Team Simulates Commercial Crew Flights to Space Station
On the left, NASA astronaut Suni Williams, fully suited in SpaceX’s spacesuit, interfaces with the display inside a mock-up of the Crew Dragon spacecraft in Hawthorne, California, during a testing exercise on April 3, 2018. On the right, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, Eric Boe and Doug Hurley conduct a fully-suited exercise in Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner mockup trainer during early May at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. (Credit: SpaceX — left photo, Boeing — right photo)
The Joint Test Team for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program pulls expertise from across the key human spaceflight areas to design, test, assess, and plan missions aboard the Starliner and Crew Dragon spacecraft.
NASA works closely with the teams at Boeing and SpaceX to provide technical expertise, problem-solving, and independent assessment to key test activities that verify critical human interfaces and crew training.
“If you look at an organizational chart, you won’t see the joint test team on there, because its members represent a diverse group of individuals across multiple departments,” said Mike Good, program manager assistant for Crew Operations and Testing at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA Commercial Crew Program astronauts Eric Boe. left, and Bob Behnken joined flight director Richard Jones and his NASA/Boeing flight control team in the first Mission Control Center, Houston, on-console simulation of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner launch, climb to orbit and post-orbital insertion timeline. (Credit: NASA)
When human spaceflight returns to the U.S., astronauts and members of the joint team will have logged hundreds of hours of simulations and tests on both commercial crew spacecraft.
“The simulators are a great tool to train and test the flight hardware before we fly,” said Good, a veteran astronaut who flew on space shuttle missions STS-125 and STS-132.
“We work with this team to make sure we get all the testing done with the providers,” said NASA astronaut Suni Williams.
“One of the key parts of the Commercial Crew Program is the joint test team. So whenever the providers want to do a test requiring human interaction with their systems, the team gets together to understand the test parameters and go through the safety review process so no one gets hurt during the testing,” said Williams.
Commercial Crew astronaut Bob Behnken, center, watches during an evaluation visit for the Crew Dragon spacecraft at SpaceX’s Hawthorne, California, headquarters as astronaut Mike Good, right, looks on. (Credit: SpaceX)
They also ensure the companies are meeting NASA’s safety and performance requirements.
“Our goal is to be ‘value added.’ We try to provide useful feedback,” said Good. “What we can bring from our side is our experience with test flying and with human spaceflight.”
The joint team provides input ranging from cockpit layout and controls to flight crew suits and mission planning.
“We’re getting great insight on the systems, the training, the procedures, the hardware and the software,” said Good.
The team has recently worked with Boeing on several tests including manual piloting, human factors, workloads and usability.
The team also has worked closely with SpaceX on spacecraft development and design, spacesuit fit and comfort, displays and training material.
“Really the whole mission, from pre-launch through docking and undocking, entry, landing and post-landing, all of those need to be verified in the simulator. So we’ll have our astronauts going through each flight phase making sure all the tasks they have to do meet our workload, usability and error-rate requirements,” said Good. “We’re also contributing by helping the provider complete their verification testing so that they can close requirements and we can go fly safely.”
Before Boeing and SpaceX will be able to begin flying regular missions to the space station, they must make sure all of the systems onboard the capsule meet NASA’s safety requirements. These criteria are designed to ensure a safe journey for the crew and the capsule.
“Spaceflight and test flight experience are very important to our team. It gives us valuable insight back to the program,” said Good.
Even during test flights without a crew, astronauts on board the International Space Station will interact with the capsule during and after docking. For this interface to work as planned, the commercial crew astronauts play a large role in making sure the systems in both capsules are user-friendly on Earth and in low-Earth orbit.
This team’s work will come to fruition when Boeing and SpaceX complete their uncrewed test flights later this year. The test flights will validate the capsules’ capabilities and will help lead to flights with crew on board.
51 responses to “Team Simulates Commercial Crew Flights to Space Station”
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Cool. Getting closer.
Clearly the NASA astronauts are being preferentially groomed and trained for the Boeing spacecraft.
It is getting increasingly clear that NASA bureaucracy prefers the Boeing spacecraft, and are throwing obstacles at the SpaceX Dragon 2 crewed vehicle. NASA bureaucrats are frightened by the Falcon 9 cryogenic helium-tanks (remember the explosion?).
I predict Boeing will get a NASA crew into orbit this year, to the ISS in 2019. NASA will hinder SpaceX from sending NASA astronauts into orbit until perhaps 2020.
You have no idea what you are talking about,
You don’t think that NASA has a closer relationship to Boeing than to SpaceX over the decades? Look! The helium tank explosion is still in the back of the minds of many in NASA’s bureaucracy. That’s human nature.
Of course, Michael, we can always wager whose correct, you or I on this issue. I can bet you $100 that my forecast is correct. Would you bet $100 against me?
Nasa and SpaceX are buds and NASA is actually expecting SpaceX to be ready first
All SpaceX has to do is fly 7 finalized COPV v2 Block 5 launches (which will start flying in August) which is easily doable in 3 months, based on load time for the first block 5 launch it already has a version of the new COPV, so most likely it’s a case of the first few Block 5 boosters are flying essentially the same COPV as the other ones will but that were made before they finished manufacturing optimization of the pressure vessels. So one of them may even be valid for the in flight abort test. You might argue “if it’s essentially the same pressure vessel why doesn’t it count?” but the simple fact is that because they are built differently, different defects may occur, and when dealing with such high pressures and energies, even slight differences can magnify significantly more than in any other environment.
?? What do u base that on?
“I predict Boeing will get a NASA crew into orbit this year, to the ISS in 2019.”
Then you are predicting a failed crewed demonstration flight. The first crewed flight of either company’s vehicle is supposed to visit the ISS.
There is no preferential treatment going on, it may seem like it because there’s a lot more “new” involved with SpaceX that has to be addressed but it is far from preferential.
I’m partial to the Starliner cockpit. It has real switches. The 2001 inspired LabView cartoon of the Dragon 2 gives me great pause. But if they put me in charge, a spacecraft flight deck would look like this. To the extent that the flight controls have become a cartoon user interface just goes to show the spam in the can is even more so just so much meat.
Dust and such can get in the switches touch screen is safer
As a pilot I want positive control over every control surface in spite of complete loss of all power systems. And I’d want the ability to pop the chutes with only manual input. I don’t want to die because the screens display “Game Over” and I lose the ability to make control inputs. I want options all the way down the ground.
I understand where you’re coming from, but in a fly-by-wire aircraft the stick and throttle are wired into the flight computer. Those control inputs are electronic, just like touch-screen inputs would be. A failure of the magnitude you describe would probably be fatal to the crew in any case, aircraft or spacecraft.
Also, a long wire leading from the cabin up to the parachute pyrotechnics for positive, non-electronic control would have its own set of problems. It would be kind of like the emergency brake in a car…
Yes of course. All that is true, but I was just saying what “I” would want. If you want extensive functionality at ultra low mass you have to sacrifice a lot of direct control. Since I put my bacon on the line weekly I’m musing how much astronauts have to give up from a standard run of the mill sports airman. To me it shows what professionals have to give up and it strikes at a rather stark level to see a computer screen presented as a viable control input for a high performance aerospace craft.
I wonder what Sunita Williams and those who will be flying think about it. The Starliner, as mentioned has more of a mix than the Dragon.
At some point after they retire I hope they share their thoughts on this subject. However as professionals they always have to advocate for the project they’re working on at the moment. We can’t expect dispassionate analysis from them at this point unless they are directed to give it.
They might when they get to fly on each vehicle
Why? By the time these ppl retire, all cockpits will be pure glass.
By replacing direct control with electronic/computer control there may be some degree of sacrifice of intervention in off-nominal extreme emergency correction capability. It’s a compromise – you are 99.99999% safer for 99.99999% of the time, but lose the capability for “pilot” intervention for those 0.000001% off-nominal events.
“As a pilot I want positive control over every control surface in spite of complete loss of all power systems.”
That’s all very well, but in a “high performance aerospace craft”, such as a spacecraft, that loss of power is equivalent to all the control surfaces breaking off – without power you have nothing left to control. And, at what altitude and vehicle velocity are you going to manually pull the parachute (or jump out)?, since you have no instrumentation on which to base that decision.
That ship sailed a long time ago in military fighter aircraft. You lose all the computers, you loose control of the aircraft because they’re designed to be unstable (or close to it) aerodynamically in order to be more maneuverable. The only reason you can even fly them is the computers.
Exactly, the trade-offs of relying on computer (rather than pilot) control are considered worthwhile in increasing the survivability of the vehicle.
if you lose power on these capsules chances are you are already dead with how redundant the systems are besides the chutes will be automatically deployed, basically there are only 2 things in almost all situations you would control manually in dragon, abort and temperature
… And bailing out?
Not possible with these vehicles
Really? What a shame, gumdrops usually have slow terminal velocities, and are very stable with simple drag streamers. It should be easy to blow the hatch and jump out one by one if you doubt the mains will work.
That was the procedure for the Vostok Spacecraft, to eject before it reached Earth. It appeared it landed too fast for the cosmonaut to remain inside it.
http://www.russianspaceweb….
“As G-forces subsided and the capsule continued descending safely, Gagarin prepared to eject from his craft. At an altitude of seven kilometers, the main hatch of the capsule was jettisoned and seconds later, the pilot ejected. It was 10:42 Moscow Time. Gagarin’s ejection seat then came lose gently and he was left falling toward earth.”
It was a great solution and solved the problem of safely braking from terminal velocity to impact. A problem they could solve later, and did. As an astronaut, I’d sure like the option. If Michael H is right, death in a Dragon V2 could be the lights go out and you wait for the impact as the minutes go by. What a waste when for a few 100 kg you could have a streamer and parachutes that would allow you to crawl out the hatch from 20,000 to 5,000 feet. I’d much rather struggle to exit and skydive do safety than sit in my clean high tech dark spacecraft waiting to slam into the ground.
Ejection seats are not “a great solution”. They introduce risks of their own. Ejecting from an aircraft has been described as “Attempting suicide to avoid certain death”.
Isn’t that why the Valkarie and il-fated Valkarie 2 had ejection systems that encapsulated the pilots? Didn’t save one of the two pilots on Valkarie 2 unfortunately iirc.
For Vostok the ejection seat was a great solution to the landing problem. For Dragon and Starliner ejection seats are not the way to go.
Especially since the capsules themselves are already big, pressurized ejection seats, add the fact that their return approach puts them over water, or close enough to water that ejection will likely put them in the drink, its just added mass, it would also be hard to design the ejection exit panel for the 7 person configuration
Descending at around 300-400 mph vertically, using muscle power to exit an open hatch of a doomed vessel is not as easy as one thinks. Please read the account of two American aeronauts from a high-altitude balloon flight gone bad from the year 1934. To help you in your internet search, Andrew, the balloon in question was called Explorer I.
That does matter, you have a point. The question is, what’s the terminal velocity in the thicker atmosphere? On Shuttle they used a telescoping tube to guide their way out against the shuttle’s slipstream. In a loss of positive control incident you can bet I’ll still eject the canopy and release my harness and take the chance that a wing or the tail will not knock me dead or unconscious rather than ride a doomed aircraft down the to ground. My bet is if you were a trained flight crew member with flight experience you’d understand the desire for an option.
As a Tesla owner, I can not imagine buying another car with loads of switches.
And even airbus has mostly touchscreens or displays with keyboard. Even Boeing is headed that way.
Yeah, I have a very blue collar, involved -human in the loop- approach to technology. I can’t understand people’s acceptance of smart phones and modern operating systems. I prefer standard transmissions, and use Linux. I look at the world in disappointed wonder that so many people want to be served instead of in control. I’m not putting you down when I say this, but for me an automagic car like that is for when I’m too old to be a safe effective driver.
I have no idea of your personal driving capabilities. I have noticed that the worst drivers think they are good and safe even after totaling a couple of cars. Somewhat like the number of alcoholics that think they are the ones that can handle it despite all evidence to the contrary.
I like the simpler systems that leave me in control as well. I also like the functionality of automatic transmissions and smart phones. Different people draw the line in different places.
I’m a boring driver. I go the posted speed limit when nobody is around me, and go with the flow when there is one. When I’m in the left lane (usually) the right lanes pass me on a pretty steady basis. Use the mirrors first, then turn my head to look into the lane I want to turn into. I use my turn signals. Never been in an accident in over 30 years of driving except being rear ended when stopped at a light. I’m that kind of driver. 🙂
Well I wouldn’t use level 3 autopilot, as that’s basically that almost perfect but not quite state that you want to get used to but you shouldn’t. The rest just make life easier and make it so you don’t have to think about as many things at once, enabling people to think and (assuming they aren’t driving) control things that are more relevant to them
And the energy cycle and efficiency of the car is really cool. I also think electric cars are going to become an integral part of the solar -wind -storage virtual power plant concept that’s coming into being. I just fear the dwindling pool of human skills and a future with less human involvement in the systems of our society as well as a fostering of what I view as a dysfunctional desire to be served instead of participate in the operation of systems. But I’ve yelled from that soapbox already.
Tesla is Linux based (as am I 🙂 ).
We have a 2013 MS so no AP on it.
However, when it comes to the switches, by having a single display that has multiple windows, has been impressive. Basically, 99% of what I use while driving is in the center console and the rest is on the wheel/sticks. The hard stuff like configuring the car involves getting to it, but you are not supposed to deal with that stuff while moving (large number of settings on Tesla). About the only one that I wish was EA is the heaters for the rear seats.
I am going to guess that Dragon is designed the same. Everything that you need will be on the screen, and it is the obscure stuff that will require you to go to other views to see them.
And with 2 screens on the dragon, I think that will be one of the best and easiest set up going.
Andrew. I am a pilot (various Boeing type ratings and I spent 10 years or so working at a major US commercial airplane manufacturer as a test pilot )
non of that is real life.
I did acknowledge the loss of control with the advances made in systems, I fly gliders with airline pilots who fly to maintain their basic flying skills. So yes, I’ve heard how separated pilots are from their aircraft. I only fly old general aviation aircraft and gliders, so I’m pretty attached to direct mechanical linkages to my control surfaces. The point I was making was along the lines of the increasing passive nature of the flight crew from their vehicle and the lack of options to be taken should systems go south.
that is fantasy. automation has changed where and how humans interact with the airplane, but all in positive ways. the same people who would be disconnected today would have been disconnected in the B707 days
automation increases options not decreases them
If those options are engineered in, I would agree with that statement. As per the discussion when your only interface is a LCD touch screen, does your statement still hold true when you have such a complex interface that has no functionality when the power goes out? I think I’ll stand behind my original point in this thread that replacing physical switches with cartoon switches takes away options when systems start to fail.
no. without a doubt the touch screen is better in all the metrics you mention. Switches with mechanical contacts impose a much higher failure rate than electronic ones…the switches add a massive wiring burden because they well are switches and finally they are “somewhere” farther down the chain of switching than an electronic one…meaning usually a switch has to switch something else before “something happens” and all that takes power that a LCD will not be burdened with
the B737 NG which still uses electronic switches little changed from that of the B707 (or the B737 100) has a nearly 50 amp burden due to the switches that the B777 does not have due to being “all” electric”
hence a lot more works for longer on the battery of my Triple than id did when i FLEW the piggy…
I would imagine a comparison of Orion and say SpaceX Crewed Dragon or Starliner (since it has a lot of B777 and 787 in it) would show about the same thing
Yes those burdens are there but you trade them off for depending on the functioning of a complex 32 or 64 bit computer system, an operating system of one flavor or another, and then the software packages that handle data ack, display, and actuation. And that’s just the flight computer, the LCD display will be another set of much the same with simpler controlling software. The radiation environment of space does cause computer upsets, even on redundant systems. Satellites go into safe mode because of electronics upset induced by radiation quite often. Safemode can take minutes, hours, even days to back a system out of. I would hope that a manned system can back itself out of safemode in a matter of milliseconds if it were totally automated. When something like that happens the electrical and mechanical load of a switch might be greatly missed. The real art here, I think, is how functions are split between automatic control and manual control. Airliners are never far from skilled technicians and engineers, this is a spacecraft that will eventually have to function for years at astronomical distances from the rest of humanity.
not really
no matter how you access the “computer” you depend on the computer anyway…none of the vehicles being built in the US, Orion, crewed Dragon or the Starliner are “non fly by wire” meaning there is a control system that can operate outside of the FBW computer system
the “switches” that you love so much on Orion all go to a computer.
the shuttle orbiter for all its switches could not be flown, if the computers fail
sorry your world is gone…
In so many ways ….. 🙂
I thought both are glass cockpits
look at :47 sec into this clip
https://www.space.com/40756…
I was under the impression that the Boeing flight deck is both real life switches and cartoon switches and instruments.
I vastly prefer on screen switching to “real switches”