A Dneper rocket carrying a lot of Cubesat university experiments failed to get them to orbit. I’m glad that wasn’t Bigelow’s Genesis 1 flight, though.

And it demonstrates once again that no one currently builds reliable launch systems. It also shows the continuing folly of using (in this case literally) converted munitions as transportation devices. Until we fix the problem of reliability and affordability (issues that NASA’s plans don’t even attempt to address), it’s pointless to plan lunar or Mars missions.

In light of the recent GAO report, Keith Cowing is being pretty hard on ESAS himself:

The CEV/CLV is already a debacle of epic proportions with the contractor teams saddled with requirements that change on a daily basis (as the GAO report infers [I think he means “implies”–rs]), a launch vehicle with severe technical deficiencies, and 8A small business set asides that guarantee that minimally competent companies with little experience in this realm are placed in the critical path of the program. The sense of doom is so bad that many of the top engineers at the primes refuse to work on the CEV, preferring to remain with the more stable military programs. Everyone is expecting a repeat of 1992/93 when the Space Exploration Initiative collapsed under the weight of unrealistic schedules, reduced budgets, and a new president from a different party who cared little for the return to the Moon effort.

I have to say that, from the inside of one of the contractor teams, I’m not seeing those kinds of things, at least to that degree, but I don’t necessarily have that much visibility. For example, I don’t know of any “top engineers” who have refused to work the program, but then, I don’t know that many “top engineers.” And we haven’t had a formal requirements change since January (at least until this week, when a new Systems Requirements Document came out), though there have been many questions about potential trades that need to be performed, from which one can infer requirements changes coming down the pike in the future (probably upon award in late August or early September).

[Update at 10:30 AM PDT]

As Keith notes in comments, I misread that. It’s a reader’s comment, not his. I was mislead because I didn’t read carefully, and there was only one.

In light of the recent GAO report, Keith Cowing is being pretty hard on ESAS himself:

The CEV/CLV is already a debacle of epic proportions with the contractor teams saddled with requirements that change on a daily basis (as the GAO report infers [I think he means “implies”–rs]), a launch vehicle with severe technical deficiencies, and 8A small business set asides that guarantee that minimally competent companies with little experience in this realm are placed in the critical path of the program. The sense of doom is so bad that many of the top engineers at the primes refuse to work on the CEV, preferring to remain with the more stable military programs. Everyone is expecting a repeat of 1992/93 when the Space Exploration Initiative collapsed under the weight of unrealistic schedules, reduced budgets, and a new president from a different party who cared little for the return to the Moon effort.

I have to say that, from the inside of one of the contractor teams, I’m not seeing those kinds of things, at least to that degree, but I don’t necessarily have that much visibility. For example, I don’t know of any “top engineers” who have refused to work the program, but then, I don’t know that many “top engineers.” And we haven’t had a formal requirements change since January (at least until this week, when a new Systems Requirements Document came out), though there have been many questions about potential trades that need to be performed, from which one can infer requirements changes coming down the pike in the future (probably upon award in late August or early September).

[Update at 10:30 AM PDT]

As Keith notes in comments, I misread that. It’s a reader’s comment, not his. I was mislead because I didn’t read carefully, and there was only one.

In light of the recent GAO report, Keith Cowing is being pretty hard on ESAS himself:

The CEV/CLV is already a debacle of epic proportions with the contractor teams saddled with requirements that change on a daily basis (as the GAO report infers [I think he means “implies”–rs]), a launch vehicle with severe technical deficiencies, and 8A small business set asides that guarantee that minimally competent companies with little experience in this realm are placed in the critical path of the program. The sense of doom is so bad that many of the top engineers at the primes refuse to work on the CEV, preferring to remain with the more stable military programs. Everyone is expecting a repeat of 1992/93 when the Space Exploration Initiative collapsed under the weight of unrealistic schedules, reduced budgets, and a new president from a different party who cared little for the return to the Moon effort.

I have to say that, from the inside of one of the contractor teams, I’m not seeing those kinds of things, at least to that degree, but I don’t necessarily have that much visibility. For example, I don’t know of any “top engineers” who have refused to work the program, but then, I don’t know that many “top engineers.” And we haven’t had a formal requirements change since January (at least until this week, when a new Systems Requirements Document came out), though there have been many questions about potential trades that need to be performed, from which one can infer requirements changes coming down the pike in the future (probably upon award in late August or early September).

[Update at 10:30 AM PDT]

As Keith notes in comments, I misread that. It’s a reader’s comment, not his. I was mislead because I didn’t read carefully, and there was only one.