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More quickly than anyone expected, NASA embraces reuse for human flights:
Weather permitting, SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday. Forecasters are closely watching conditions due to Hurricane Isaias but are hopeful the mission will find calm seas and light winds offshore from the Florida Panhandle.
[...] Although the company's next human spaceflight, Crew-1, will launch no earlier than late September on a new Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft, that will not be the case for the subsequent mission. This Crew-2 flight, due to launch no earlier than spring 2021, will reuse the Falcon 9 first stage from the Crew-1 mission, and the Dragon capsule is expected to splash down this weekend.
[...] The reuse of rockets and spacecraft always seemed like it would be part of SpaceX and NASA's extended plans for human spaceflights, but few anticipated it happening so quickly. NASA's original commercial crew contract with SpaceX called for the first six operational missions to each use new Dragons.
However, a contract modification signed in May allowed SpaceX to introduce reuse much more quickly. In exchange for extending the Demo-2 test flight—carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken—from two weeks to up to 119 days, SpaceX got permission to reuse spacecraft instead of building new ones. This extension allowed Behnken to participate in four spacewalks in recent weeks, swapping out battery packs on the exterior of the orbiting laboratory.
The move toward reuse was supported by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "From my perspective, what we're really looking for in all of our missions is sustainability," he said.
(Score: 4, Informative) by esperto123 on Sunday August 02 2020, @12:34PM (2 children)
You do have a point, shuttles were reusable as were the SRBs, they basically only got rid of the external fuel tank, but they required extensive overhaul after every flight and were a far cry from the quick turn around promised.
In spaceX's case at the beginning of Dragon's development NASA was very afraid of using its reusable rockets for manned missions and said this wouldn't happen anytime soon and now are saying they will be using for the third mission, which is very soon and the rocket can basically land and be ready to fly again in a matter of days...
To be fair to NASA's change of heart, dragon was supposed to have its first manned flight quite a long time ago and at the beginning of development Falcon9 re-usability was new and unproven, now with, if I recall correctly, almost 60 launches without major issues, I think it is comfortable for them to starting using it.
(Score: 2) by esperto123 on Sunday August 02 2020, @12:36PM (1 child)
I think I made a mistake, they will be re-using the capsule, not the rocket.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 02 2020, @01:12PM
It looks like they will also reuse the rocket (booster) on the third crewed mission (Crew-2 [wikipedia.org]). Source [teslarati.com].
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