Boeing Starliner

[Gojira]

RobDickinson said:

I can't see nasa settling for 1 commercial supplier though

Particularly not the young upstart who has shown their old friends at Boeing how to do things....

Actually, thinking about it, I suspect it is the US politicos who would have the problem more than NASA!

[RobDickinson]

NASA's @JimBridenstine on Starliner's test flight: "The OFT flight had a lot of anomalies." Wants to press ahead, however, because it's important to have two commercial crew providers.

[Beati Dogu]

SpaceX has the advantage of having multiple similar capsule missions to the ISS. They can run the Crew Dragon's systems through recorded mission inputs while it's still sat in the lab. There's no substitute for a real physical flight of course, but they can at least give the flight computers realistic inputs as many times as they want. Now they have data from a successful Crew Dragon mission to use too of course.


Just listening to the NASA press conference live stream and they also had an intermittent comms problem connecting to the capsule due to interference from cell phone towers on the ground. This made it difficult for ground control to gain command of the capsule after the Mission Elapsed Timer led to the thrusters going haywire.

The NASA investigation continues until the end of the month, but there are 11 corrective actions on software and testing they want to introduce (so far). Not just with Boeing, but NASA too.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2020/02/07/n...

It's not looking good for Boeing right now. I've a feeling that "due to abundance of caution" as they like to put it, they'll be required to run another unmanned flight first. Especially as one of the two astronauts due to fly the Starliner's first crewed flight is a woman. Which shouldn't matter, but it does.

[RobDickinson]

Sigh.

Members of @NASA's safety advisory panel said @BoeingSpace didn't perform key test (testing the full mission integrated w/ Atlas V in a System Integration Lab) that could have caught problems w/ Starliner.
"That was somewhat surprising to us on the panel."
https://t.co/hgbLdJl8RT

[Petrus1983]

You have to wonder if Boeing’s current overall situation had any weighting on this. They’re certainly not having a good time of it are they.

[RobDickinson]

The whole thing smells.

How could they not do a total system test connected to hardware, NASA learned this lesson a long time ago - but it wasnt a NASA requirement?

I'm confused to how boeing have got a free pass on all this for so long

[Eric Mc]

I think Boeing is in deep doo-doo now.

[Beati Dogu]

NASA works closely with both Boeing/ULA and SpaceX on their respective systems, so if they're signing off on stuff they shouldn't be, then that's on them too.

[RobDickinson]

1. Starliner what's new:

- 61 action items
- 49 software test gaps
- NO decision on Orbital Flight Test reflight
- Starliner not flying for months

BACKGROUND:
1st issue: https://t.co/ZQDBWNak93
More issues: https://t.co/73hjNc8TbR
@BoeingSpace deep dive: https://t.co/hAUzdQnNlChttps://t.co/XgFteM2reo

[MartG]

Boeing to rerun unmanned test flight

A document based on internal NASA planning documents suggest an NET August launch, shortly after SpaceX DM-2 returns from a 3-month stay. The COVID-19 events shouldn't impact this as ISS human spaceflight and time-sensitive operations such as the Mars Perseverance Rover are still in preparation for flight.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/after-trou...

[Eric Mc]

I presume deemed necessary after all the issues that were discovered in that rather chaotic first flight.

[Beati Dogu]

It’s the right decision. I’m glad they’re doing this and wish them the best.

The Atlas V rocket for this is already built and at the Cape. Intended as it was for their first crewed mission.

Funnily enough, the Dragon 2 capsule will likely be attached to the ISS at the same time. Taking its first proper commercial crew of 4 astronauts.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Tuesday 7th April 18:51

[Beati Dogu]

In another blow for Boeing, NASA have dropped them from the running for resupply contracts to the lunar gateway.

They’ve already awarded a contract to SpaceX, so that just leaves Northrop Grumman and Sierra Nevada in the race.

[Flooble]

Another update to this saga. The commander for the first crewed mission has stepped down. Maybe he's not so keen to take the ride after OFT

I think I saw a tweet that the safety panel still had concerns about the next uncrewed test flight too.

Interesting times for Boeing.

[MartG]

Getting ready for a second attempt at the test flight

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/01/18/boeing-makin...

[Eric Mc]

I see they've added a protective hinged cap to the nose cone - in order to protect the docking mechanism. I reckon they must have seen some heat damage on the docking probe after the first test flight.

[MartG]

Another delay

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/02/20/launch-of-st...

Call me picky, but shouldn't spacecraft avionics components be inherently protected from power surges ?

[eharding]

MartG said:

Another delay

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/02/20/launch-of-st...

Call me picky, but shouldn't spacecraft avionics components be inherently protected from power surges ?

Have they tried setting SCE to AUX?

I don't care that it might be a 50 year old solution, I'm not getting on any space vehicle that doesn't at least one SCE switch, and have an AUX position labelled in a nice big comforting font.

[Beati Dogu]

That's the downside to not having a crew onboard to flick a switch like that. A crew onboard their first attempt would have immediately detected and manually taken over to resolve this issue and it would likely have made it to the ISS without further incident.

[Flooble]

Beati Dogu said:

That's the downside to not having a crew onboard to flick a switch like that. A crew onboard their first attempt would have immediately detected and manually taken over to resolve this issue and it would likely have made it to the ISS without further incident.

Can you imagine being on board when you realised the capsule had no idea where (when) it was and your communication with mission control was also patchy? Good job that the launch sequence takes so long all astronauts have to wear nappies.