NASA "reluctantly agrees" to extend the stay on SpaceX's HLS contract by a week bc the 7GB+ of case-related docs in the Blue Origin suit keeps causing DOJ's Adobe software to crash and key NASA staff were busy at Space Symposium this week, causing delays to a filing deadline. lol
Under NASA's voluntary pause to SpaceX's contract — which it only did if Blue Origin agreed to move litigation quickly — the end date was November 1st. Now it looks like it'll be November 8th.
DOJ lawyers say the size of the case material from parties in Blue Origin's lawsuit is "extraordinarily voluminous, consisting of hundreds of individual documents and over seven gigabytes of data." They're asking the court if they can submit it all on a DVD instead
Update: Judge grants the DVD plan and the DOJ's new deadline to file case docs from Aug. 27th to Sept 3rd, but keeps the rest of the schedule as is. So SpaceX's stay is not extended to Nov 8th - it remains Nov. 1st.
Update 2: Blue Origin files a motion to amend the schedule, arguing the newly granted schedule doesn't give it enough time to view the DVD records before its deadline to respond, and tht the judge should accept a week-long delay for every deadline including SpaceX's contract stay
SpaceX — "which had not objected to the [DOJ/NASA's] proposed schedule..." — opposed Blue's motion, but judge later grants it, presumably expanding SpaceX's HLS contract stay to Nov. 8 (though the judge's schedule doesn't include that).
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Launch director is being briefed on a worsening hydrogen leak at the Space Launch System's launchpad, the first hitch to pop up in an otherwise clean launch countdown. "Only way to fix it at this moment is to send a red crew to the pad," NASA spox says.
Two technicians, the red team, are going out to the pad to tighten some nuts for about 15 minutes, then leave the pad.
Russia's Yuri Borisov clarifying his remarks on ISS withdrawal: "We intend to do this not from 2024, but after 2024... these are two big differences... We just said that after 2024 we start the exit process. Whether it will be in the middle of 2024 or in 2025 - it all depends"
He said withdrawal depends mainly on the Russian segment's structural health and that engineers believe an "avalanche-like" process of technical failures on the RU segment could occur after 2024, which prompted Roscosmos to consider transitioning to its own national space station
Borisov added that Russia has largely completed "the lion's share" of its scientific research on the ISS, and that "we do not see any additional dividends by stretching this process until 2030." And the funds spent maintaining Russia's participation on the ISS "are huge"
NASA's safety advisory panel in its quarterly meeting says there's "significant concern" about the low number of ULA's Atlas 5 rockets available to launch Starliner and that certifying Altas 5 successor Vulcan for human spaceflight could take years.
Panel notes SpaceX's decision to cut off Crew Dragon manufacturing might be concerning and urges NASA to study how many times Crew Dragon can/should be reused and whether SpaceX will need to start building more again in the future.
Panel says cooperation between Russia and NASA on the ISS is largely unaffected by the war, but sanctions on Russia are "beginning to have a peripheral impact on Russia's contributions to the" space station, notably Microsoft's decision to suspend Russian ties
“Getting a valve maker or propulsion system provider to write down, 'Yeah, I screwed that up' ... that's never gonna happen."
Boeing and Starliner’s propulsion system provider Aerojet Rocketdyne are privately feuding over the spacecraft’s valve issues reuters.com/business/aeros…
Getting a lot of questions about the last graf on NearSpace president Timothy Lachenmeier's leg injury in 2017.
According to public court records: In 2017, Boeing and its parachute testing subcontractor NearSpace Corporation were gearing up for a test in which Starliner would float 40k feet in the atmosphere under balloons before dropping to simulate and test its reentry from space.
NASA plans to award SpaceX three additional commercial crew flights to the ISS under the company's CCtCap contract. SpaceX will be on contract for nine post-certification missions in total
SpaceX, having flown three crewed missions under the contract already, is on track to launch its sixth and final Crew Dragon mission by March 2023, while Boeing's Starliner, marred by technical issues, won't fly the first of its six contract missions until at least late 2022.
Without the extension, Boeing would be NASA's only crew provider after SpaceX's last mission in 2023. The three extra Crew Dragon missions keeps SpaceX in the game so NASA can stay true to its objective of having two different crew systems for redundancy.
NASA picks three companies to develop initial designs for commercial space stations, dolling out $415.6 million total:
Blue Origin, $130 million
Nanoracks, $160 million
Northrop Grumman, $125.6 million
Axiom, which is building private modules to add onto the ISS under a different NASA agreement, says it "declined to bid" for the Commercial LEO Destinations funds but "warmly congratulates the winners and looks forward to the shared vision of a thriving commercial network in LEO"
Nanoracks' team includes Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin, for their Starlab space station concept.
Blue Origin is building Orbital Reef with Sierra Space, Boeing, and Redwire Space
Northrop is working with Dynetics to build a station that "leverages flight-proven elements"