Commercial Crew Program and Considerations for Composites Reusability
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Christine Mills↗
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Commercial Crew Program (CCP) Post-flight Reference Radiation Environments
The Nowcast of Aerospace Ionizing RAdiation System (NAIRAS) model version 3 is a coupled physics-based model that transports ionizing radiation through the heliosphere, Earth’s magnetosphere, the neutral atmosphere, and aircraft and spacecraft shielding. Ionizing radiation sources included in the model are: 1) galactic cosmic rays, 2) solar energetic particles including protons and heavy ions, and 3) the inner radiation belt trapped protons and electrons. NAIRAS predicts dosimetric quantities and differential and integral flux and fluence quantities for assessing human radiation exposure and single event effects in vehicle electronic systems from the Earth’s surface to the space environment.
Christopher J Mertens↗
Commercial Crew Development Program Overview
NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program is designed to stimulate efforts within the private sector that will aid in the development and demonstration of safe, reliable, and cost-effective space transportation capabilities. With the goal of delivery cargo and eventually crew to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS) the program is designed to foster the development of new spacecraft and launch vehicles in the commercial sector. Through Space Act Agreements (SAAs) in 2011 NASA provided $50M of funding to four partners; Blue Origin, The Boeing Company, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX. Additional, NASA has signed two unfunded SAAs with ATK and United Space Alliance. This paper will give a brief summary of these SAAs. Additionally, a brief overview will be provided of the released version of the Commercial Crew Development Program plans and requirements documents.
Russell, Richard W.↗
Transition in the Human Exploration of Space at NASA
NASA is taking the next step in human exploration, beyond low Earth orbit. We have been going to low Earth orbit for the past 50 years and are using this experience to work with commercial companies to perform this function. This will free NASA resources to develop the systems necessary to travel to a Near Earth Asteroid, the Moon, Lagrange Points, and eventually Mars. At KSC, we are positioning ourselves to become a multi-user launch complex and everything we are working on is bringing us closer to achieving this goal. A vibrant multi-use spaceport is to the 21st Century what the airport was to the 20th Century - an invaluable transportation hub that supports government needs while promoting economic development and commercial markets beyond Earth's atmosphere. This past year saw the end of Shuttle, but the announcements of NASA's crew module, Orion, and heavy-lift rocket, the SLS, as well as the establishment of the Commercial Crew Program. We have a busy, but very bright future ahead of us and KSC is looking forward to playing an integral part in the next era of human space exploration. The future is SLS, 21st Century Ground Systems Program, and the Commercial Crew Program; and the future is here.
Koch, Carla A.↗
Simulation Development and Analysis of Crew Vehicle Ascent Abort
NASA's Commercial Crew Program is an integral step in its journey to Mars as it would expedite development of space technologies and open up partnership with U.S. commercial companies. NASA reviews and independent assessment of Commercial Crew Program is fundamental to its success, and being able to model a commercial crew vehicle in a simulation rather than conduct a live test would be a safer, faster, and less expensive way to assess and certify the capabilities of the vehicle. To this end, my project was to determine the feasibility of using a simulation tool named SOMBAT version 2.0 to model a multiple parachute system for Commercial Crew Program simulation. The main tasks assigned to me were to debug and test the main parachute system model, (capable of simulating one to four main parachute bodies), and to utilize a graphical program to animate the simulation results. To begin tackling the first task, I learned how to use SOMBAT by familiarizing myself with its mechanics and by understanding the methods used to tweak its various parameters and outputs. I then used this new knowledge to set up, run, and analyze many different situations within SOMBAT in order to explore the limitations of the parachute model. Some examples of parameters that I varied include the initial velocity and orientation of the falling capsule, the number of main parachutes, and the location where the parachutes were attached to the capsule. Each parameter changed would give a different output, and in some cases, would expose a bug or limitation in the model. A major bug that I discovered was the inability of the model to handle any number of parachutes other than three. I spent quite some time trying to debug the code logically, but was unable to figure it out until my mentor taught me that digital simulation limitations can occur when some approximations are mistakenly assumed for certain in a physical system. This led me to the realization that unlike in all of the programming classes I have taken thus far that focus on pure logic, simulation code focuses on mimicking the physical world with some approximation and can have inaccuracies or numerical instabilities. Learning from my mistake, I adopted new methods to analyze these different simulations. One method the student used was to numerically plot various physical parameters using MATLAB to confirm the mechanical behavior of the system in addition to comparing the data to the output from a separate simulation tool called FAST. By having full control over what was being outputted from the simulation, I could choose which parameters to change and to plot as well as how to plot them, allowing for an in depth analysis of the data. Another method of analysis was to convert the output data into a graphical animation. Unlike the numerical plots, where all of the physical components were displayed separately, this graphical display allows for a combined look at the simulation output that makes it much easier for one to see the physical behavior of the model. The process for converting SOMBAT output for EDGE graphical display had to be developed. With some guidance from other EDGE users, I developed a process and created a script that would easily allow one to display simulations graphically. Another limitation with the SOMBAT model was the inability for the capsule to have the main parachutes instantly deployed with a large angle between the air speed vector and the chutes drag vector. To explore this problem, I had to learn about different coordinate frames used in Guidance, Navigation & Control (J2000, ECEF, ENU, etc.) to describe the motion of a vehicle and about Euler angles (e.g. Roll, Pitch, Yaw) to describe the orientation of the vehicle. With a thorough explanation from my mentor about the description of each coordinate frame, as well as how to use a directional cosine matrix to transform one frame to another, I investigated the problem by simulating different capsule orientations. In the end, I was able to show that this limitation could be avoided if the capsule is initially oriented antiparallel to its velocity vector.
Wong, Chi S.↗
The Tools That Help Systems Engineering
There are many tools that systems engineers use in today's space programs. In my time in the Commercial Crew Program I sought to improve one of the vital tools for the verification and validation team. This was my main project but only a small part of what I have done in the department. I have also had the chance to learn from the best and see actual hardware, this real world experience will help me be a better aerospace engineer when I enter the workforce. I look forward to seeing the Commercial Crew Program progress to launch.
Gamertsfelder, Jacob O.↗
Catalyst for Expanding Human Spaceflight
History supplies us with many models of how and how not to commercialize an industry. This presentation draws parallels between industries with government roots, like the railroad, air transport, communications and the internet, and NASAs Commercial Crew Program. In these examples, government served as a catalyst for what became a booming industry. The building block approach the Commercial Crew Program is taking is very simple -- establish a need, laying the groundwork, enabling industry and legal framework.
Industry catalyst↗
ISS Crew Transportation and Services Requirements Document
Under the guidance of processes provided by Crew Transportation Plan (CCT-PLN-1100), this document with its sister documents, Crew Transportation Technical Management Processes (CCT-PLN-1120), Crew Transportation Technical Standards and Design Evaluation Criteria (CCT-STD-1140), and Crew Transportation Operations Standards (CCT-STD-1150), and International Space Station (ISS) to Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Interface Requirements Document (SSP 50808), provides the basis for a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) certification for services to the ISS for the Commercial Provider. When NASA Crew Transportation System (CTS) certification is achieved for ISS transportation, the Commercial Provider will be eligible to provide services to and from the ISS during the services phase of the NASA Commercial Crew Program (CCP).
Commercial Crew Program↗
NASA Support for Commercial Crew Launch Capabilities
Since the earliest days of U.S. human spaceflight, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, has played a key role in American crew launch capability, from engineering support for the first Mercury-Redstone launches, to the Saturn launches to the Moon, through Shuttle and now Artemis. Today, Marshall brings that expertise gained through decades of crewed space launches to NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), providing launch vehicle engineering and programmatic support. The team’s responsibilities have included human certification of commercial launch systems for the CCP missions, including Atlas V and Falcon 9, and verifying each launch vehicle complies with flight certification. MSFC provides expertise in nearly all aspects of launch vehicle design and performance including solid motors and liquid engines, stage propulsion, thrust vector control, structural and dynamics, safety and mission assurance. During each commercial crew launch, an engineering support team is on console at Marshall’s Huntsville Operations Support Center, which has provided launch operations support since Apollo, providing real-time oversight to safety standards for the vehicle and verifying data. Launch vehicle support for Commercial Crew has come as a paradigm shift for the MSFC team, inspiring new approaches that leverage expertise and best practices from past NASA-developed launch vehicle missions, while at the same time providing new synergies from work with commercial partners on CCP. This paper will explore the role that the Marshall launch vehicle services team plays in the Commercial Crew Program, as well as lessons learned from the program that will continue to benefit a new era of spaceflight partnerships.
Commercial Crew↗
Operating a Crewed Spacecraft in the Age of Commercial Space Using Private/Government Partnership
Fifty years after humans completed a large-scale United States government-funded and government-engineered effort of landing humans on the moon, human spaceflight has entered a new paradigm. Private companies are now investing their own money and taking on an ever-increasing role in human spaceflight, in partnership with the U.S. government. This paper will describe the development of one of these partnerships through the lens of its mission operations team. As part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), NASA selected Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner as one of the next generation of crewed vehicles. Boeing opted to partner with the US Government for their Starliner operations by contracting with NASA’s Mission Control teams in the Flight Operations Directorate (FOD) at the Johnson Space Center to create its own Mission Operations (MO) flight controllers. Partnering with FOD provided benefits to both Boeing and NASA while also creating new challenges. MO brought over 60 years of crewed spaceflight experience and infrastructure to Boeing’s new program. Within certain legal constraints, MO was able to work closely and efficiently with their FOD counterparts who were performing both integration duties and, under the auspices of the CCP, insight of the contractors, in this case Boeing. Involvement of NASA as the Boeing operations agent did lead to what management deemed a ‘healthy tension’ within FOD, challenging old processes and often creating better, more robust teamwork. Successful development of the framework and boundaries of both the legal aspects and the oversight tensions has been one of the keys to developing a successful corporate/government partnership. Due to the highly automated nature of the Starliner, the MO organization was designed to be much smaller than previous NASA’s flight control teams for past programs. NASA has learned through the decades that spacecraft design and operations need to be as flexible and forgiving as possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program was established to sponsor corporate development of economical vehicles that could get humans to and from low Earth orbit. These companies, of course, need to meet contractual obligations in providing a safe means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), but also need to do so in a manner that leads to the venture resulting in a profit at the same time. Through MO’s involvement in the development of this spaceflight paradigm shift, there are ample lessons to be conveyed to future teams and programs working to develop similar missions.
Robert C Dempsey↗
Operating a Crewed Spacecraft in the Age of Commercial Space Using Private/Government Partnership
Fifty years after humans completed a large-scale United States government-funded and government-engineered effort of landing humans on the moon, human spaceflight has entered a new paradigm. Private companies are now investing their own money and taking on an ever-increasing role in human spaceflight, in partnership with the U.S. government. This paper will describe the development of one of these partnerships through the lens of its mission operations team. As part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), NASA selected Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner as one of the next generation of crewed vehicles. Boeing opted to partner with the US Government for their Starliner operations by contracting with NASA’s Mission Control teams in the Flight Operations Directorate (FOD) at the Johnson Space Center to create its own Mission Operations (MO) flight controllers. Partnering with FOD provided benefits to both Boeing and NASA while also creating new challenges. MO brought over 60 years of crewed spaceflight experience and infrastructure to Boeing’s new program. Within certain legal constraints, MO was able to work closely and efficiently with their FOD counterparts who were performing both integration duties and, under the auspices of the CCP, insight of the contractors, in this case Boeing. Involvement of NASA as the Boeing operations agent did lead to what management deemed a ‘healthy tension’ within FOD, challenging old processes and often creating better, more robust teamwork. Successful development of the framework and boundaries of both the legal aspects and the oversight tensions has been one of the keys to developing a successful corporate/government partnership. Due to the highly automated nature of the Starliner, the MO organization was designed to be much smaller than previous NASA’s flight control teams for past programs. NASA has learned through the decades that spacecraft design and operations need to be as flexible and forgiving as possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program was established to sponsor corporate development of economical vehicles that could get humans to and from low Earth orbit. These companies, of course, need to meet contractual obligations in providing a safe means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), but also need to do so in a manner that leads to the venture resulting in a profit at the same time. Through MO’s involvement in the development of this spaceflight paradigm shift, there are ample lessons to be conveyed to future teams and programs working to develop similar missions.
Robert C. Dempsey↗
Operating a Crewed Spacecraft in the Age of Commercial Space Using Private/Government Partnership
Fifty years after humans completed a large-scale United States government-funded and government-engineered effort of landing humans on the moon, human spaceflight has entered a new paradigm. Private companies are now investing their own money and taking on an ever-increasing role in human spaceflight, in partnership with the U.S. government. This paper will describe the development of one of these partnerships through the lens of its mission operations team. As part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), NASA selected Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner as one of the next generation of crewed vehicles. Boeing opted to partner with the US Government for their Starliner operations by contracting with NASA’s Mission Control teams in the Flight Operations Directorate (FOD) at the Johnson Space Center to create its own Mission Operations (MO) flight controllers. Partnering with FOD provided benefits to both Boeing and NASA while also creating new challenges. MO brought over 60 years of crewed spaceflight experience and infrastructure to Boeing’s new program. Within certain legal constraints, MO was able to work closely and efficiently with their FOD counterparts who were performing both integration duties and, under the auspices of the CCP, insight of the contractors, in this case Boeing. Involvement of NASA as the Boeing operations agent did lead to what management deemed a ‘healthy tension’ within FOD, challenging old processes and often creating better, more robust teamwork. Successful development of the framework and boundaries of both the legal aspects and the oversight tensions has been one of the keys to developing a successful corporate/government partnership. Due to the highly automated nature of the Starliner, the MO organization was designed to be much smaller than previous NASA’s flight control teams for past programs. NASA has learned through the decades that spacecraft design and operations need to be as flexible and forgiving as possible. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program was established to sponsor corporate development of economical vehicles that could get humans to and from low Earth orbit. These companies, of course, need to meet contractual obligations in providing a safe means of transporting astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), but also need to do so in a manner that leads to the venture resulting in a profit at the same time. Through MO’s involvement in the development of this spaceflight paradigm shift, there are ample lessons to be conveyed to future teams and programs working to develop similar missions.
Robert C. Dempsey↗
NASA Centrifuge Training Program for Commercial Crew Missions: Summary of Observations
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Craig Murphy↗
3D Stereo Immersive Environment Utilizing Mobile Devices / Peripherals
This project expands upon some of the FY23 IRAD funded "Full Lunar Surface Simulation Platform" (FLS-SP) derived technologies. The results have demonstrated a low-cost, compact, immersive technology that supports training, interaction, mission planning, and other man-in-loop activities in simulated environments called “3D Stereo Immersion Environment Utilizing Mobile Devices” (3D SIEUMD). These activities will become crucial for safety and mission, planning, and assurance in the Artemis program, as well as future commercial crew programs. The FLS-SP enabled the visualization of simulated lunar surface operations for rovers, landers, habitation, and EVA. The 3D SIEUMD technology allows for NASA S&MA experts, tasked with defining safety protocols and procedures, to interact in an immersive environment without expensive immersion gear. Reduction of the overall safety risk by immersing safety concepts into the design and engineering phase for very small cost is accomplished even before hardware is deployed to the lunar surface.
Scott Johnson↗
Overview of countdown and launch operations How the new commercial partnership model has changed the way we conduct human spaceflight
Commercial Crew Program Launch Operations Support
Launch Support↗
NASA’s Plans for Development of Standards for Additive Manufactured Components
There are currently no NASA standards providing specific design and construction requirements for certification of additively manufactured parts. Several international standards organizations are developing standards for additive manufacturing; however, NASA mission schedules preclude the Agency from relying on these organizations to develop standards that are both timely and applicable. NASA and its program partners in manned spaceflight (the Commercial Crew Program, the Space Launch System and the Orion Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle) are actively developing additively manufactured parts for flight as early as 2018. To bridge this gap, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has authored a center-level standard (MSFC-STD-3716)1 to establish standard practices for the Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) process. In its draft form, the MSFC standard has been used as a basis for L-PBF process implementation for each of the manned space flight programs. The development of an Agency-level standard is proposed, which based upon the principles of MSFC-STD-3716, would have application to multiple additive manufacturing processes and be readily adaptable to all NASA programs.
Russell, Richard W.↗
Crew Transportation System Design Reference Missions
Contains summaries of potential design reference mission goals for systems to transport humans to andfrom low Earth orbit (LEO) for the Commercial Crew Program. The purpose of this document is to describe Design Reference Missions (DRMs) representative of the end-to-end Crew Transportation System (CTS) framework envisioned to successfully execute commercial crew transportation to orbital destinations. The initial CTS architecture will likely be optimized to support NASA crew and NASA-sponsored crew rotation missions to the ISS, but consideration may be given in this design phase to allow for modifications in order to accomplish other commercial missions in the future. With the exception of NASA’s mission to the ISS, the remaining commercial DRMs are notional. Any decision to design or scar the CTS for these additional non-NASA missions is completely up to the Commercial Provider. As NASA’s mission needs evolve over time, this document will be periodically updated to reflect those needs.
potential design reference↗
Human Spaceflight Safety for the Next Generation on Orbital Space Systems
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Commercial Crew Program (CCP) has been chartered to facilitate the development of a United States (U.S.) commercial crew space transportation capability with the goal of achieving safe, reliable, and cost effective access to and from low Earth orbit (LEO) and the International Space Station (ISS) as soon as possible. Once the capability is matured and is available to the Government and other customers, NASA expects to purchase commercial services to meet its ISS crew rotation and emergency return objectives. The primary role of the CCP is to enable and ensure safe human spaceflight and processes for the next generation of earth orbital space systems. The architecture of the Program delineates the process for investment performance in safe orbital systems, Crew Transportation System (CTS) certification, and CTS Flight Readiness. A series of six technical documents build up the architecture to address the top-level CTS requirements and standards. They include Design Reference Missions, with the near term focus on ISS crew services, Certification and Service Requirements, Technical Management Processes, and Technical and Operations Standards Evaluation Processes.
Mango, Edward J.↗