Talk:Earth Departure Stage

Second section
The second section (Other uses) seems pure speculation to me. Have we got any official NASA statement about these ideas ? Hektor 11:58, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Move - 2006

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

moved per request. Joelito (talk) 00:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Earth Departure Stage (Project Constellation) → Earth Departure Stage … Rationale: Only one article, and it is unlikley that there will be any others. There is no point for the distinction in parenthesis. Target page currently redirects to source page.… Please share your opinion at Talk:Earth Departure Stage (Project Constellation). — GW_Simulations |User Page 18:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Survey

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 * Support GW_Simulations |User Page 18:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

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 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Missions"?
A great deal of the information in this paragraph appears to be original research or incorrect. For the ISS resupply missions involving Orion, the Ares I booster is used. Since the EDS is only meant for the Ares V, the component can't be used for resupply missions. I believe the current plan for LEO rescues would be to send up another Orion with two crewmembers on an Ares I. NASA intends to make a six-person variant, so the rescue Orion would carry two people. They would dock, transfer the four-person crew, and return to Earth. I could see the possibility of using an EDS for rescues in lunar orbit, to perform a TLI manuever for the rescue vehicle, but I doubt if NASA will even plan for that contingency.

As for servicing satellites...this seems like pure speculation. I guess one can do this using an Ares V and replaced the LSAM with an unpressurized module containing the replacement components, then launched the crew up in an Ares I, docked, and used the EDS to send the configuration to the rendezvous point. But I've never heard this concept mentioned by NASA. The website for the James Webb Space Telescope indicates that, unlike Hubble, there are no plans to include "plug and play" modules that will be swapped out over the years. The JWST is scheduled to last only five to ten years. If the HST is any indication, the gyroscopes should last long enough for nine years without repair. I wouldn't call satellite repair a "certain use".

As for missions to Mars, NASA's ESAS report indicates that the Mars Transfer Vehicle will be assembled in orbit through multiple launches of the Ares V. Perhaps the author meant that a hollowed out version of the EDS could be used as a module for the Mars vehicle, but since its design is at such a very early stage (they don't even know how many assembly launches are required) this remark is pure speculation. It's also misleading; at first glance, I thought the author wrote that the Mars mission consisted of the same equipment as a lunar mission. Two years in an Orion spacecraft? Yikes.

At any rate, this entire paragraph needs to be heavily modified. Cardinal2 01:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Anonymous concurs. The part about polar orbit is especially strange. Launching CSM to some initial inclination, and then doing a rendezvous with a second launch from Florida so you can give the CSM enough fuel to do the inclination change just seems insane, nevermind what you would do with the thing once you've got it in polar orbit. --66.251.26.75 09:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Missions?--The Reply
Although the EDS is just an uprated S-IVB upper stage used on the Saturn V rocket, remember that the EDS would only be useful in propelling missions to the Moon, Sun-Earth Lagrange Points, and to Mars, although the latter would have to be accomplished, ISS-style before a crew can leave. As stated, the EDS can be useful for non-manned spacecraft specifications, and this would include:


 * Launching an upsized second-generation version of the Hubble Space Telescope, but with the ability to be serviced by the Orion spacecraft.


 * Launching of replacement modules to the International Space Station that cannot otherwise be launched with the Russian Proton rocket (or by then, its Anagara replacement).


 * Launching of, with the addition of a Centaur or LSAM-based "kick" rocket, a Galileo or Cassini-Huygens-style (a.k.a. the Mariner Mark II design) spacecraft out to Uranus, Neptune, the Kuiper Belt using Voyager-like trajectories (without the corkscrewing trajectories that may require an Earth flyby, especially with Radioisotope thermoelectric generators)


 * A Mars sample return mission that can land directly on the planet.


 * Manned Orion mission to geo-stationary or sun-synchronous orbits (something that was planned with the Apollo Applications Program (AAP)). Rwboa22 15:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Wide-Body Centaur as EDS?
It seems like Lockheed-Martin wants to control everything. Although they already have the contract for the Orion spacecraft, NASA has not yet made a decision for the Lunar Surface Access Module and that the Ares I will be built by ATK Thiokol. I don't know why LockMart wants to use a wide-body Centaur for the upper stage, but I would say that the Centuar that is being used now on the Atlas V was not designed to be man-rated, and that six RL-10 rocket motors, although planned for use on the LSAM, would mean a bigger headache for NASA. The planned EDS with its single J-2X rocket motor will be utilizing a proven design going back to Apollo, and since the J-2 had to be man-rated from the start, the new J-2X will have little trouble undergoing the man-rating tests that will commence in 2008. Besides, if I was the Orion mission commander, I would feel safer riding "eyeballs out" on a rocket with rigid tanks than an assembly with balloon tanks.Rwboa22 15:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Misleading introduction
The lead section currently says, "the EDS will boost only the Orion spacecraft's Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM) into space." It also says, "the EDS will restart and propel the complete Orion spacecraft." But the LSAM is not part of the Orion spacecraft, just as the EDS itself is not. (sdsds - talk) 15:40, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Complete rewrite
Because this article has been tagged as unreferenced for almost a year, and because at least one (anon) editor has challenged much of the content, asserting it to be out-right wrong, I have "rewritten" the article entirely. The new version is a direct plagiarism of the (public-domain, thus plagiarism is ok) web page from NASA describing the stage, which is cited as the (as yet only) reference.

Please add more information to this article, but be certain to cite reliable sources as the material is added. (sdsds - talk) 02:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

weight, mass?
What is the expected weight of EDS+fuel (with or without payload/Altair - but to be noted if it is with or without) when it reaches LEO and waits for Orion? Alinor (talk) 11:05, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Rename
Earth departure stage is a generic name, not one that is specific to a particular launch vehicle. This article should be split into articles named Ares EDS and SLS EDS or it should cover the generic concept, possibly naming specific instances too. Martijn Meijering (talk) 19:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * There's already an article for the SLS stage at Exploration Upper Stage. I also suppose that the S-IVB would count as an EDS too. SalopianJames (talk) 15:07, 12 August 2014 (UTC)