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NASA budget proposal targets SLS (Space Launch System)
The White House's fiscal year 2020 budget request for NASA proposes to delay work on an upgraded version of the Space Launch System and would transfer some of that vehicle's payloads to other rockets.
The proposal, released by the Office of Management and Budget March 11, offers a total of $21 billion for the space agency, a decrease of $500 million over what Congress appropriated in the final fiscal year 2019 spending bill signed into law Feb. 15.
A major element of the proposal is to defer work on the Block 1B version of the SLS, which would increase the rocket's performance by replacing its existing Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage with the more powerful Exploration Upper Stage. The budget "instead focuses the program on the completion of the initial version of the SLS and supporting a reliable SLS and Orion annual flight cadence," the OMB budget stated. The first SLS/Orion mission, without a crew, is now planned for the "early 2020s," according to the budget, an apparent slip from the planned 2020 launch of Exploration Mission 1.
NASA had previously planned to use the Block 1B version of SLS to launch elements of its lunar Gateway, using a "co-manifesting" capability enabled by the rocket's greater performance. Instead, according to the budget document, those components will be launched on "competitively procured vehicles, complementing crew transport flights on the SLS and Orion."
[...] The budget proposal would also remove one non-exploration payload from the SLS manifest. The proposal offers $600 million for the Europa Clipper mission, enabling a launch in 2023. However, NASA would instead seek to launch the mission on a commercial launch vehicle rather than SLS, a move it claims "would save over $700 million, allowing multiple new activities to be funded across the Agency." The fiscal year 2019 budget request also proposed a commercial launch of Europa Clipper, but Congress placed into law in the final funding bill the requirement to use SLS for that mission.
Are we nearing a good timeline?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @06:55PM (4 children)
While true, it still remains that NASA could pay for the modification to Dragon 2 on top of Starship and still pay orders of magnitude less than it would with the SLS approach. Second, with respect to NASA certification, you can be sure that the SLS won't have to (because it won't be able to) pass the same certification process.
I'll believe that when I see it. I don't buy those numbers at present. That's based on BFR having a mass fraction to LEO which I think may be impossible for a chemical propulsion system to achieve. We'll see.
You already outlined the division of functionality. Slap a booster on and you have the delta-v capability needed for the capsule. It's a solved problem. After all, we already have boosters (the orbital launch vehicles) that put the capsule into orbit in the first place. That's roughly 10 km/s of delta-v right there.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 14 2019, @08:45PM (3 children)
>...NASA pay for...SLS...
Sure, but why would they do that if the SpaceX Starship is already available, cheaper, and far more capable?
> Slap a booster on
Except it's not quite that simple - the booster will make the capsule far more cumbersome to maneuver precisely for docking. So the capsule would have to either detach from the booster for docking with the lunar orbital station, and then reconnect for the return to Earth orbit, or be modified (hardware or software) to be able to precisely maneuver despite a much greater mass and very different center of gravity.
Either could probably be done, but both likely involve considerable engineering and testing, and probably re-certification. On a capsule that SpaceX has already removed from its roadmap, and that won't have anywhere near the capability of its replacement.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:04PM (2 children)
Well, the Starship isn't yet already available for starters. But then again, it's a hell of a lot more available than the SLS.
Unless, of course, the booster isn't on the capsule at the time. You don't need to dock a capsule with fueled booster. Ever.
Has my vote. I doubt anyone will ever want a booster near the station.
Both which are already proven features of every manned space capsule out there. That is, they've already been engineered and tested before with some booster configuration (else they wouldn't get into space in the first place), and the parties involved in the design and construction of these vehicles already have experience with testing and certification for their appropriate country's space program.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:43PM (1 child)
Yes, they have experience with the testing and certification. That doesn't mean they want to go through it for something that doesn't serve their purposes. And a "Dragon 2-L" doesn't serve SpaceX's purposes.
Now, *if* a passenger Starship isn't looking to be available by the time they start sending people to LOP-G, perhaps NASA could offer enough incentive for SpaceX to take some of their engineers away from BFR development to work on a new Dragon revision, as a stopgap solution. But I suspect that would be a hard sell if the BFR/BFS were near fruition.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:04PM
A purpose like getting paid well by someone with deep pockets?
My point here is not to claim that NASA will launch everything on Dragon 2s, but rather that these problems aren't particularly difficult for any party that is already putting space capsules in orbit. Going back to my original point:
The supporters for the SLS are playing the same game that was played with the Space Shuttle and Constellation. They tout the capabilities of the vehicle. But that ignores two very important things. First, that the capabilities are unnecessary. We can work around all the problems of using smaller payload vehicles with modest effort and cost, and launch today. Second, there's the matter of cost. It doesn't matter how awesome your launch vehicle is, if you can't afford to use it. In addition to the huge delays, the SLS has a very low launch frequency (slower than anything except possibly the Delta IV). That means each launch, when it happens, will be very expensive.
That's why I'm outright against funding the SLS. It's a huge drain on NASA's resources and doesn't further any US interests. What it does do, and which may lead to it lingering around decades into the future, is distribute federal swag to the right zip codes.