Space Station 20th: Commercial Cargo and Crew

ISS - 20 Years on the International Space Station patch.

June 2, 2020

The successful flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo 2 mission, launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil for the first time since 2011, was the culmination of a years-long effort led and supported by several US Presidents and NASA Administrators to provide replacements for the cargo and crew transportation capabilities to the International Space Station (ISS) previously provided by the Space Shuttle. The novel approach of the government procuring services provided by private companies opened a new chapter in human space exploration.

Launch America

Nearly nine years after Space Shuttle Atlantis roared off from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, American astronauts Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken made history when, aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule they christened Endeavour, they launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket from the very same pad. Nineteen hours later, in a flawless automated maneuver, they became the first crew to dock at ISS aboard a commercial spacecraft. As part of the test flight objectives, they performed manual flying tests of the spacecraft prior to docking at the Harmony module of ISS. Both Hurley and Behnken had visited the station on previous Shuttle missions, but for Hurley this was a different sort of homecoming – he served as Pilot on that last flight of Atlantis and piloted the Orbiter away from the very same docking port at which he arrived nine years later aboard Endeavour. Shortly after docking the crews opened the hatches and Hurley and Behnken joined Expedition 63 crewmembers Christopher J. Cassidy, Anatoli A. Ivanishin and Ivan V. Vagner as ISS’ newest residents. Their ground-breaking mission continues.

Above: Hurley (left) and Behnken say good-bye to their families as they prepare to depart for
the launch pad. Bellow: Launch of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour on the Demo 2 mission.

 

Above: Expedition 63 crewmember Vagner photographed Endeavour’s launch from ISS.
Bellow: Behnken (left) and Hurley aboard the newly-christened Endeavour shortly after reaching orbit.

 

Above: SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour docked at ISS during Demo 2 mission.
Bellow: Expedition 63 crew (front, left to right) Behnken and Hurley; (back, left to right) Ivanishin, Cassidy and Vagner.

Preamble

In an address at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, on January 14, 2004, President George W. Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). In addition to proposing a return to the Moon, the VSE saw the retirement of the Space Shuttle by 2010 after completing the assembly of ISS. The VSE encouraged NASA to acquire commercial cargo services to ISS as soon as practical, and Congress supported the activity in the 2005 NASA Authorization Act. In response, NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin established the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office (C3PO) in November 2005, inaugurating a new business model for the space agency that instead of traditional procurement contracts with private enterprise to deliver hardware and services to NASA now relied on the companies investing their own capital to develop the needed spacecraft and rockets and NASA to purchase the transportation services from them. The C3PO devised a two-phase process to develop cargo resupply service to ISS – the Commercial Orbital Transportation System (COTS) program for commercial entities to develop and demonstrate reliable commercial services followed by the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program to actually deliver cargo to ISS. President Barack H. Obama’s space policies encouraged public-private partnerships and NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden greatly expanded the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program’s fledgling efforts for commercial crew transportation services.

Above: President Bush announcing the Vision for Space Exploration in 2004.
Bellow: President Obama (left) tours SpaceX launch facilities with Elon Musk in 2010.

Commercial Cargo Services

Timeline of Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) activities.

On Aug. 18, 2006, NASA announced that Space Exploration Corporation (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler (RpK) had won the first round of the COTS competition and signed Space Act Agreements (SAAs) with the two companies. In October 2007, NASA terminated the agreement with RpK since the company hadn’t raised enough capital and following a second round of competitions selected and signed an SAA with Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital) of Dulles, Virginia, on Feb. 19, 2008. SpaceX developed its two-stage Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule capable not only of supplying pressurized cargo to ISS but also delivering unpressurized external payloads and hardware to the station and also returning internal equipment and especially scientific samples back to Earth. Both the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon capsule relied on reusability to reduce operating costs. Italian aerospace company Thales Alenia Space built Orbital’s Cygnus cargo vehicle, relying on its experience building the Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules and the European Space Agency’s Columbus research module for ISS. Orbital developed the two-stage Antares rocket to launch the Cygnus spacecraft. On Dec. 23, 2008, NASA announced the award of the first CRS contracts to SpaceX for 12 resupply missions to ISS and to Orbital for 8 missions, to which in 2015 NASA added 8 more Dragon and 3 more Cygnus missions. On Jan. 14, 2016, a second CRS-2 contract not only guaranteed at least six more SpaceX and Orbital missions but added a third contractor, Sparks, Nevada-based Sierra Nevada Corporation to provide at least six flights of a cargo version of their Dream Chaser reusable space plane.

Above: Falcon 9 first launch in 2010. Midddle: Dragon capsule approaching ISS during the Demo 2 flight.
Bellow: Dragon capsule being grappled by Canadarm2 before berthing to ISS.

 

Above: Expedition 31 crew poses inside the Dragon cargo capsule during the Demo 2 flight.
Middle: The ISS Canadarm2 about to release the Dragon capsule at the end of the Demo2 flight.
Bellow: Dragon capsule in the Pacific Ocean at the conclusion of the Demo 2 mission.

SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 carrying a boilerplate Dragon capsule from Launch Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) on June 4, 2010. The successful mission, not intended to approach ISS or be recovered, demonstrated the capability of the new Falcon 9 rocket. The first mission under the COTS program called Demo Flight 1 took off on Dec. 8, 2010. Once again the Falcon 9 performed as expected and the Dragon capsule made two orbits around the Earth, demonstrating its communications and maneuvering capabilities. SpaceX recovered the capsule in the Pacific Ocean after a flight of 3 hours and 20 minutes. Two more demonstration flights had been planned, but NASA decided to combine their objectives into a single mission flown as Demo Flight 2, launching on May 22, 2012. Four days later, the capsule rendezvoused with ISS, where Expedition 31 crewmember Donald R. Pettit grappled it with the Canadarm2 robotic arm, calling to the ground, “Looks like we got us a dragon by the tail,” before maneuvering it to its berth at the station’s Harmony module’s nadir port. The first commercial cargo transportation vehicle had arrived at ISS. Later that day, he and ISS Commander Oleg G. Kononenko opened the hatch and entered the capsule, with Pettit noting that it “smelled like a brand new car.” The onboard crew spent the next six days unloading the 1,157 pounds of cargo that Dragon had delivered and on May 31 released it from ISS. Dragon made a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, returning 1,466 pounds of experiment samples and used hardware. The mission completed the required COTS certification for the Dragon cargo vehicle.

Above: First launch of an Antares rocket in 2013. Middle: Cygnus Demo spacecraft grappled by Canadarm2 prior to berthing on ISS. Bellow: Expedition 37 crewmember Karen L. Nyberg photographed inside the Cygnus spacecraft during its Demo mission to ISS.

Orbital launched the first test flight of its Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia on April 21, 2013, with a test payload to simulate the mass of a Cygnus spacecraft. The mission’s objectives did not include approaching ISS and the mass simulator burned up on reentry on May 10.  Orbital carried out a single COTS demonstration mission, designated Cygnus Demo 1, launching on Sep. 18, 2013. The company began a tradition of naming their spacecraft after deceased astronauts or other aerospace notables, christening this first one the G. David Low after the former astronaut and Orbital employee who died in 2008.  Orbital executive and Low’s fellow Class of 1984 astronaut Frank L. Culbertson said during a preflight press conference, “We were very proud to name [it] the G. David Low.” Eleven days after its launch, Expedition 37 crewmember Luca S. Parmitano grappled the spacecraft with Canadarm2 and berthed it to Harmony. The crew unloaded the 1,543 pounds of supplies that it brought to ISS and on Oct. 22 unberthed it from ISS, loaded with 2,850 pounds of cargo for disposal. The next day, Cygnus fired its engine to begin the fiery reentry over the Pacific Ocean. Orbital became the second commercial company to complete the COTS certification for its cargo vehicle.

Above: The first Enhanced Cygnus arriving at ISS in 2015; compare against 

the smaller Cygnus in the
Demo 1 photo above. Middle: The IDA-2 during removal from the SpaceX transport vehicle in 2016.
Bellow: First launch of a Falcon 9 from Launch Pad 39A in 2017.

SpaceX launched its first operational Dragon cargo resupply mission on Oct. 8, 2012, while the first operational Cygnus spacecraft took off on Jan. 9, 2014. To date, 20 Dragons have carried pressurized and unpressurized cargo to ISS and returned scientific samples and hardware to Earth at the end of their missions, while 13 Cygnus spacecraft have lofted logistics to the space station. The record is not without setbacks as each program suffered a launch failure that resulted in loss of the spacecraft and its cargo. While both companies recovered quickly from the failures, the accidents highlighted the wisdom of the decision to use two separate and independent systems to launch cargo to ISS. Over the years, both SpaceX and Orbital have implemented improvements in their spacecraft and launch vehicles to increase safety, performance and reliability. For added flexibility, SpaceX leased Launch Pad 39A from NASA at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and began using it to launch Falcon 9 rockets beginning with the SpaceX-10 mission in 2017. Always a part of SpaceX’s business model to reduce costs, the company began to refly its Dragon capsules in 2017, and has flown three of its capsules three times to ISS.  Beginning in late 2015, Orbital introduced an Enhanced Cygnus with a 50% increase in internal volume to carry more cargo. In addition to upgrading its spacecraft and rocket, Orbital underwent some corporate restructuring over the years, first merging with Alliant Technologies in 2015 to become Orbital ATK. In 2018 Northrup Grumman acquired Orbital ATK to form Northrup Grumman Innovation Systems. Upgrades to ISS itself, such as opening up a second berthing port on the Unity module in 2015 allowed two cargo vehicles to be docked at the same time. SpaceX vehicles brought two International Docking Adaptors (IDAs) that once installed on ISS enabled future commercial cargo and crew vehicles to dock directly to ISS rather than being grappled and berthed by crewmembers operating the Canadarm2.

Commercial Crew Services

Following retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, NASA needed a system not only for cargo transportation to and from ISS but also to ferry crews to the station and returning them to Earth.  Until a US-based system could be deployed, NASA relied on purchasing crew seats from Russia on Soyuz spacecraft. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 expanded existing CCDev activities with a new competition to develop the spacecraft needed to ferry crews to ISS. NASA awarded contract to four companies – Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, to develop a capsule; SpaceX to upgrade their Dragon cargo vehicle to carry humans and to human-rate their Falcon 9 rocket; Sierra Nevada to develop the Dream Chaser winged lifting-body vehicle; and The Boeing Corporation’s Defense, Space and Security Division of Arlington, Virginia, to develop the CST-100 Starliner capsule. SpaceX, Sierra Nevada and Boeing received funding in August 2012 to support development of the spacecraft. In September 2014, during the final phase of the competition, NASA selected Boeing and SpaceX to develop the Crew Dragon and Starliner vehicles for crew transportation. As noted above, Sierra Nevada decided to develop a cargo-only version of its Dream Chaser.

The first group of Commercial Crew astronauts – (left to right) Williams, Cassada,
Boe, Mann, Ferguson, Hurley, Behnken, Hopkins and Glover – pose in front of
mockups of the Boeing Starliner (left) and SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules at JSC.

In a ceremony at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Aug. 8, 2018, NASA Administrator James F. “Jim” Bridenstine introduced the first contingent of eight NASA and one Boeing astronaut who would fly the inaugural missions under the Commercial Crew Program. NASA assigned Douglas G. Hurley and Robert L. Behnken to fly the first Crew Dragon demonstration flight and Victor J. Glover and Michael S. Hopkins to its first operational mission. For the Starliner’s Crew Flight Test (CFT) demonstration flight, NASA selected Nicole A. Mann and Eric A. Boe and Boeing assigned its astronaut Christopher J. Ferguson, a retired NASA astronaut. Sunita L. Williams and Josh A. Cassada were selected for Starliner’s first operational mission.  In January 2019, E. Michael Fincke replaced Boe on the Boeing CFT mission crew. In March 2020, NASA announced the addition of NASA astronaut Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the first SpaceX operational flight crew.

Above: Launch of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo 1 mission. Middle: Crew Dragon approaches ISS during the Demo 1 mission. Bellow: St. Jacques taking a selfie inside the Crew Dragon while it was docked to ISS.

 

Above: View inside the Crew Dragon during the Demo 1 mission with Ripley in the far left seat.
Middle: Crew Dragon departing ISS. Bellow: Crew Dragon floating to the Atlantic Ocean under its four main parachutes about to conclude the Demo 1 mission.

Following years of development and testing, SpaceX and Boeing prepared their spacecraft for uncrewed orbital test flights. SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft lifted off from KSC’s Launch Pad 39A, formerly used to launch Saturn V rockets during the Apollo Program and dozens of Space Shuttle missions, on March 2, 2019. During the Demo 1 mission, the unpiloted spacecraft completed an automated docking with ISS at the Harmony module’s forward facing port one day after launch. Although unpiloted, the Crew Dragon carried a fully suited anthropometric manikin named Ripley, after Sigourney Weaver’s character in the Alien film franchise. After six days at the space station, during which Expedition 58 crewmembers unloaded the 400 pounds of cargo it had brought to ISS, the Crew Dragon capsule undocked automatically. After it left the station, Expedition 58 crewmember Anne C.  McClain said, “We want to take a moment to recognize this milestone accomplishment. Fifty years after humans landed on the Moon for the first time, America has driven a golden spike on the trail to new space exploration feats through the work of our commercial partner SpaceX and all the talented and dedicated flight controllers at NASA and our international partners.”  The Crew Dragon capsule made an automated reentry, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast, clearing the way for the first crewed mission. The capsule also returned 330 pounds of cargo, including valuable science experiment samples.

Above The Boeing Starliner sitting atop its Atlas V rocket before launch. Middle: Launch of
the Atlas V carrying the Boeing Starliner on its Orbital Test Flight. Bellow: Starliner capsule with
airbags still inflated after landing at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico.

Boeing’s Starliner, christened Calypso after the mission, launched from CCAFS Launch Complex 41 on an Atlas V rocket on Dec. 20, 2019, on its uncrewed Orbital Test Flight (OFT). While no astronauts rode aboard, the capsule carried an anthropometric manikin, wearing a pressure suit, nicknamed Rosie the Rocketeer, channeling Rosie the Riveter of World War II poster fame. About 31 minutes into the flight, an error with the Mission Elapsed Timer caused the spacecraft to enter an orbit from which it could not rendezvous with ISS. The planned eight-day mission was cut short to two days, with Starliner making a parachute- and airbag-assisted touchdown at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. Following postflight analysis, Boeing announced in April 2020 that it will refly the mission to achieve the required objectives to clear the Starliner for its first crewed test mission. The OFT reflight is currently planned for October 2020, and if all goes well Ferguson, Fincke and Mann will fly the CFT mission in April 2021.

Above: Astronauts for the SpaceX Crew 1 mission (left to right) Walker, Glover, Hopkins and
Noguchi during training at JSC in March 2020. Bellow: The crew of the Boeing Starliner Crew
Test Flight (left to right) Fincke, Ferguson and Mann.

What’s next?

The past eight years have seen the coming of age for commercial cargo services to ISS and the beginning of crew transportation which will become regular in the very near future. The SpaceX-20 mission in March 2020 was the last of the original Dragon capsule design. Beginning with the next mission in October 2020, SpaceX will introduce the Cargo Dragon 2 version based on the Crew Dragon capsule design. Like the crewed version, Cargo Dragon 2 will also dock directly with ISS instead of being grappled and berthed. NASA has contracted with SpaceX and Northrup Grumman for at least six Cargo Dragon 2 and Cygnus flights through 2024. Sierra Nevada is continuing to prepare its reusable Dream Chaser Cargo System lifting body vehicle to begin providing transportation to and from ISS in late 2021.

Above: Illustration of Cargo Dragon 2.
Bellow: Illustration of Dream Chaser Cargo System.
Credits: SpaceX, Sierra Nevada.

In 2019, in its continuing efforts to stimulate a low Earth orbit economy, NASA announced the opportunity for private astronauts to carry out missions of up to 30 days aboard ISS, using either Crew Dragon or Starliner for transportation.  Houston-based Axiom Space has signed an agreement with SpaceX to fly one professionally-trained astronaut hired by Axiom and three paying private citizens on an eight-day flight to ISS in late 2021. Although details are still in work, NASA is in discussions with actor Tom Cruise to film a movie aboard ISS.

Related articles:

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https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/05/space-station-20th-music-on-iss.html

Space Station 20th – Space Flight Participants
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/05/space-station-20th-space-flight.html

Space Station 20th: Six Months Until Expedition 1
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Space Station 20th – Women and the Space Station
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/03/space-station-20th-women-and-space.html

Space Station 20th: Long-duration Missions
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2020/03/space-station-20th-long-duration.html

NASA Counts Down to Twenty Years of Continuous Human Presence on International Space Station
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2019/11/nasa-counts-down-to-twenty-years-of.html

20 memorable moments from the International Space Station
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/11/20-memorable-moments-from-international.html

Related links:

Commercial Crew: https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Images, Text, Credits: NASA/Kelli Mars/JSC/John Uri/SpaceX/Boeing/Sierra Nevada/ULA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch