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>> Josh Byerly: We are going to start with questions here in Houston then we'll go
down to the Kennedy Space Center and then we'll go to the phone lines.
We have quite a number of people, so we're asking that you stay with one question,
one follow up and we'll come back here and go back around one more time.
We'll start off with Mark.
>> Mark: Thanks.
Mark Carreau for Aviation Week and Space Technology and I wanted
to go back to the software validation work.
Could you elaborate some on that and if I understood correctly you'll have a follow
on to this FRR on about the 23rd.
If you could sort of bridge what happens after that to the launch point.
>> Bill Gertsenmaier: I can do a piece of it and then,
then Mike and the others can also chime in.
There's still some software work that's, that's going on.
Some activities they're completing in Hawthorne where they're doing hardware in the loop testing
to make sure that the software works right with the hardware.
Then when they complete those results they provide test reports and test analysis
of that activity back to the NASA team and the NASA team looks at that to make sure
that it all fits and works the way it was supposed to go work.
They'll also do some testing with the actual vehicle down in Florida
where they'll do the same kind of thing where they'll actually run through the software
with the flight vehicle and again, those reports come back
to the NASA team and we'll take a look at it.
We will not do a formal review like we did today of that activity.
What we'll do is we think that'll all be okay, but we'll get a report back
from the individual teams, the safety folks, the software folks, etcetera.
They'll tell us on the 23rd that everything went as planned.
There was no surprises; nothing unique there
and then we'll just continue on then towards the launch.
And some of the activities that occur towards the launches will be flight readiness firing
of the engines, they'll be hydrazine loading in the Dragon capsule.
A lot of activities occur in kind of that final week.
SpaceX also does their own internal flight readiness review and they'll do that on Sunday,
the 22nd just in front of this review.
That'll be one chance for them to go through to make sure all their individual components
and systems are ready to go forward.
So, I would say today we had enough assurance
that everything is moving in the right direction.
We're heading towards the 30th.
We're not completely there.
We want to go ahead and get these final checks from the SpaceX team.
After those checks are complete and we understand where they all sit,
then we'll say collectively this is the right thing to head forward.
So, we got enough assurance today that the 30th is the right day to head towards,
but we still reserve the right to take a look at the data, see what the software does
and see what the teams find as they go do a more in depth review.
>> Eric Berg: Erick Berg with the Eastern Chronicle.
Quick question for Allen than a follow up for Elon; first of all, is it accurate to say
that NASA has invested 381 million so far in the commercial cargo capabilities for SpaceX?
>> Alan Lindenmoyer: Yes.
That is the total of the 37 milestone payments we've made to SpaceX to date.
>> Eric Berg: And then for Elon, you're in Texas today and it's possible
that Dragons could launch from Texas in the future.
I'm curious what the state and maybe the federal congressional officials need to do
to make this an attractive place for you to build a space port?
>> Elon Musk: Well I don't want us to get too off topic but, because I mean this is really
about the upcoming missions of the space station.
But, but we are pretty interested in the possibility of a Texas based launch site
and I think there's a lot of good action being taken by the local authorities
in the Brownsville area in particular.
Not that much at the state level; we'd certainly appreciate more help at the state level
and at the federal level its not really you know--
I think the federal level is relatively different as to what state we launch from.
But we thought it was important to look at having a third launch site just to make sure
in the future that if we have a lot of missions taking place for commercial satellite launches
as well as launches to the space station for cargo and potentially crew
and potentially the defense [Inaudible] missions
that we didn't encounter a launch site constraint.
But, as you point out also that we're also looking at potentially using one
of the shuttle pads at the cape for crew flight.
So, we just want to make sure that we don't in the future encounter launch site constraints.
That's really what we're after with that element.
So--
>> Kevin Quinn: Hi, Kevin Quinn with KTRK, ABC 13 here in Houston.
Can, and maybe this is a question for Elon, I'm not sure.
Maybe it's a NASA question but can you describe please specifically weather restrictions
that could affect launch, how those would compare say to that which was
out there for the shuttle program.
Are these tighter restrictions, are they lesser restrictions?
>> Elon Musk: I think they're probably comparable.
We are-- we definitely want to err on the side of caution particularly
since these are initial flights but I think they are probably comparable.
I'm not entirely certain but I think they are similar.
>> Bill Gertsenmaier: I would say they're pretty compatible.
We've seen even their expendable launch vehicles.
We have a lot of triggered lightening rules.
Those rules will be the same.
We have basically the same visibility rules for the ground observers
that are watching the rocket fly, those kinds of things.
So, those are all pretty similar.
The winds aloft might have been a little more restrictive for shuttle than they are
for the Falcon 9, but other than that I think they're pretty comparable overall.
>> Kevin Quinn: Thank you.
>> Jeremy.
>> Jeremy Diesel: Jeremy Diesel from KHLU, question for Elon.
If this is all successful, everything goes exactly as planned.
>> Elon Musk: Ah, that would be awesome.
[Laughter]
>> Jeremy Diesel: Right, what becomes the next step, the next time line,
the possibility of seeing a crewed flight?
>> Elon Musk: Well, assuming this is successful then we look forward to a steady stream
of cargo flights to the space station under our Soyuz contract that would be really super great.
And then you know because we designed the space craft and rocket to be very similar between crew
and cargo, in the process will be accumulating a lot of knowledge about how,
you know how potential a potential crewed flight might work
and if there is an issue I think there's you know a good chance we're going to cover it
on a cargo flight rather than potentially put crew at risk which is I think is pretty helpful.
And we do have to have a separate contract with NASA for you know adding
in the elements necessary for crew transport and then there's--
but there are a bunch of additional steps that have to take place there.
But we're optimistic that at some point Dragon will be carrying astronauts
and that will be really great.
>> Jeremy Diesel: Two years, three years, five years?
[Laughter] Eight years?
>> Elon Musk: Well, yea there's a lot of variables between here and there.
>> Jeremy Diesel: Perfect world?
>> Elon Musk: Oh, perfect world, well it's probably like three years.
Yea.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay.
David.
>> David Hirsh: David Hirsh, NHA, and Mike Suffredini first,
given that the ISS is an international collaboration,
I wonder if you could give us a sense of what the importance of the international partnership
as far as this entire project and the role of international partners in the FRR today?
>> Mike Suffredini: It's two fold.
One is the partnership, the entire partnership does benefit from these vehicles and, in fact,
all but our Russian colleagues rely on it.
We utilize a suite of vehicles in the future to provide up mass to ISS and its progress,
the JAXA of HTV, the ESA, ATB and the two commercial vehicles
that we're talking about here today.
And the Lion share of the up mass will be provided for the USOS segment.
The Lion share of the up mass will be provided by this commercial vehicle.
So, it's very important to the partnership.
This FR just like every FR has all the partner agencies are represented.
And so it's important to them and they worry about not only the fact will it bring it up
but there are safety implications; there's plume impingement issues.
There's EMI, there's all sorts of things that we have to prove
to the entire partnership that we meet those requirements.
And all of our requirements are meant to protect us from that.
And our partners participate in the safety review boards and the analytical process
of determining that we were-- that we're not causing any harm to the rest of the space craft.
And, in fact, part of the responsibility of the US is
to ensure the integrated space craft is okay.
But, they would like to see the data and so we provide the data that's necessary
to make them feel comfortable, that they're element is also safe from those aspects.
>> Josh Byerly: Down here.
No question, okay.
Let's come over here.
>> Hi. My name is Ken [Inaudible] from NHK.
I hope I can make myself understandable in English but I would like to ask a question
to Mr. Gertsenmaier and Mr. Musk.
Everything pretty much seems familiar for a reporter reporting for HTV and I would really
like to ask what is the connection between this new challenge of SpaceX
with the Japanese HTV approach and rendezvous docking?
In other words was there any improvements or what kind
of implications have you added to this approach for SpaceX?
And to Mr. Musk is I think safety is a priority, but as a commercial company what kind
of aims have you tried to implicate into SpaceX's new launch vehicle
and how would this challenge, this new challenge in a sense add
to your overall I would say pursuit for that aim?
>> Bill Gertsenmaier: First of all
for your first question I think we learned a lot from the HTV activities.
We did a very similar approach when HTV flew the first time.
It flew it up and it did a series of gates very similar
to what Holly described in a lot of detail here earlier.
So that same kind of approach where we verify a capability before we commit to using
that capability that was done with the HTV and it was a good chance to see how
that process worked, how it worked as a team.
I would say also Holly's team and the flight controllers they got familiar with getting
that data from a, from an international partner in the case of JAXA they took that information,
they could then digest and analyze it and compare it and work with them.
So, I think working with the international partners gave us a lot of experience of working
with a different community that we don't work with everyday that allowed us to learn how
to exchange data back and forth, how to communicate
and how to develop the basic procedure that allows us to learn incrementally
and it allows us to get into the birthing box to be picked up with the SSRMS.
And I think also that the birthing box concept and using the SSRMS to pick up the Dragon,
that's very similar to what we did with HTV.
And again, that HTV kind of paved the way of seeing how the crew would use the arm,
the overlays they used, the camera ops they use.
A lot of that was kind of proven the first time through with the HTV flights that are coming up.
So, we learned a lot from our international partners and we applied it
to the commercial sector and to Dragon
and it made it a lot easier when we come into this flight.
It wasn't the first time around we've seen this stuff.
We've seen the basic process and procedure, although the vehicle is very different
than the Japanese transfer vehicle.
>> Elon Musk: So then I think we're grateful for the prior work of HTV as well.
You know because it made thinks easier for SpaceX to you know approach the space station
because of some similarities in the way things are done.
So, that was, that was quite helpful.
The way in which Dragon is most significantly different is that it returns to a rather intact.
You know it's got a heat shield and everything, so you can return cargo to it.
So, that's clearly the biggest difference.
And the-- I touched on this briefly earlier but because of some of the similarities
between the cargo version of Dragon and the crew version of Dragon we're learning a great deal
about crew transport when we do a cargo mission.
Technically, if you've got a little oxygen bottle and you stow it away
on Dragon you in theory would be okay.
You could go to the space station if you tucked away in there and so it's kind of neat
in that respect and had come back too.
So, and then there's sort of a larger context of SpaceX where we want
to keep upgrading the technology and making improvements
so that ultimately there can be journeys beyond the space station.
So, that's, that's obviously a topic for another day, but I think there's a lot of excitement
about that and we're going to keep improving the Dragon technology.
We have an upgrade planned and everything, so--
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, I think that's it from here for now.
Let's go down to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and take questions from there.
>> Marsha Dunn: Hello.
This is Marsha Dunn of the Associated Press with a question for Mr. Musk.
There's still a fair number of people not totally on board with commercial,
the commercial side, especially regarding crew transport and I'm wondering if you feel a lot
of pressure as you go into this last two weeks before launch to succeed and how important is it
in your mind to launch successfully into birth on this flight?
>> Elon Musk: There's no question that there is going to be some people
who we're putting too much weight on this flight, because it is explicitly a test flight
and indeed it-- we may not succeed in getting all the way
to the space station as I articulated earlier.
But, I think it would be a mistake to put too much weight on this flight
because there are hopefully going to be two more flights later this year to the space station
which will be an almost identical configuration.
So, if this one doesn't succeed in getting
to the space station I am confident that one of the other two will.
And you know we'll work with NASA to resolve any issues and then you figure those out
and then get to the space station.
But there should be no doubt about our resolve that we will get
to the space station whether it's on this mission or on a future one.
And I don't think that if this mission doesn't get all the way there that it should be taken
as a verdict on commercial crew transport.
I think that would be, that would just wouldn't be right although there will be some people
who try to do that.
>> Marsha Dunn: Thank you and if this does go well what is your timeline
for those next two flights?
>> Elon Musk: Well, that's something we have to work with NASA on but you know I think it's--
will probably be one in the summer and one at the end of the year,
but that timing remains to be worked out with NASA.
>> This is Phillip Slaus with NASAspaceflight.com.
I believe this is from his writings.
Can you talk about for an April 30th launch, when would the writer that you talked
about on the slide for the racetrack that you're doing about what time after liftoff,
sort of mission off time would that begin?
>> Holly Ridings: Okay for an April 30th launch, the launch is 11:22 a.m. central daylight time
and you get to the-- right before the red arrow is on the order of 38-39 hours.
So, if you we were using subtle nomenclature,
which the NASA folks still do it'd be flight day three fly under.
So, flight day one launch.
Flight day two is really we call it far field phasing.
Flight day three fly under, so 38-39 hours; the fly under itself is on the order of three
or four hours we were gathering that data and then if you remember kind
of from the red arrow all the way around roughly 22 hours.
And so, you're coming back the next day really
for a flight day four birthing rendezvous and birthing.
So, go through it one more time slower: flight day one launch, flight day two phasing,
flight day three fly under, which is May 2nd in our scenario
and then flight day four proximity operation rendezvous and birthing; so May 3rd.
The capture itself, kind of early morning, central daylight time 7:30, of course,
crew day that's kind of midday crew day.
So, the activities will start pretty early in the morning Houston time and even earlier
in the morning California time, but the capture would be about 7:30 a.m.
in the morning is what it would be planned for on that May 3rd.
>> Phillip Slaus: Thanks.
And I believe, if I understand this correctly there is a--
that the primary opportunity is on April 30th
and then there is a secondary opportunity on May 3rd.
Can somebody explain why there are not, there isn't a daily launch opportunity
for this mission and is this just a mission specific thing?
Thanks.
>> Holly Ridings: Again, so I'll talk about it a little bit.
So, some of it is, is mission specific because of the demonstration.
You know as Elon talked about this is definitely the demonstration
and so there's a lot more things on this flight that's-- the fly under is one of them,
some of the objectives that we're performing, the analysis that needs to be performed
of the data that's gathered on orbit.
So, the fly under is unique to this demonstration mission and so that really kind
of helps figure out what the launch dates are.
The SpaceX team is also reserving some, some margin on the-- that they can talk about,
that Elon can talk about a little bit, just for contingencies again it's a demonstration
and we want to make sure that they've got enough margin if, if they need it on orbit.
We're also with working on the ISS trajectory, so we've got the--
so we use flights coming and going.
We've got progress flights coming and going.
We've got ATB activities as was articulated earlier
and so the ISS trajectory is influx as well.
So, when you add up all of those different components you end up with these kind
of smattering of launch dates in the early May time frame.
After the demonstration is complete and we look at all the data potentially we'll be able
to find the back to back type things that you were used to with shuttles,
but we've got together a bunch of data before we can get to the point
where we understand that in detail.
>> Elon Musk: Yea, and I can say in the future missions they'll probably be more--
is closer to daily opportunities but for this mission we want to have a really optimal launch.
So, we're minimizing propellant usage, getting to the space station and that has
to occur roughly every three days.
So, we just want to have as much propellant available in case something goes wrong
and we need to make adjustments to the mission.
Yea, so that's why three days.
>> James Dean: Hi it's James Dean from Florida Today and just following up on
that topic I wondered if-- I understand I guess that you have April, April 30 and May 3
as the first couple of opportunities.
Just wondered if you can elaborate any further
on if there are any scrubs or anything like that?
Are there any blackouts due to range or the Soyuz launch or any other issues?
And so when do the opportunities fit into the rest of that schedule?
>> Holly Ridings: So, I can, I can go ahead and take that one as well.
So, there's actually a little bit of all of those things.
There are certainly range conflicts.
There are always range conflicts.
There are some beta cutouts in terms of space station.
There are some ground rule and constraint type cutouts where we don't want a Soyuz vehicle
and the Dragon vehicle exactly on top of each other.
We've got to make sure that we get one activity completed before we start the next one.
The Dragon has some constraints as well for their recovery where at least
for this demonstration they'd like to land in daylight to help them
out with the recovery operations.
So, there's multiple constraints on the table that we need to line up in order
to find an optimized launch window for this demonstration.
So, the answer to your question is kind of all of the above.
>> James Dean: Okay, thanks.
And then for Elon this flight, of course, of course, not unusual for things
to slip a little bit, but you were targeting November at one point and then February
and just wondering what has proven to be most difficult for you to get to the point
where you're ready to go you know if any aspect
of this was a surprise to you at how hard it was.
And just as a slightly unrelated question I was wondering
if there were any plans to recover the first stage?
>> Elon Musk: Sure.
Well, I should point out that the rocket is definitely not the constraint.
I mean we could have launched several rockets,
Falcon 9 rockets last year if it had just been the rocket.
And it obviously wasn't the elements of the Dragon that have been tested before,
you know like the draco thrusters or the heat shield or parachutes or anything like that.
But the tricky part was really related to the proximity operations and birthing system
so that the LIDARs for example, kind of like laser radar, thermal imagers,
the communication system making sure that we communicate effectively with the space station,
with the ground and with NASA's heater system.
There were-- so there's a lot of basically electronics, new electronics on the spacecraft.
And so it's the first time we're flying the solar rays and the radiator system.
So it's, those are new elements to, to mix,
but the thing that really drives the schedule is the software testing, the developmental testing
and how that interacts with the hardware, when we're testing that's what it refers to.
When-- does the software always do the right thing
in the right, in a particular circumstance?
And when you've got eighteen engines and you've got at least sort of six flight computers
and a whole bunch of other systems just that the test matrix of that is enormous.
And luckily they realized that Dragon is autonomous and I mean its really--
it's a robotic space ship and it's going to go and do this complicated maneuver
where its going to-- in growth with the space station.
It's not as though there's somebody flying it with a joystick or that's somebody on board
that can make real time corrections.
Dragon is kind of making, it's making lots of decisions all the time
to optimize the probability of success.
So, it's, there's quite a lot of-- there's a lot of intelligence on board,
on board the space craft and all of that has to be tested thoroughly and that's,
that's the biggest driver for the timeline.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, I think that's it at Kennedy Space Center.
I think we're going to the phone lines now.
Let's start off with the Washington Post and Ryan Vastag.
Are you there?
[ Music ]
>> Josh Byerly: Alright.
Let's try Wired Magazine with Jason Parr.
>> Jason Parr: Yes, I don't know, this might be for a colleague.
Early on we talked about some of the work that is being done or the training
that was being done for the crew on Orbit.
So, while that took place on the ground I'm curious,
what sort of preparations are being done while in orbit.
I mean, is here any way for them to practice any of the maneuvers.
I mean what type of, I guess what type of training is done while they're on orbit?
>> Holly Ridings: Okay, so the answer is yes there is the capability
for them to practice on orbit.
They practice with the actual robotic arm.
So, the SSRMS they do some grappling practice.
Again, sort of line up and pretend that the Dragon is there
and so they know exactly you know looking out the window and looking
at their computer screens what the arm half
of that equation is going to look when the Dragon arrives.
They also have a simulator that they practice
with because certainly the robotic arm is a significant resource
and so we do have an internal simulator that they can practice so they can do multiple runs,
some very complicated contingencies we wouldn't want to put our robotic arm in or that came
to be done without the Dragon actually there.
Some abort type scenarios so again they know exactly how to react.
So, those are their two primary methods of training.
They also do some scenarios where they set up all their computers and all their cameras,
more of a familiarization type training to make sure they have quick reference marks.
They can find all the data they need rapidly and then they do some self study as well.
So, again kind of that building block approach to hardware use all the way to the self study
with the procedures and talking to the folks on the ground.
>> Jason Parr: The demonstration maneuvers and the graphic you showed with the Dragon going
from 250 to 220 and then 230 [Inaudible] if any
of those particular rehearsal maneuvers don't go correct the first time, is there the ability
to retry the demonstration or is it sort of a one shot attempt?
>> Holly Ridings: So, the answer is a little, a little bit of both.
The demonstration some of them occur, you were talking about the ones on the R-bar.
Some of them occur early in the mission shortly after Dragon gets on orbit.
Those activities they will take place.
They will be gathered.
It'll be submitted from this basics team to the NASA team.
Certainly, if we do not see something that everyone agreed
to was acceptable the SpaceX team might have the capability to retry those as part
of their phasing plan that would be somewhat dependent
on the margin they have before they get close to the space station.
If we were flying under this space station and we're unable to gather the data we needed,
it could be done again but it would require going all the way around and flying under again,
but certainly that would be an option if we had enough propellant to do that.
And the ones on the R-bar that you mentioned, those in order to complete the birthing
that day need to go pretty quickly, so if they--
mostly because sitting again on the R-bar is not a very good place to stay for a long time
in terms of your propellant usage.
You use a lot of propellant sitting in that area holding your position underneath a space station
at about 250.
So, if they didn't go well it would not immediately mean the mission was over,
but it would definitely mean you could not continue at that point in time.
So, it might be that the Dragon would go off and potentially start another fly round
and we would talk about maybe coming back and trying those demonstrations again the next day.
So, it's absolutely a gate to come on in.
If it did not go well we would look at the consumable resources and work
with the Dragon team and see if there was anything we could do to potentially repeat
or gather additional data that might help us understand the problem
that we'd see the first time.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, Scott Powers with the Orlando Sentinel.
>> Scott Powers: Actually, I think my question has been resolved, but thank you very much.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay.
>> Scott Powers: Appreciate it.
>> Mike Wall with space.com.
>> Mike Wall: Oh yea hi.
So I was interested in Elon talked about what some
of the challenges were from the SpaceX side for this.
I'm just curious, I mean, what have some of the biggest challenges been on NASA's side
since this is such a new mission for you guys and you're not responsible
for the entire thing from start to finish.
What, you know like what sort of difference has that made for you guys and sort of what are some
of the you know biggest hurdles to overcome with this one.
>> Mike Suffredini: Well, I'll go ahead and answer that one.
To begin with, it's just getting used to the idea that we're not worrying
about the entire phase of the flight is an adjustment to begin with.
Probably the biggest difference once you settle on that aspect of it,
probably the biggest difference is we're verifying a system based on requirements we gave
for performance but in terms of developing the hardware, the design of the hardware,
how individual boxes are laid out, the design concept, the components that were used,
that's not the kind of information we have access to.
And so, it's been kind of an adjustment for our engineers to create requirements
and validation steps that give you confidence in the robust nature
of the design that's being flown.
And so, that was probably the biggest adjustment that we made.
It's been, as I mentioned earlier, it's been, it's been really kind of a fascinating process
because you begin with this group of engineers that have been doing this business
for many years who have gotten information passed on from the engineers before them
that have done this job a certain way with a complete push towards safety
and mission success, because each flight was so very expensive that while safety was critical,
mission success was very important.
And everything from the procurement of Tripoli parts all the way
up to the integrated performance testing of a system and how you're going to put it together
and how its going to react to anomalies, all of that was sort of that you spent many,
many years in your mind perfecting and then to go sit with another company and say,
"This is your requirement", and then have that group of very, very clever engineers many
of whom don't know that much about space, many of them who did,
but all of them very young have them say, "Well, why?"
And instead of the NASA engineer being able to say, "Well, this is how we did it",
the question was why do you do it that way?
And so, when that exchange took place it was a quite enlightening experience for us both,
because once it was clear to the SpaceX engineer,
what it is that the NASA engineer was perfecting, trying to protect against,
then the light bulbs would come on again and you go, oh okay, well in order to solve
that issue this is how I deal with my design.
And then the NASA guys would learn from that and so the biggest piece of it I think
from my perspective, and it's not a bad thing, is just, it's just an adjustment.
And I think actually it's been good for both sides is that we've learned or we kind
of had our eyes opened up to different ways of tackling similar problems.
And in that respect it's been very beneficial.
But I would tell you that it's an adjustment not to have the very detailed design data
that we're used to when you actually design the hardware.
We're more looking at it from a performance standpoint.
>> Bill Gertsenmaier: And I would add one thing too,
a little bit is that the space station team got to see a piece of this
as we put modules on board space station.
Again, the international partners built to a set of our requirements,
but they accommodated those requirements in a potentially different way then we did.
So, in a non-maneuvering vehicle kind of standpoint the station team got a chance
to see how to work with a set of--
with a partner that essentially answers the how to our requirements.
And Mike's discussion was very good about how both teams have really learned from each other.
I get a chance to kind of sit back and watch both teams learn from each other
and it's been a tremendous learning experience for both of us.
So, I think we've learned new things on the NASA side,
some things we've always done a certain way and then when we get asked, now why do you really do
that requirement, it's really forced our folks to go think about it
and we're starting to kind of internalize it.
Hey, there may be another way of doing some things that are better.
We've definitely learned some things from SpaceX
and hopefully I think they've learned some things from us as we go through.
So, as a good partnership you learn from each other and you end
up with a much better product coming out the other side.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay.
How about Michael with Popular Mechanics?
>> Michael: Hi.
I wonder if someone could break down more specifically what cargo is going to be
on the flight, what sorts of hardware and also are there going
to be any crew provisions on there too?
>> Mike Suffredini: Well, in fact, primarily it is crew provisions.
We're flying quite a bit of food, crew provisions,
some replacement consumable type components.
We have one nanorex payload that's got some, has a number of student experiments on it.
That's a line share of it.
A lot of it is food, but the majority of it is actually food and crew provisions.
>> Michael: What's the total weight going up and the coming down again?
>> Mike Suffredini: Five hundred twenty one kilograms of cargo up
and six hundred sixty kilograms down and the down manifest is not completely finalized.
One of things that happens once you get to orbit is you sort of agree on the mass down
and the biggest drivers of that mass knowing
that once you get there you might change that a bit.
But, as I mentioned earlier, we do have some while we kept away from putting one
of a kind orbit replacement units or you know major components on the ascent side,
we actually did put some OR use on the return side in hopes
of getting them home so we could refurbish them.
They're not required, but in a couple of cases if we can get them home and refurbish them,
it'll save us money because otherwise we would have to procure that spare.
That's certainly in our plan and our budget is to procure the spare, but this was a chance
to try to get some home and save some money.
So, we actually do have some OR use coming home on the down manifest.
>> Michael: What are OR use?
>> Mike Suffredini: Those are the replacement spare components
that replace components on board.
We have a pump, a couple of multifiltration beds that were in the water processor
and our JAXA colleagues have a, a power supply box for their communication system
on orbit that's also coming home.
>> Michael: Okay, thanks a lot.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, Lisa Grossman with New Scientist.
Lisa. Okay.
Jason Davis with Planetary Society.
>> Jason Davis: Hi guys.
You had talked about some of the gates
and specific checkpoints the Dragon would be required to go through during each stage
of the approach and I just wanted to know who holds the final authority
to make decisions during contingency?
Are they planned out in advance or are there situations where a single party either NASA
or SpaceX would have to make a decision on how to proceed?
>> Holly Ridings: I'll take that one.
So, it certainly depends on where you are in the mission.
If it's very early in the flight and the launch in that far field phasing
where the Dragon is not near the space station then it's the responsibility of the Dragon team
and SpaceX, but once the Dragon arrives near the space station
and near is kind of defined by my graphic.
It's coming up about 10 kilometers below the space station then there are,
and actually during the fly around there are go/no go points.
Again I defined that earlier as we take a poll and make sure we've got all the capabilities.
And all of those go/no go points the team here
in Houston per all our documentation holds the final authority.
There's also a couple of other cases if we do have an abort, something that is unexpected
that the Dragon needs to leave the proximity of the space station
and then the Dragon team can figure out that issue and put the Dragon back on a trajectory
to potentially make another attempt of that process.
Houston has authority over that process.
And then if anything were to go unexpectedly wrong at the space station even
if the Dragon is fairly far away from us we would exert some authority in a sense
of telling them we're absolutely not going to be ready for you anytime soon.
So, we don't want you to come up too close to us.
So, there's kind of the very specific predefined items.
Again, there's go/no goes that are in our flight rule that are those height adjust.
We'll give them burns, the maneuvers the Dragon performs
as it comes increasingly closer to the space station.
There are those points predefined as it flies around the space station
and those points predefined as it comes up to the final rendezvous in the birthing
and the proximity operations and then there's those generic catchalls
for if something goes unexpected and all of that has been discussed with the team
in Hawthorne and our team here in Houston.
It's all written down in our documentation that we fly with, in our flight rules.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, John Louis Santini from Au Jaune France.
How about Kelly Sheraton?
Okay, Eric with Nature Magazine.
I'll keep going.
Steven Clark of Space Flight Now, maybe they got tired of the music.
Ann Walters with the German Press Agency.
How about Iren Klotz.
>> Iren Klotz: Thanks Josh.
I am here.
I have a couple questions for you.
The first is including that 381 million from NASA, how much more money has SpaceX spent
to get to this point in the development and overall what do you think the odds are
that this mission will be completely successful in terms of docking at station
and of successful retrieval after splashdown?
>> Elon Musk: I don't have the exact number that SpaceX has spent,
but we have raised several hundred million dollars in bench capital,
the initial part which came from me and then there's been ongoing payments
for further milestones that have been achieved for NASA and for other customers.
I think probably the total amount spent cumulatively would somewhere
around a billion dollars.
So, that's cumulative over the life of SpaceX.
And then in terms of probability of success there's some hesitation
about giving exact numbers since there's--
they're pretty big, there's a pretty big range I think.
But, yeah I personally hesitate to give an exact number but I think that the likelihood
that the rocket works is pretty good since its worked twice before.
The likelihood of the non-birthing or portions of the space craft
that have been flown before working is also quite good.
But then there's much more question mark around the proximity operations and birthing system
and solar rays, which are being tested for the first time.
>> Irene Klotz: For either Bill or Alan could you just refresh my memory
and tell me what it would cost approximately based on I think GAO did a report,
if not NASA had developed a similar capability
under a traditional cost plus award fee contract.
>> Alan Lindenmoyer: Well, there were studies done that said
if you use our traditional modeling and our traditional approaches
and assumptions it could have been anywhere from four to ten times higher
under a traditional NASA development.
>> Irene Klotz: Thanks very much.
Good luck.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, thanks Irene.
Is there anybody else on the phone line that did not get a chance
and would like to ask a follow up?
>> Bill Harwood: Hey Josh.
Bill Harwood with CBS.
>> Josh Byerly: Hey Bill.
Go ahead.
>> Bill Harwood: Oh thanks a lot.
Two quick ones for Holly; if the Atlas stays on the range where it is and if Soyuz stays
where it is, which they will and if SpaceX doesn't get off on those first two attempts,
what, how, when would this guy slip, how far would it slip I'm assuming
after Soyuz it wouldn't be a way to get it in between Atlas and Soyuz, is that right?
>> Holly Ridings: I mentioned earlier that there is quite a few variables.
In general yea, there's a window kind of this late April early May,
which is when we've been talking about with the 30th and the 3rd and potentially some options.
I know Atlas is in there and then there's an after Soyuz window kind
of in the you know mid to late May time frame.
And you know mentioned earlier, a lot of the variables in all of those need to line up,
but those are the two windows that are the high probability ones
that we've been looking at right now.
>> Bill Harwood: Alright and one more quick one for you and this will do it for me Josh.
Can you give us a little bit better sense of what sort of issues you guys have been working
on the last couple of months with SpaceX?
I mean obviously they wanted to launch in February and it slipped a bit
and I've never heard any good details about what sort of things everybody was trying
to get resolved that took the extra time.
If you could give me some sense of that, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks.
>> Holly Ridings: Okay, well I can certainly tell you from an operational perspective a lot
of the capabilities that the SpaceX team wanted to work
on were their mission success capabilities,
things that Elon can probably tell you were very important to them.
So, when they came with those capabilities
that obviously requires a joint sort of review and determination.
One of the ones we talked a lot about was recovering from abort type scenarios.
Those capabilities are complicated and difficult and we'd done some preliminary work
but we really took this extra time to make sure that we've got a real solid plan
so that we've got a higher probability of being able to work together
to accomplish their primary objective, which of course, is the success of the mission.
And so we made our teams here, the operations team as well as other teams available
to really talk through some of those items.
That's my example and I don't Elon if you have others.
That's really the one we've spent the most time on in the operations world talking
about because it's very important.
We want to be able to do that as a team in the event that we need that capability.
>> Elon Musk: Yea, I think its like I said earlier, you now it's really just
about the hardware loop testing and validation of the software.
That's the biggest driver.
I mean there are other things that were done in that time, but just testing a vast amount
of intelligence that's occurring in the software and making sure even
in highly unusual situations that the mission is successful at least in the simulation
that that's what's taking the most amount of time.
And it's just a very, very complex system.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, thanks Bill.
Is there anybody else on the phone lines?
Alright let's come back here to Houston and let's start back over here with Mark.
>> Mark Carreau: Thank you.
Mark Carreau for Aviation Week.
I guess I'm a little hazy on whether there's an MMT authority during the flight
or if that is the space station IMMT that sort of is the big picture supervision.
>> Mike Suffredini: It's the space station IMMT.
>> Mark Carreau: Thank you.
>> Eric Berger: Eric Berger again with the Chronicle.
A quick question for Bill or Mike; could one of you address the feeling inside the space program
with this launch coming up because this is an American company
and obviously there's been a lot of heat on NASA in the last couple of years relying on,
last year relying on Russian rockets for humans and this is a potential way out of that.
So, is it something that a lot of people are looking forward to
or how would you characterize the mood sort of leading up to the launch?
>> Bill Gertsenmaier: Do you want to do mood or do I do mood?
>> You can do mood.
>> Mike Suffredini: Thanks.
[Laughter] Well, you know from our perspective what you're referring
to is probably a combination of perceived emotions way back when when we started
down this road because it had to do with getting out of the space shuttle business and getting
into a commercial venture and that probably played a little bit of a role of a misconception
and perhaps not everybody being completely behind this effort.
But, I can tell you from a program perspective, and those are the people that I see and talk
to every day, we couldn't be more pleased with what we're off to go do.
And the reason is A it provides indigenous capability within the U.S. to supply the ISS,
which we think is very important.
It does have implications to human transport again to ISS.
It's commercializing if you will, helping commercialized low earth orbit
which we think is a very important need and something that NASA is responsible for and some
of us, and particularly myself believe this is a very important step to take in order for us
to do exploration in the future NASA needs to develop and or encourage the capability
and help the development of a commercial capability to support low earth orbit both
in terms of cargo and humans and other capabilities,
robotic servicing and things like that.
And NASA needs to start focusing on human exploration beyond low earth orbit.
And so those of us who are looking forward to the next step for NASA, really are very excited
about this next step for the space station.
And we believe this is-- in order for space station to be successful these systems have
to be there for us and so we look on it very favorably
and they're very excited about this pending launch.
>> Bill Gertsenmaier: And I can add just a little bit,
you know this is absolutely critical to space station.
We really need this cargo capability to be able to get to station and the return capability
that Dragon provides is truly unique of any one
of the cargo providers including the Russians and Soyuz.
The amount of cargo we can get back with Dragon is just phenomenal from a return standpoint.
So, we absolutely need this capability for ISS
and then we're really rooting for the teams to come through.
I think it's also been encouraging to seen SpaceX, to work hard issues
and they had some EMI, electrode magnetic interference issues that they worked
and they spent some really good engineering time to resolve those issues and get them resolved.
They had some engine lamination concerns and again they were very rigorous.
They tested some things that they didn't absolutely have to go test but they wanted
to go test them to make sure that they were right.
That's really encouraging so I can really you know get behind somebody that is doing
that extra work to get ready to go fly.
But, as Elon said this is really a tough flight and I mean what we're asking them to go do
on this demonstration flight is amazing.
When you look at all those things that Holly talked about on her charts and the many hours
and this hard graft of work and all the software has to interact and the six computers
and the eighteen thrusters and all this has to work as a nice combined set to get
into this precise box to be picked up by the SSR, that is no easy task.
So this will be a very demanding mission and we need to look at it
as a test flight, what it should be.
We'll see how well the test works out that there was,
they've really done a good job in getting ready for this test.
So, it was an asset team.
We're ready to watch, participate and help and we truly need this capability for ISS.
>> Josh Byerly: David.
>> David Hirsh: And just to get a more detailed sense of where we are technically today
as of this meeting, the hardware in loop issue that you were describing a little bit earlier,
does that relate specifically to something on the timeline that Ms. Ridings was taking us
through earlier, a specific element there?
Was that as you were saying maybe something that's more generalized over,
over the entire mission?
>> Elon Musk: Yea, well so hardware in loop means you're a little more,
essentially we have a complete replication of the, of the Dragon's avionic system on a,
on a bench and then it flies a simulated mission.
And it actually its like, it's sort of like a, like a brain in a tub thing.
It actually thinks it flew to the space station and it does-- we watch to see what it does.
Does it do all the right things on the way to get there?
And if it doesn't then where did it go wrong?
And what happens if we unplug certain devices essentially simulating failure
at the worst possible moment?
Does it, does it then take the proper steps and what happens
if you fail several simultaneous things?
And what if you fail something and then restore it?
There are many, you know the cross product of all those things is a huge number of tasks.
>> David Hirsh: You're introducing failure.
>> Elon Musk: We introduce failures yea.
>> David Hirsh: There's nothing along that timeline just to move it along
because I know its getting late here, in Ms. Ridings timeline
that you're specifically focused as far as a mission element that, that might be problematic.
You would just need to introduce more failures and troubleshoot that
and see how the system is going to react.
>> Elon Musk: Right.
Exactly, in fact the recent, I'd say in the last month or so the top things to have to deal
with have been false reports, where it actually initiates a mission aboard
because it was too sensitive to the parameters.
So, if things were actually okay but Dragon got too worried
and aborted the mission [Laughter] so--
>> David Hirsh: From LA so--
>> Elon Musk: Right.
So, it's you know, it's-- you don't want to have-- definitely abort if something's wrong.
Sometimes it may think something's wrong but it's actually okay.
And there all sorts, there are all different types of failure
like say you can have something fail and stay off.
You can have something fail erratically.
It goes off and comes back and sort of oscillates.
You can have multiple things go at the same time and the systems be able
to deal with all of those contingencies.
>> Josh Byerly: Okay, is that it here in Houston?
Okay, before we finish up we're going to take a look at our launch and mission coverage
that we have here upcoming on NASA Television.
Coming up at L minus one there will actually be a pre-flight, pre-launch news conference
from the Kennedy Space Center and then on Monday, April 30th at 10:00 a.m. central time
that is when our launch coverage will begin and once again launch is actually scheduled
for 11:22 a.m. central time right now.
And then at 1:00 p.m. central time we'll have a post-launch news conference from KSC as well.
On flight 82, which right now should be on Tuesday, May 1st we will not,
we will not have any live coverage on NASA Television
but we will have an update during our typical ISS update show here at JSC,
which will air at 10:00 a.m. central time, 11:00 a.m. eastern.
And then on Wednesday, May 2nd at 1:30 a.m. central time,
very early in the morning we'll have our fly under coverage from here
at Johnson Space Center inside Mission Control Houston
and then 9:00 a.m. central time we will have a mission status briefing here at JSC as well.
And finally, Thursday, May 3rd at 1:00 a.m. central time that is when our rendezvous
and birthing coverage will begin here at the Johnson Space Center once again
from Mission Control Houston and then
at noon central time we should have a mission status briefing again here at JSC.
Of course, all of these times are subject to change.
To see all of this and to also see any of the slides that you saw today from our participants,
just log onto www.nasa.gov/spacex; all lower case.
It's important that you do that.
If you look on the right hand side of the page
down at the bottom there's a media resources section.
You can find all these slides as well as the press schedule once we get it finished up
and posted there as well as the NASA TV schedule.
So, just log onto there to get all of the latest.
I want to thank all of our participants for joining us today and we'll see you back here
in a couple of weeks for the SpaceX mission.
Thank you.