SpaceX Crew Dragon launch schedule

[molesworth]

Looks like things are moving ahead for a Crew Dragon launch next month :

https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/status/1251178705633841167

I'll admit I'm surprised, since I would have expected the Covid-19 crisis to have affected progress quite severely, but we'll see how things go as we approach the launch date.

[raven]

Hopefully we don't have an Apollo 13 Ken Mattingly situation.
Well, I wish them the best. Having only the Soyuz to get to the ISS really isn't using it to its full potential.

[JayUtah]

SpaceX is a reasonably well-run company.  Both they and ULA, for reasons that come with committing to government contracting, have extensive risk mitigation policies in place that prescribe how to continue to accomplish work without unreasonably endangering the health of their workers.  It's part of qualifying to bid on critical projects.  The U.S. government itself may be stumbling in its response to the latest coronavirus, but the best private-sector companies in aerospace and other industries have playbooks for everything up to and including Armageddon.  You may have noticed media reports about various companies in various industries having stockpiled various items, and some conspiracy theories asking how or why they knew to do that.  The reason is simply because they have risk mitigation offices whose job is to plan ahead for various catastrophes and quietly take precautions to ensure their ability to fulfill contractual promises under those circumstances.  No, I don't suppose SpaceX is working at full capacity, but their ability to continue to execute while under quarantine doesn't really surprise me.

That said, I'm really excited to see a crewed Dragon fly.  There are some great innovations in the Dragon and I'm eager to see whether they pay off.

[smartcooky]

SpaceX is a reasonably well-run company.  Both they and ULA, for reasons that come with committing to government contracting, have extensive risk mitigation policies in place that prescribe how to continue to accomplish work without unreasonably endangering the health of their workers.  It's part of qualifying to bid on critical projects.  The U.S. government itself may be stumbling in its response to the latest coronavirus, but the best private-sector companies in aerospace and other industries have playbooks for everything up to and including Armageddon.  You may have noticed media reports about various companies in various industries having stockpiled various items, and some conspiracy theories asking how or why they knew to do that.  The reason is simply because they have risk mitigation offices whose job is to plan ahead for various catastrophes and quietly take precautions to ensure their ability to fulfill contractual promises under those circumstances.  No, I don't suppose SpaceX is working at full capacity, but their ability to continue to execute while under quarantine doesn't really surprise me.

That said, I'm really excited to see a crewed Dragon fly.  There are some great innovations in the Dragon and I'm eager to see whether they pay off.

They have probably limited what they are working on, prioritizing Crew Dragon DM2.

I see they are slated to launch Starlink-6 in just under 5 days time, but I think that may be because it was so close to being ready that it took very little work to finalize. It is worth noting that Starlink 7, which was initially set for this month, has been pushed back to May, and the remaining Starlinks 8 - 14 which were all originally scheduled for launch before mid-year, have been postponed to later in 2020 with no actual date given.

[JayUtah]

You're probably right.  My company has sidelined every project except for a very few that are tied to critical customer needs and/or immediate revenue potential.  Luckily almost all of our customers are similarly scaled back and couldn't benefit from on-time delivery anyway.  The ebbing tide lowers all boats.

I agree with your judgment regarding the team size likely needed to complete the product close-out.  Peak team size would have been actually before major assembly, to actually fabricate and check out the components.  Quite likely the components were manufactured long before the quarantine.  The way we're doing things at my company is that we have the manufacturing teams work one shift and the quality-control and support teams work a different shift.  They're not in the building at the same time.  Communication is all by video conference.