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That's the first I have heard of SLS being ready as early as 2021. I wonder, when it comes online will NASA stop using SpaceX & ULA for space station supply/peo
by grecy 8y ago
That's the first I have heard of SLS being ready as early as 2021. I wonder, when it comes online will NASA stop using SpaceX & ULA for space station supply/people missions?
- rgallagher27 8y agoDoubtful, the price of SLS is way too high for routine ISS supply missions
- sp332 8y agoLast month, the official date for the SLS was June 2020. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/work-begins-on-rocket-engines-for-sls-flights-a-decade-from-now/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/work-begins-on-rocke... In 2017 they were saying it would be ready by 2019. Before that it was 2018. https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/senior-official-nasa-will-delay-first-flight-of-new-sls-rocket-until-2019/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/senior-official-nasa...
- simonh 8y agoThat would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Not many payloads destined for the ISS come in at 100 tonnes, especially crew capsules. SLS is an evolution of the heavy lifter from the Constellation programme, which included a separate intermediate rocket for crew and cargo missions to LEO, but that role was since filled by the Commercial Crew and COTS/CRS programmes.
- rtkwe 8y agoThere's no real reason to stop using SpaceX and ULA unless they're going to start sending MUCH more to the ISS than those rockets can handle. SLS is really expensive per launch.
- baq 8y agoBoth the BFR and the New Armstrong, based on what is currently known about them, will be able to lift something better than the ISS (e.g. a Bigelow habitat) to orbit in a single launch for considerably less than either ISS or SLS.
- colordrops 8y agoThere are only 2 SLS vehicles in the pipeline. They are massively expensive, take a long time to build, and not reusable. Doesn't make sense at all for regular low earth orbit deliveries.
- WhompingWindows 8y agoSLS is far behind still, it's a bit premature to conclude that SpaceX and ULA _won't_ gobble up all the contracts and render SLS obsolete.
- simonh 8y agoULA don't have any heavy lift rockets in the class of SLS in the works, and the only contracts to do so would come from NASA anyway, so there's no competition to SLS coming from that quarter. Of course Falcon Heavy is squarely in the same class as SLS, but even there payloads being developed for SLS right now probably can't be easily adapted to BFR, so SLS will still have a role to play at least for a while.
- captain_perl 8y agoHopefully a 10-ton asteroid will hit the ISS tomorrow, then we don't need to resupply it at all. None of the most-cited papers come from the ISS, unlike WMAP and friends, which are used for actual science.