There’s a lot of orbiting space debris up there. Perhaps the window corresponds to a clear path through all the satellites and stuff.
Maybe, but even at the latest launch time of ~0930 EST splash down would’ve been around 1400 EST. Also the thing landed in the Pacific Ocean in midmorning.
There may be time allotted to deal with launch problems, problems in orbit, and time added to the search if the capsule misses the splashdown target area.
Paging Dr. Strangelove.
Why did they put so much memorabilia in the capsule? Sally Ride’s mission patch would be something to take to and leave on Mars.
Flight tests are designed to achieve a specific objective, e.g. validate aerothermal models, demonstrate end-to-end operability for systems that can’t be simulated in ground testing, et cetera. There is little value in repeating the same test over again unless the objective is demonstrating repeatability or reliability, in which case you would need to run a statistically significant number of test (minimum of 5 or 6 even to begin to assess reliability at a 50% confidence level). The Delta IV-H, while not quite as expensive (~US$375M in 2010 dollars) as the projected launch cost of the SLS (~US$500M in 2012 dollars) it is a substantial cost, and because of the production rate requires about a 4-5 year lead time to get manifested. NASA will run at least one test of the launch abort system (the capsule-mounted module that uses a tractor rocket to pull the capsule away from the booster in the case of a boost failure) but using a purpose-designed booster (the Abort Test Booster) using a SR118 (Peacekeeper Stage 1) motor.
This is errant and uninformed speculation. The Delta IV-H is comparable to the SLS in the same way that a Honda Civic is comparable to a twelve passenger van. Several parties independent of NASA and contractors to NASA looked at the the design, development, test, and evaluation (DDT&E) costs to human-rate the Delta IV-H and all came to the same conclusion that the costs would be on the close order of US$8B, plus operating costs that are approximately twice what the current (non-human rated) Delta IV-H costs to fly. For instance, here is the 2009 Aerospace Corporation report on “Human-Rated Delta IV Heavy Study Constellation Architecture Impacts”. (The primary focus is on comparing the Delta IV-H to the Ares I, but the cost summaries are presented on Page 39.) You can take issue with what the Delta IV-H costs to begin with (even relatively conservative assessments indicate that ULA is clearing about a 50% gross profit over manufacturing and labor costs, management and contractual overhead notwithstanding) but the DDT&E costs are a relatively solid estimate based upon prior crewed boost vehicle developments. And this is for a vehicle which, as you point out, has substantially less capacity than the projected capable for the SLS, and no practical means of enhancing the capability within the existing architecture.
The SLS was developed to its current (estimated) capability largely based around the level of thrust that could be developed at liftoff by the 5-segment solid boosters which were essentially off-the-shelf technology. Building a less capable vehicle is certainly possible using boosters with four segments or propellant offloaded, but there is no cost-savings in doing so. Building a vehicle with more capability using this architecture requires upgrading the SRBs (a unitary SRB with higher energy propellant and lower inert mass is planned for the Block Ia upgrade) regardless of what is done with the core stage. This capability will be needed for the beyond LEO missions, and no configuration of Delta IV-H launches could support this without an incredibly complex infrastructure and multiple sequenced launches that ULA could not, as currently constituted, support. A cursory look at the system requirements and engineering evaluations shows no conspiracy, just the hard numbers and limits to the capability of the Delta IV system.
The SLS is reliant on the Orion spacecraft with the Lockheed-provided crew module (originally the Crew Exploration Vehicle, now the “Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle” or MPCV) as a justification for its existence. Even the cargo configuration makes little sense as the launch costs (again, projected at US$500B but likely to grow as the program matures) is over US$5000/kg of payload. This is just too expensive for anything but critical strategic defense programs to afford. A launch vehicle to carry the MPCV would have to be essentially purpose-designed to do so; this isn’t like an encapsulated payload where the SV/LV interfaces can be reduced to a few electrical connections and a separation ring; crewed vehicle interfaces and controls are much more complex, and there is really no way to take an existing vehicle design like the Falcon Heavy and use it as a carrier for a crewed vehicle without a large amount of redesign, analysis, and test, comparable to the estimate for human-rating a Delta IV-H.
Although hitting a target box or insertion apse is one set of conditions defining allowable launch windows, there are a large number of other constraints induing the position and availability of range and tracking assets, performing flight test operations in range of observation and telemetry collection systems, thermal and power considerations (in the case of on-orbit operations), collision avoidance, and a number of mundane terrestrial considerations such as when flight and shipping lanes can be cleared, ground control and processing labor schedules, et cetera. Launching anything larger than a small sounding rocket requires the support of a few hundred people either directly or on-call on a regulated timeline, and for a crewed vehicle the labor requirements increase by more than an order of magnitude.
If your plan is just to delivery a certain payload to a certain point on the Earth’s surface with little concern for the post-boost mission parameters (e.g. an ICBM) you can launch without any concern for “launch windows” or the like. But if you want your payload to land at a certain time or meet a specified set of on-orbit or trajectory parameters then the “box” in which you can operate becomes substantially more constrained. It was even worse during the Apollo era when the desire for high bandwidth video communications from the Lunar surface to Earth-based ground stations (called the Manned Space Flight Network which was operated co-jointly and using many facilities from the JPL Deep Space Network) dictated many additional mission constraints which had to be weighed against operational, safety, and reliability considerations. Today for operations in LEO the Tracking Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS or “T-dress”) is used for on-obit communications which is much more robust and allows pretty much free operations anywhere in LEO, but future crewed deep space operations would almost certainly require the development of a deep space analogue with satellites in the Earth-Sol Lagrange points and possibly other solar orbits.
Stranger
Thank you very much!