1 billion for flights through 2012 (Aerospace DAILY, April 23). Nonetheless, some have questioned Administrator Michael Griffin's willingness to accelerate COTS D. Musk said that Griffin is a believer, but that accelerating NASA's Ares/Orion system is higher on his priority list.
Some lawmakers have prodded Griffin to move up COTS D as a means of reducing the expected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the shuttle's retirement and the scheduled 2015 debut of NASA's Orion spacecraft. NASA is studying the possibility of accelerating the effort (Aerospace DAILY, April 4). Musk said his company represents the "only possibility of there not being a gap," provided COTS D is approved.
NASA expects to keep purchasing seats on Russian Soyuz vehicles for crew transfer during the gap. Musk said NASA pays about $30 million per seat on the three-seat Soyuz now, but would pay about half that per-seat amount on the seven-seat Dragon spacecraft.
SpaceX's current landing scheme for astronauts returning home aboard the Dragon is a splashdown off the coast of California. A high-speed catamaran should be able to retrieve the crew within 30 minutes, Musk said.
The Falcon 9, which is gearing up for a first flight next year, is an Atlas V/Delta IV-class derivative of SpaceX's smaller Falcon 1, which has had two test flights but has yet to reach orbit successfully. (NOTE: orbit wasn't in the tests mission plan) The third flight for the Falcon 1, which will carry an Air Force payload, is expected in the last week of June from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
If NASA decides by this summer to proceed with the development of crew transfer capability under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk says his company could be ready to conduct crew flights to the space station by early 2011.
NASA is funding SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp. to develop cargo capability for the International Space Station (ISS) under COTS, but so far has held off on greenlighting the crew transfer portion of the program, known as "COTS D." Only SpaceX has been actively working on a COTS D concept, with Orbital focused exclusively on cargo at this point.
SpaceX's first cargo-only COTS demonstration is set for March 2010. The company's Falcon 9 vehicle will boost the Dragon spacecraft, which is designed to dock with the ISS.
(NOTE: the first cargo flight to ISS is scheduled for 2010, but 2 unmanned Dragon test flights are scheduled for early and mid 2009.)
Adding crew capability to the current Falcon/Dragon combination will only involve incremental changes, Musk said. "In fact it's a very small increment, and intentionally so," he said.
Both hardware elements already are designed to NASA's human rating standards, and the Dragon already has windows designed into it, Musk pointed out. "You don't really need windows for cargo," he said during a May 14 luncheon in Washington sponsored by the Space Foundation.
Life support is a requirement even for the cargo-only version, Musk said, because of "biological cargo" such as lab mice that must be taken up. The only significant development item for adding crew capability is the escape rocket. Most of the effort and expense would go into abort testing on the ground and at high altitude.
Musk acknowledged that many are skeptical of SpaceX's ability to carry out COTS D, and many of those skeptics are lawmakers. While he concedes that there could be delays, "I don't think it's a question of if COTS-D will work. It's a question of when it will work," he said.
NASA already has committed itself to relying on COTS as the primary means of cargo transport to the ISS after the space shuttle retires in 2010, and recently awarded SpaceX a contract potentially worth up to $1 billion for flights through 2012 (Aerospace DAILY, April 23). Nonetheless, some have questioned Administrator Michael Griffin's willingness to accelerate COTS D. Musk said that Griffin is a believer, but that accelerating NASA's Ares/Orion system is higher on his priority list.
Some lawmakers have prodded Griffin to move up COTS D as a means of reducing the expected gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability between the shuttle's retirement and the scheduled 2015 debut of NASA's Orion spacecraft. NASA is studying the possibility of accelerating the effort (Aerospace DAILY, April 4). Musk said his company represents the "only possibility of there not being a gap," provided COTS D is approved.
NASA expects to keep purchasing seats on Russian Soyuz vehicles for crew transfer during the gap. Musk said NASA pays about $30 million per seat on the three-seat Soyuz now, but would pay about half that per-seat amount on the seven-seat Dragon spacecraft.
SpaceX's current landing scheme for astronauts returning home aboard the Dragon is a splashdown off the coast of California. A high-speed catamaran should be able to retrieve the crew within 30 minutes, Musk said.
The Falcon 9, which is gearing up for a first flight next year, is an Atlas V/Delta IV-class derivative of SpaceX's smaller Falcon 1, which has had two test flights but has yet to reach orbit successfully. (NOTE: orbit wasn't in the tests mission plan) The third flight for the Falcon 1, which will carry an Air Force payload, is expected in the last week of June from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.