Safety Panel Warns NASA Over Commercial Launchers
An independent review says the safety of commercial launch vehicles must be assessed.
Brittany Sauser 01/20/2010
- 7 Comments
In the next couple weeks the Obama administration will make a decision on the future of U.S. human spaceflight. Now, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), an independent panel that has been evaluating NASA's safety performance and advising the agency since 1968, has published its annual report, which questions the safety of using commercial launch vehicles to put astronauts in space.
In 2009, an independent committee, the Augustine Panel, was commissioned to review the current U.S. human spaceflight program and to provide recommendations to the administration. The panel's final report implied that NASA should abandon its new rocket, Ares I, which is being built to ferry astronauts into orbit after the space shuttles retire. Instead, the panel said NASA should rely on the commercial sector to carry both crew and cargo into low Earth orbit.
ASAP states that NASA's program for the development of commercial systems, called Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS), is absent of a human-rating process. So far, the agency has only awarded contracts to two companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, for the development of systems to carry cargo. ASAP is also concerned about NASA's lack of assessing the safety of these systems.
According to the ASAP report, "switching from a well-designed, safety-optimized system to commercially-developed vehicles based on nothing more than unsubstantiated claims would seem a poor choice. Before any change is made to another architecture, the inherent safety of that approach must be assessed to ensure that it offers a level of safety equal to or greater than the program of record."
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rudnric
4 Comments
Remember Morton Thiokol
Well,
And NASA still insists it knows best. It seems they can be their own worst enemy. Like when they said the SRB's were safe to use...
.." It later emerged in the aftermath of the accident that NASA managers frequently evaded safety regulations to maintain the launch manifest (schedule)."
In the late 90's Rockwell Avionics pioneered a new way for military electronics to be designed. This "new way" was simply to ignore the military with their "mil-spec" requirements of every component and instead, to guarantee performance of the whole system. The result was a complete success, higher reliability AND lower costs!
NASA, obviously, needs to stop micro-managing how things are done, and simply specify performance and reliability for systems delivered to it from 3rd partys.
Oz
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webnix
1 Comment
Re: Remember Morton Thiokol
Wow! One unfortunate shuttle accident involving a solid rocket booster (SRB) and the old Thiokol churn begins again.. Wouldn't hurt to get your facts straight Rudnric! While COTS is valuable and should be a NASA pursuit, scrapping the billions invested in ARES I would be stupid! If we are going to go any further than LEO we need heavy lift capability. The proposed ARES V is the answer but where do you think ARES V development has been taking place? That's right! ARES I SRB development technology is directly transferrable to ARES V. Without ARES I, ARES V becomes more expensive. Since you're not the astronaut that will ride the light, you might want to ask them if they want to be the first to ride a COTS booster (Remember the first two Falcon I launch vehicles... poof!!) Since there have been no other SRB launch failures in the history of the shuttle program, and since the Defense Dept has launched hundreds of SRB ICBM's with complete success, the facts about the safety and reliabilty of SRB's is clear. If you are still a little hazy read on..
The ARES I SRM is safer as a first stage launch vehicle for many reasons. A few include:
1) Fewer moving parts- Other than the thrust vectoring the motor has no moving parts.
2) Safer handling- No liquid fuels. Ground handling is safer and inherent difficulties with liquid fueled motors such as high speed turbopumps, fuel pressurization, venting, and cooling are eliminated with a solid motor.
3) Although the early Challenger failure brought to light a design weakness in the early shuttle SRM, the engineers at Thiokol knew that launching Challenger on that fateful January day would exceed the design parameters for the O-rings. This information was given to Thiokol management prior to launch and could have avoided the disaster. Not wanting to be the cause of an expensive delay, Thiokol caved and authorized launch. Since the Challenger disaster, no additional mission failures can be attributed to the SRB.
4) Military ICBM variants of solid rocket motors have also proven safer, more reliable, and can stand on station for decades. The infrastructure to accomodate liquid fuels aboard a submarine or in a missle silo is eliminated.
Yes there are some disadvantages to solid motors.
1) The combustion process generates perclorates which are toxic.
2) Once they begin to burn, they can't be shut-off or throttled back. One exception is Burt Rutan's motor for SpaceShip One. Not designed for a heavy lift mission but a future application may be possible.
3) Higher vibration associated with SRM's.
The second stage liquid fueled motor for ARES makes sense because liquid motors have the advantage of being throttleable and can be stopped and restarted. As a first stage however, no liquid fueled rocket can compete with the safety and reliability of a SRM.
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