Boeing Starliner

[Zad]

MartG said:

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

They can, and almost certainly will be (although who knows with Boeing these days) but it depends on the nature of the power surge. If someone dialled 140V onto a 14.0V test power supply line and left it there for some time without the power supply tripping, then there would potentially be degradation in the over-voltage protection, and printed circuit boards, connectors and wires may have been overloaded, leading to poor contacts, charred pcbs, etc. The equipment would still work, but its' capacity to deal with any future fault conditions would be reduced.

Think of it this way - if something happened, even something unrelated to the equipment involved, and there was a subsequent investigation and it turned out that a system had been exposed to out-of-spec testing, with possible degradation of protection and system performance, then that wouldn't end well for you, your employer or potentially the space exploration budget. Boeing don't have a great reputation at the moment, they can't really afford to take chances with something so visible. You don't give them any excuse to be their scapegoat.

[MartG]

Now no earlier than 2nd of April

https://www.spaceupclose.com/2021/02/nasa-boeing-s...

[Beati Dogu]

Nearly a year and a half after the first attempt.

Presumably it’ll hang around at the ISS for a couple of weeks then make way for the SpaceX Crew-2 flight on the 20th April.

[Flooble]

Is there enough space for all the capsules to be berthed at the same time?

I can see OFT-2 being bumped if it is likely to impact on an actual operational crew rotation, if things slip much more it'll be a brave project manager who nails their flag to the mast they they will definitely be gone by the 20th April!

[eharding]

MartG said:

Now no earlier than 2nd of April

https://www.spaceupclose.com/2021/02/nasa-boeing-s...

Presumably someone on Boeing's PR department sobered up long enough to realise that having another Starliner shug-wunking fuster-cluck on the 2nd of April is probably better than having it on the 1st, Marginally.

[Beati Dogu]

The April 2nd date has been postponed already. No new date has been announced yet, but It’s likely to be in May at the earliest now apparently. Maybe even as late as September.

It’s being partially blamed on the recent bad weather and power outages in Texas, which also affected Boeing in Houston and set them back about a week apparently. Range and ISS availability are also factors that NASA, Boeing and ULA have to juggle.

April and early May will be a busy time at the ISS anyway. They’ll be changing crews over via both Dragon and Soyuz capsules. They’re even planning to move the Dragon capsule that’s there now to a different port to make way for the new one.

Range and pad availability is another matter. ULA is scheduled to launch a couple of national security payloads on Atlas Vs in April as it is.

[MartG]

Good old Boeing doing what it does best...being over budget and way behind schedule - though to be fair the new delays are more to do with scheduling conflicts with other ISS activity.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/02/boeings-next...

Edited by MartG on Wednesday 3rd March 11:32

[MartG]

Now targeting July 30th ( though I personally will be surprised if it doesn't slip again )

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2021/06/23/r...

[Beati Dogu]

The launch is still on for Friday, July 30th.

In a few days, they're going to move the Crew Dragon capsule around to another port on the ISS to free up the Harmony forward port for Starliner.

Starliner should arrive on the 31st and stay for 5 days. The plan is land at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Not far from Branson's outfit as it happens.

[Flooble]

Guess those of us who thought there would be another schedule slip have been surprised.

Mind you, this is coming out of Boeing's pocket so there's no incentive to find any "unforeseen problems"

[Beati Dogu]

The Orbital Flight Test-2 Starliner has been integrated with its Atlas V rocket:




Weather and everything else permitting, it'll launch on Friday, July 30 at 7:53 pm UK time

The web broadcast starts at ~7 pm.

https://www.boeing.com/space/starliner/launch/inde...

[Beati Dogu]

The Atlas V rocket is being wheeled out of towards the launchpad now. Ready for launch on Friday.

[MartG]

"Starliner OFT-2 launch scrubbed indefinitely while the ISS is assessed for whatever the heck happened shortly after the Nauka module's docking and hatch opening. And no, I don't believe Boeing supplied Nauka its navigation software. 😏 Likely issue was that Nauka's systems weren't "standing down" as planned after docking. Not the best news for Boeing; it was tough to find a launch window for OFT-2."

[Beati Dogu]

The Orbital Flight Test-2 is now likely to be on Tuesday, 3 August 2021 at 6:20 pm UK time.

[C n C]

Beati Dogu said:

The Orbital Flight Test-2 is now likely to be on Tuesday, 3 August 2021 at 6:20 pm UK time.

Just a bump for anyone that missed this.

Starliner Launch today at 18:20 BST.

[Eric Mc]

Thank you - would have forgotten.

[Beati Dogu]

It's scrubbed now. Probably weather related. Trying again tomorrow.

Update: Starliner has a valve issue it seems. The Atlas rocket and ground equipment are fine.

Edited by Beati Dogu on Tuesday 3rd August 17:15

[Eric Mc]

Any news about today's launch?

[Beati Dogu]

It won't be today.

"NASA and Boeing are standing down from the Wednesday, Aug. 4, launch attempt of the agency’s Orbital Flight Test-2 to the International Space Station as mission teams continue to examine the cause of the unexpected valve position indications on the CST-100 Starliner propulsion system."

https://blogs.nasa.gov/commercialcrew/2021/08/03/n...

[Eric Mc]

It does seem rather dogged by ill fortune.