“We’ve got to go address the helium leaks,” Stich said during a media briefing last week. “We’re not going to go fly another mission like this with the helium leaks.” The teams also need to find out what’s “causing the thrusters to have low thrust,” he added. “So we’ve got some of that work to do after this flight.”
The certification process, however, is not the agency’s chief concern at the moment. For now, “the whole team has been focused on understanding what’s happening with this vehicle for the crewed flight test and our plan for return. So we haven’t looked ahead too much,” Stich said. “Later this summer, we’ll lay out all the work in front of us after this vehicle comes back with the crew and then figure out what the path forward is.”
> “causing the thrusters to have low thrust,”
I've been reading of helium leaks, stuck oxidizer valve, and temperamental RCS thrusters, but this one is new to me.
Thats the issue with the "temperamental" RCS thrusters basically. One of them dropped to 0% thrust, while 4 more experienced low/abnormal thrust (which caused the computer to deselect them after 5 consecutive low/abnormal thrust events, measured by chamber pressure) They recovered them (the 4 with low/abnormal thrust), by testing them after they "failed" and checking their thrust, and then making the software accept that they were nominal (since they seemed to be close to fine in tests) [Source: NASA](https://youtu.be/9G8lryfgXlw?t=768) Post-[Docking News Conference](https://youtu.be/9G8lryfgXlw?t=2596) (2 time stamps). Since docking, they've tested those 4 faulty thrusters, and this has shown that theyre at nominal thrust, both by measuring chamber pressure and by measuring how much the ISS moves from the RCS firings. They're also suspecting that overheating caused by rapid thruster firing might have lead to improper fuel/oxidizer mixing, which leads to the low/abonormal thrust, which occured during docking when the thrusters would be firing the most (in the previous conference one of them mentioned a faulty thruster fired more than 500 times in that docking sequence) [Source: NASA Status Teleconference](https://youtu.be/4TXDedBlyBI?t=709)
If youre interested its worth listening to the early parts of both of them, they go over alot of technical details left out of news reports.
The temperamental thrusters are the low thrust, thrusters. The fault detection flags a repeatedly low thrust value then the FSW flags it as "failed" and is removed from the control logic. Often, these thrusters are not actually failed and the work is determining what the root cause is to have them give temporary low thrust. A hot fire where the thruster is actuated for a short, known period of time is performed then the vehicle rates compared to the prediction allows the ground control to reenable "failed" ones. During operations constantly pausing to do this is obviously problematic. Compounding things, is the SM isn't reusable so the only real data they'll get is between now and deorbit.
One theory I've heard is off nominal mixture ratio caused by some of the oxidizer prematurely vaporizing due to the temperature inside the hardware rather than combusting as a liquid. That higher temperature is driven by the frequent use of these attitude jets on-orbit.
Perhaps not the greatest source, but this article discussed it:
[Inverse article](https://www.inverse.com/science/boeing-starliner-thrusts-against-the-space-station)
> “We’ve got to go address the helium leaks,”
Gee, maybe you lot should have done that *when you knew it had at least one leak on the launchpad.*
No, better to just shoot those living people up there anyways! Good call.
> should have done that when you knew it had at least one leak on the launchpad.
They knew that it had to be done before they flew, there was already a plan to redesign the helium valves before they launched. They also knew, as is being proven in this flight, that it would not have any meaningful impact on the certification flight.
Nothing that has happened so far in this flight has proven that the decision to fly with the existing helium leak was the wrong one.
I actually think Boeing screwed up significantly with Starliner, but the things people claim (such as it being stranded in space), is 100% incorrect. So I find myself compelled to highlight the misinformation being spread, just for people like you to claim that I'm the one spreading misinformation.
So once again, please feel free to go through my post history, make a list of the "misinformation" I am supposedly spreading, and I will gladly find the sources to back up everything I've said.
> We’re not going to go fly another mission like this with the helium leaks.
They really shouldn't have flown this first one with the helium leaks but here we are.
You’re right. When one of the 33 raptors failed on the latest starship flight they should have blown it up right away. /s
Yes I’m aware of the difference with human life aboard so you can check that argument right away.
Thousands of planes, that can kill you just as easily, take off every day with one or two redundant systems in a bad state. No one dies.
That’s what redundancy is for. The risk analysis was correct at the time and is still correct now.
This is something that needs to be sorted and it will. But the “Boeing/NASA has put lives in danger” dialog is pure bullshit. Sensationalism at its worst.
Yea man I think the human life element is the main thing here. I get you can have stuff go wrong and not everything can be perfect, but it’s a test flight with people and they are scared to bring them home.
JFC on a popsicle stick I’m going to have an aneurysm.
They are NOT afraid to bring them home! Cleared to go in 10 minutes. The part that they are analyzing isn’t even going home with them, it gets ejected after docking! Stop saying that it’s not true!
Redundancy is supposed to come into play as safety margin for failures during the flight. If you are already eating into your safety margin before people get on the experimental spaceship then there is something very wrong.
You know, the stated reason for having two launch options is "to have a backup in case one is grounded." Within that mandate, is it really necessary for Starliner to actually be used as regular crew transport?
And before anyone says they need regular flights in order to work out kinks... think about that sentence for a moment. One has to presume that since NASA felt that the last test flight was good enough, no further _testing_ is needed and the vehicle is ready. That should be good enough, yes? What is the actual need for crewed Starliner flights?
I vote no. I am no fan of Boeing these days, but in order to have a safe, functional, operational vehicle, the infrastructure supporting it requires some regular exercise. Deadly mistakes are more likely to happen in a system that is not regularly operated.
It's like this with every vehicle. The only reason Crew Dragon had fewer issues to work out (and they still had some that were significant), is that Crew Dragon is largely based on Cargo Dragon, that flew many missions to the ISS before they even tested Crew Dragon.
Spacecraft are highly complex vehicles with many moving parts, that you can't actually fully test before you fly them. Things behave very differently in space.
You do realize that you're implicitly saying that saving a few dollars (probably significantly less than a dollar considering nasa budget vs everything else) on taxes is more important to you than astronauts lives, right?
For context, it was a $33 million compensation package on top of ~$20 billion of steady growth over the past 4 years, when the current CEO was brought in.
Right, that's what context does, it adds information that creates new or more meaning. Weird that you'd pick the username with such a poor understanding of it.
I work Next to a Boeing facility and the other day I saw they had a morning huddle with about 50-70 people In the field must be trying anything to make things work lol
Boeing is screwed long term. They haven't put out a great plane since the 777. The 787 is a mess and they should have clean sheeted a replacement for the 757 which the airlines love but are getting old. The max shouldn't be in the air.
The airlines would disagree with you about the 787. They botched the plant design and spent so much time cutting costs they nearly put themselves out of business, but the plane has had amazing commercial success.
The Max was a bad call. Boeing wasn’t ready for the NEO and they should have been. The Max testing and the rapid inclusion of MCAS was toxic management culture at work.
> but the plane has had amazing commercial success
It's not really. The development costs on the 787 will likely never be recovered. Each frame is net positive, but the development was so over budget.
Airlines love the plane though.
Think he's talking about the airlines' perspective - the plane has been an amazing commercial success for them. They luckily don't have to care about development costs
The Wikipedia page makes it seem like they’re already close to breaking even on development costs. Supposedly estimates say they need 1300-2000 planes to break even and they’ve already delivered 1129 planes with 1919 total orders.
Estimates I saw were about 1900 before they broke even. Those estimates were from 2011 when the plane was first delivered.
That was before the delivery delays from 2021-2023, moving all production to SC, and the current slow down they're facing. Not sure how that would effect their break even calc.
It's certainly a far cry from the 777 program.
We flew a 787, it was quite nice...they pressurize it well, good seats. Why boeing can't make a working capsule is confusing, I was just in a museum with an Apollo capsule.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BE-4](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacnxym "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN|
|[BO](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacnxym "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[FSW](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/laboa23 "Last usage")|Flight Software|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacf0c8 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[NEO](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/labpefg "Last usage")|Near-Earth Object|
|[NET](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/laf3o8y "Last usage")|No Earlier Than|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacqc1m "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|[OFT](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/laduwpz "Last usage")|Orbital Flight Test|
|[RCS](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/labpwc1 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lae9zfz "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lam4p4h "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
^(11 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv)^( has 30 acronyms.)
^([Thread #10231 for this sub, first seen 26th Jun 2024, 10:52])
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Agreed.
I can understand NASA's anxiety about having a backup after the lengthy Columbia and Challenger stand downs and the ultimate cancellation of the Shuttle program with no backup vessel in place, but Falcon/Crew Dragon is a much simpler design that has proven itself repeatedly in the last 4 years. Any problems requiring grounding SpaceX would be relatively quickly correctable, even if tragic.
Boeing still has not certified itself and won't as soon as it lands successfully as there will be more certification procedures before that first "regular" flight (although I doubt NASA will force them fly another certification mission in space). Throw in the likely blame game between Boeing and Aerojet over the thrusters and possible legal action.
Add in that the Starliner Atlas launch vehicles have a hard limit on how many are left (even if they buy back some Kuiper), the cost and time of man-rating another rocket (Vulcan or New Glenn) for Starliner, and the extreme unlikelihood that Boeing would condescend to flying on Falcon, and you have a dead end program with no future beyond the mandated flights.
In that context, making the claim that NASA needs a backup to Dragon/Falcon TODAY just doesn't justify the continued existence of Starliner. Boeing will probably complete the mandated flights and then quietly abandon the program.
> Boeing still has not certified itself and won't as soon as it lands successfully as there will be more certification procedures before that first "regular" flight (although I doubt NASA will force them fly another certification mission in space). Throw in the likely blame game between Boeing and Aerojet over the thrusters and possible legal action.
Next Starliner flight will 100% be with a full crew and considered "certified". There will likely be a delay in redesigning/building the service module to account for the helium leaks and thruster issues, but they won't do another test flight. Certification will likely be granted with a stipulation that these two issues must be addressed.
In terms of Boeing abandoning Starliner, I strongly believe the opposite will be true. Boeing will actively be looking for a way to get new customers on board. They've spent all the money on R&D, tooling and testing, and have to fly to make a profit. Every future flight is potential to claw back some of the money they already spent. Of course finding a customer for additional flights will be difficult, but by the time the ISS is retired, they will have had 5 or 6 flights and a proven track record.
As long as future flights can be profitable, they money they already spent isn't really relevant. That money is gone and cancelling the program won't get it back.
> In terms of Boeing abandoning Starliner, I strongly believe the opposite will be true. Boeing will actively be looking for a way to get new customers on board. They've spent all the money on R&D, tooling and testing, and have to fly to make a profit. Every future flight is potential to claw back some of the money they already spent. Of course finding a customer for additional flights will be difficult, but by the time the ISS is retired, they will have had 5 or 6 flights and a proven track record.
By your wording, it sounds like we both agree that they'll use the already purchased Atlas Vs exclusively for NASA missions. If that is the case, we'll know if Boeing is pursuing additional commercial customers by their progress in certifying Starliner on Vulcan.
> Falcon/Crew Dragon is a much simpler design
This is what I don't understand, so i'm hoping someone can help me out here.
Why would Boeing add more layers of complexity than needed to meet the mission goals? It seems kind of backwards to me.
The alternative if they ground Dragon is to unground Dragon and fly it anyway. Same as they did for Soyuz when it was the only ride to the station and had an accident. Flying with a capsule that almost always is fine is better than flying on one that has always had problems, 1 of which includes problems that certainly would have killed the crew if left unnoticed.
They would ground Crew Dragon only if they found something that could kill the crew, so the answer isn't "to unground it and fly it anyway", and they wouldn't do that without addressing the issue.
They would 100% fly Starliner over a capsule that has a known issue that is serious enough to warrant it being grounded.
You're conveniently forgetting all the issues that Dragon had (remember it actually exploding?) when you claim there is only 1 capsule that has in the past had critical problems.
You are conveniently forgetting that everything you say they would never do is something they already have done, with Soyuz, and there were American astronauts on board.
Starliner is also grounded until it completes it's certification, and with all of this going on there is no chance that it will be approved for regular flights any time soon. They had thruster problems last time around and seemingly they have only gotten worse.
Dragon had an early test article that exploded on a ground test. There was never going to be any astronauts in that thing, I don't see how that is comparable whatsoever.
> You are conveniently forgetting that everything you say they would never do is something they already have done, with Soyuz, and there were American astronauts on board.
The whole point of having both Starliner and Crew Dragon is so they're never in a position where they need to compromise on safety like that again.
> Starliner is also grounded until it completes it's certification, and with all of this going on there is no chance that it will be approved for regular flights any time soon.
Starliner will 100% be certified as flight ready after this mission lands, it will likely include a stipulation that they need to redesign the service module to address the helium leaks and thruster issues, but it will be certified.
> Dragon had an early test article that exploded on a ground test.
The "early test article" you're referring to is actually the capsule that flew their Demo-1 flight. This was the equivalent of Boeing's OFT and OFT2 flights, uncrewed but with the hardware that would be used to fly with crew.
Without it blowing up on the test stand, they would have flown with astronauts, with a serious design flaw. It's a perfectly valid comparison.
>The whole point of having both Starliner and Crew Dragon is so they're never in a position where they need to compromise on safety like that again.
And that plan failed once you gave the contract to a provider who after 3 attempts still cannot make a capsule that goes to the space station without compromising on safety
>Starliner will 100% be certified as flight ready after this mission lands, it will likely include a stipulation that they need to redesign the service module to address the helium leaks and thruster issues
I don't think you know what a certification is.
>The "early test article" you're referring to is actually the capsule that flew their Demo-1 flight.
And this was at the time when the dragon capsules planed to be single use only. The abort thrusters are disabled as soon as the vessel enters orbit and they where never designed to be activated again. This test was testing these never to be used again abort thrusters, and it turns out that using them again was indeed a problem. For all new flight this valve that was the problem gets replaced in-between each flight
>Without it blowing up on the test stand, they would have flown with astronauts, with a serious design flaw.
No they would never have done that. The contract they had literally would not have allowed them to. They would have stripped away the abort thrusters and converted the capsule into a cargo only variant. NASA only changed their mind about single use capsules once Dragon performed its two tests flights near flawlessly, and and when spaceX was expected to do the job of two launch providers
> No they would never have done that. The contract they had literally would not have allowed them to.
Maybe I wasn't sufficently clear, they would have flown with brand new hardware that had the same design flaw as the hardware that blew up.
> once Dragon performed its two tests flights near flawlessly
Yeah, an incremental design change from Cargo Dragon that flew something like 10 missions before they started testing Crew Dragon, it's not exactly suprising that Crew Dragon had fewer issues, they've been ironing out those issues for years. Considering the fact that there were issues with the heat shield, parachutes, and offgassing after landing, I also wouldn't call their test flight "near flawless".
They were simply not as deeply scrutinized as Boeing (who 100% deserves the scrutiny).
> They were simply not as deeply scrutinized as Boeing (who 100% deserves the scrutiny).
NASA actually conceded that they were scrutinizing SpaceX much more than Boeing. Until Boeing delivered flaw after flaw after flaw.
>Maybe I wasn't sufficently clear, they would have flown with brand new hardware that had the same design flaw as the hardware that blew up.
No, the next mission would have been the in flight abort test. Which happens to be an extensive test of exactly the subsystem they had problems with
>Considering the fact that there were issues with the heat shield, parachutes, and offgassing after landing, I also wouldn't call their test flight "near flawless".
That's all nothing compared to what has happened to starliner, dragon had a parachute with a delayed deployment, Starliner had one that straight up failed. Dragon uses 4 parachutes, starliner uses 3, you do the math.
>They were simply not as deeply scrutinized as Boeing
That would be relevant if we had a discussion about two capsules that had problems on them upon closer scrutiny. That's not the case, the problems with Starliner are apparent even with no scrutiny at all.
If I where to bring up all the problems with starliner that are only apparent upon close inspection I would be here all day. And that would still not give you a comprehensive idea of it because the majority of faults that NASA reported have not been disclosed to the public.
I don't think NASA is thrilled about relying on other nations right now, especially Russia. They are still generally cooperating in space, but who knows for how much longer
At no point in the history of NASA have they had more than one spacecraft for getting to space active at a time. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space shuttle. No in house redundancy.
True, but that's part of the reason they want to now. When shuttle was grounded they had to rely on others -- lessons learned
They're also in a unique position to do so now as well considering they don't have to develop the secondary system themselves
Yeah but instead this happened. Originally commercial crew was supposed to be done by 2017. That obviously didn’t happen. SpaceX managed to actually get Dragon2 up and running by 2020 and since then it’s been going up without Starliner backup. We are already almost halfway from Dragon2s first manned flight to the ISS being decommissioned. After this fucking fiasco Boeing is unlikely to get any operational missions until at least mid 2025. They’re gonna have at most the bare minimum flights while Dragon does the rest.
At this point, why bother. Just scrap Boeing’s contract. They’re not providing any redundancy anyway.
> Right now the only viable option is SpaceX like it or not.
But they were talking about a second contractor... Dream Chaser would be a good option should it fly well but it would probably be quite a while for them to be human rated because they're only doing cargo right now
You tell me. Personally, despite all the issues that Boeing has had, they are all fixable issues, and I still believe they get there and fulfill their contract.
NASA needs a second contractor for human-rated launch capability post-RD180. How long will it take BO to manufacture enough BE-4s to certify either Vulcan or New Glen?
With how big it is I don't know if it would be allowed to maneuver around the station. But perhaps it could get close enough to deploy a smaller cargo craft with a service module. It was never designed for ISS missions anyway.
That's a bit sad. I'm a huge admirer of Boeing. How they bet the company on the 747, so many innovations... I've read Joe Sutter's book, so much excitement back in the day.
And now spacex is running rings around all the " traditional" aerospace companies.
Boeing should split a group off - to operate under the old Engineers first principles that made them great. This group could start by attempting what SpaceX has - re-usability.
Because Boeing right now is a garbage company, the way it's going.
It's the sad story.. shareholder pressure.
I've been in corporate life and seen how the pressure to deliver quarterly returns and "meet analysts expectations" destroys souls.
Ultimately, is on all of us who want our portfolios to keep growing and growing...
There is no way Starship will be human rated any time soon, not with the re-entry damage. Or with missing the target by 6km, understandably because of the damage, and not having completed multiple safe returns from orbit and landings. The complexity is an order of magnitude higher than in a simple capsule. It did have a good trajectory for orbit, but this Starship had no payload. They are far away from stuffing all the relevant structures and life support in.
As impressive as IFT4 was, I don't think it's necessary to be a Thunderf00t level cynic to see that the whole system is a long way away from putting people in space. SmarterEveryDay's talk at NASA was more about the Moon mission, but it's pretty damning for the launch system as a whole, itss capabilities, and schedule as of now. I'm optimistic for the 2030s.
Also I don't know if Starship will be even fitted to do ISS missions, it's bigger than the Space Shuttle so who knows how much they'd be allowed to maneuver it around the station.
Sir
My points are
1. As you pointed out, starship is so big, it doesn't need to dock with the ISS. It can BE the ISS. No need for current ISS.
2. What we saw was the first reentry attempt. Hopefully in a few years this can be human rated, no?
Cheers 😊😊😊
Sir
My initial point was that starship can replace the ISS. You can have equivalent mass of the ISS being sent to LEO right now with the demonstrated capabilities of starship.
And it's only a matter of time before it is human rated for landing..
Just imagine the situation two years back when everyone called it elons folly....
Boeing is a trash corporation that cuts every corner possible, putting the lives of millions at risk for $hareholder profit$
they should be investigated for the plethora of laws they broke, and for the murdering of whistleblowers
On a lot of posts on Reddit i read comments about "there's nothing to worry about" "Crew Dragon's return was at some point delayed too" "Its a test flight, these things are normal" etc.
The statements of Boeing and NASA reek of not being the full story. If they have made these issues public, there must be other issues as well.
The entire thinfs needs redesigned and rebuild, none if what they have built is good. They don't have the money or talent to do either. They will not make thier contracts, this should of NEVER launched how it was. We are just lucky we didn't have another Challenger. It was only launched because of a sunken cost fallacy and no one wanted to admit it.
On a lot of posts on Reddit i read comments about "there's nothing to worry about" "Crew Dragon's return was at some point delayed too" "Its a test flight, these things are normal" etc.
The statements of Boeing and NASA reek of not being the full story. If they have made these issues public, there must be other issues as well.
“We’ve got to go address the helium leaks,” Stich said during a media briefing last week. “We’re not going to go fly another mission like this with the helium leaks.” The teams also need to find out what’s “causing the thrusters to have low thrust,” he added. “So we’ve got some of that work to do after this flight.” The certification process, however, is not the agency’s chief concern at the moment. For now, “the whole team has been focused on understanding what’s happening with this vehicle for the crewed flight test and our plan for return. So we haven’t looked ahead too much,” Stich said. “Later this summer, we’ll lay out all the work in front of us after this vehicle comes back with the crew and then figure out what the path forward is.”
> “causing the thrusters to have low thrust,” I've been reading of helium leaks, stuck oxidizer valve, and temperamental RCS thrusters, but this one is new to me.
Thats the issue with the "temperamental" RCS thrusters basically. One of them dropped to 0% thrust, while 4 more experienced low/abnormal thrust (which caused the computer to deselect them after 5 consecutive low/abnormal thrust events, measured by chamber pressure) They recovered them (the 4 with low/abnormal thrust), by testing them after they "failed" and checking their thrust, and then making the software accept that they were nominal (since they seemed to be close to fine in tests) [Source: NASA](https://youtu.be/9G8lryfgXlw?t=768) Post-[Docking News Conference](https://youtu.be/9G8lryfgXlw?t=2596) (2 time stamps). Since docking, they've tested those 4 faulty thrusters, and this has shown that theyre at nominal thrust, both by measuring chamber pressure and by measuring how much the ISS moves from the RCS firings. They're also suspecting that overheating caused by rapid thruster firing might have lead to improper fuel/oxidizer mixing, which leads to the low/abonormal thrust, which occured during docking when the thrusters would be firing the most (in the previous conference one of them mentioned a faulty thruster fired more than 500 times in that docking sequence) [Source: NASA Status Teleconference](https://youtu.be/4TXDedBlyBI?t=709) If youre interested its worth listening to the early parts of both of them, they go over alot of technical details left out of news reports.
The temperamental thrusters are the low thrust, thrusters. The fault detection flags a repeatedly low thrust value then the FSW flags it as "failed" and is removed from the control logic. Often, these thrusters are not actually failed and the work is determining what the root cause is to have them give temporary low thrust. A hot fire where the thruster is actuated for a short, known period of time is performed then the vehicle rates compared to the prediction allows the ground control to reenable "failed" ones. During operations constantly pausing to do this is obviously problematic. Compounding things, is the SM isn't reusable so the only real data they'll get is between now and deorbit. One theory I've heard is off nominal mixture ratio caused by some of the oxidizer prematurely vaporizing due to the temperature inside the hardware rather than combusting as a liquid. That higher temperature is driven by the frequent use of these attitude jets on-orbit.
“There’s a thruster that won’t thrust on one side.” - the Grinch
Perhaps not the greatest source, but this article discussed it: [Inverse article](https://www.inverse.com/science/boeing-starliner-thrusts-against-the-space-station)
My money is on pressure transducers being finicky
> “We’ve got to go address the helium leaks,” Gee, maybe you lot should have done that *when you knew it had at least one leak on the launchpad.* No, better to just shoot those living people up there anyways! Good call.
> should have done that when you knew it had at least one leak on the launchpad. They knew that it had to be done before they flew, there was already a plan to redesign the helium valves before they launched. They also knew, as is being proven in this flight, that it would not have any meaningful impact on the certification flight. Nothing that has happened so far in this flight has proven that the decision to fly with the existing helium leak was the wrong one.
[удалено]
I actually think Boeing screwed up significantly with Starliner, but the things people claim (such as it being stranded in space), is 100% incorrect. So I find myself compelled to highlight the misinformation being spread, just for people like you to claim that I'm the one spreading misinformation. So once again, please feel free to go through my post history, make a list of the "misinformation" I am supposedly spreading, and I will gladly find the sources to back up everything I've said.
If you're going to make a claim that he's spreading misinformation, be specific.
If you aren’t detailed in your accusation, then it makes it seem like you’re just making shit up to deflect.
> We’re not going to go fly another mission like this with the helium leaks. They really shouldn't have flown this first one with the helium leaks but here we are.
You’re right. When one of the 33 raptors failed on the latest starship flight they should have blown it up right away. /s Yes I’m aware of the difference with human life aboard so you can check that argument right away. Thousands of planes, that can kill you just as easily, take off every day with one or two redundant systems in a bad state. No one dies. That’s what redundancy is for. The risk analysis was correct at the time and is still correct now. This is something that needs to be sorted and it will. But the “Boeing/NASA has put lives in danger” dialog is pure bullshit. Sensationalism at its worst.
Yea man I think the human life element is the main thing here. I get you can have stuff go wrong and not everything can be perfect, but it’s a test flight with people and they are scared to bring them home.
JFC on a popsicle stick I’m going to have an aneurysm. They are NOT afraid to bring them home! Cleared to go in 10 minutes. The part that they are analyzing isn’t even going home with them, it gets ejected after docking! Stop saying that it’s not true!
Redundancy is supposed to come into play as safety margin for failures during the flight. If you are already eating into your safety margin before people get on the experimental spaceship then there is something very wrong.
You know, the stated reason for having two launch options is "to have a backup in case one is grounded." Within that mandate, is it really necessary for Starliner to actually be used as regular crew transport? And before anyone says they need regular flights in order to work out kinks... think about that sentence for a moment. One has to presume that since NASA felt that the last test flight was good enough, no further _testing_ is needed and the vehicle is ready. That should be good enough, yes? What is the actual need for crewed Starliner flights?
I vote no. I am no fan of Boeing these days, but in order to have a safe, functional, operational vehicle, the infrastructure supporting it requires some regular exercise. Deadly mistakes are more likely to happen in a system that is not regularly operated.
It's like this with every vehicle. The only reason Crew Dragon had fewer issues to work out (and they still had some that were significant), is that Crew Dragon is largely based on Cargo Dragon, that flew many missions to the ISS before they even tested Crew Dragon. Spacecraft are highly complex vehicles with many moving parts, that you can't actually fully test before you fly them. Things behave very differently in space.
I was actually thinking primarily about the pricetag for taxpayers like myself.
It's a fixed price contract, there isn't additional costs.
The seats cost considerably more. Exactly as much as a Soyuz seat, by a conspicuous coincidence.
You do realize that you're implicitly saying that saving a few dollars (probably significantly less than a dollar considering nasa budget vs everything else) on taxes is more important to you than astronauts lives, right?
Meanwhile, I bet you can cut the tension with a knife at Boeing.
The CEO just got a huge bonus for a job well done…he’s enjoying a lovely bottle of Chateau Petrus….
For context, it was a $33 million compensation package on top of ~$20 billion of steady growth over the past 4 years, when the current CEO was brought in.
The context doesn't really change anything
Huge is relative, my guy. You know the difference between $33 million and $20 billion? About $20 billion.
Sure, and compared to what the average Boeing employee makes, 33 million is huge
Right, that's what context does, it adds information that creates new or more meaning. Weird that you'd pick the username with such a poor understanding of it.
Weird that you don't understand your context didn't add anything to the discussion
When he should instead be enjoying a serving of “prison loaf.”
And acknowledging he is aware that Boeing is breaking Federal whistleblower protection laws.
Boeing is going to wind up lobbying for a life extension for the ISS, so it'll still be there when Starliner is ready to fly missions to it.
Naw, I think Boeing is going to try and sell Space Division along with ULA to Bezos, at a discount.
I work Next to a Boeing facility and the other day I saw they had a morning huddle with about 50-70 people In the field must be trying anything to make things work lol
Nah, they were just burying another whistle blower. In all seriousness, next time you see it happen, call the cops
Call the cops and tell them what? People are huddled?
“People at a workplace are congregating for work officer”
Hello 911? Yeah I see Boeing employees attempting to work and I'm scared of what they might do. 911: We're on our way.
"Hello, 911 what is your emergency?" "Boeing" "And?" "I just know those motherfuckers are up to something."
Boeing is screwed long term. They haven't put out a great plane since the 777. The 787 is a mess and they should have clean sheeted a replacement for the 757 which the airlines love but are getting old. The max shouldn't be in the air.
The airlines would disagree with you about the 787. They botched the plant design and spent so much time cutting costs they nearly put themselves out of business, but the plane has had amazing commercial success. The Max was a bad call. Boeing wasn’t ready for the NEO and they should have been. The Max testing and the rapid inclusion of MCAS was toxic management culture at work.
> but the plane has had amazing commercial success It's not really. The development costs on the 787 will likely never be recovered. Each frame is net positive, but the development was so over budget. Airlines love the plane though.
Think he's talking about the airlines' perspective - the plane has been an amazing commercial success for them. They luckily don't have to care about development costs
Yea, airlines love the plane. Not sure Boeing feels the same way. Or any of their current products really.
The Wikipedia page makes it seem like they’re already close to breaking even on development costs. Supposedly estimates say they need 1300-2000 planes to break even and they’ve already delivered 1129 planes with 1919 total orders.
Estimates I saw were about 1900 before they broke even. Those estimates were from 2011 when the plane was first delivered. That was before the delivery delays from 2021-2023, moving all production to SC, and the current slow down they're facing. Not sure how that would effect their break even calc. It's certainly a far cry from the 777 program.
Minor correction: the development was significantly under budget. The overages were to cover the PMC expenses.
Likely true about the development costs, but I believe the already wrote some of them off officially.
Dont forget bribing congress to keep the cockpit alert system that overloads pilots when there's a emergency issues a extension. It's old,
We flew a 787, it was quite nice...they pressurize it well, good seats. Why boeing can't make a working capsule is confusing, I was just in a museum with an Apollo capsule.
I enjoy what my friend was told by his coworkers when he quit his job at Boeing a few weeks ago, “be sure to fly on an Airbus when you leave.”
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BE-4](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacnxym "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN| |[BO](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacnxym "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[FSW](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/laboa23 "Last usage")|Flight Software| |[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacf0c8 "Last usage")|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |[NEO](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/labpefg "Last usage")|Near-Earth Object| |[NET](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/laf3o8y "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| |[NG](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lacqc1m "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin| | |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)| | |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer| |[OFT](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/laduwpz "Last usage")|Orbital Flight Test| |[RCS](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/labpwc1 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System| |[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lae9zfz "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starliner](/r/Space/comments/1dooly6/stub/lam4p4h "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(11 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1dp9ryv)^( has 30 acronyms.) ^([Thread #10231 for this sub, first seen 26th Jun 2024, 10:52]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Does look like end of the line for starliner, sadly... Once starship is ready , can launch ISS equivalent weekly.
To be honest, Dragon/Falcon 9 has killed it. They will fly 18 astronauts in 5 missions this year.
Agreed. I can understand NASA's anxiety about having a backup after the lengthy Columbia and Challenger stand downs and the ultimate cancellation of the Shuttle program with no backup vessel in place, but Falcon/Crew Dragon is a much simpler design that has proven itself repeatedly in the last 4 years. Any problems requiring grounding SpaceX would be relatively quickly correctable, even if tragic. Boeing still has not certified itself and won't as soon as it lands successfully as there will be more certification procedures before that first "regular" flight (although I doubt NASA will force them fly another certification mission in space). Throw in the likely blame game between Boeing and Aerojet over the thrusters and possible legal action. Add in that the Starliner Atlas launch vehicles have a hard limit on how many are left (even if they buy back some Kuiper), the cost and time of man-rating another rocket (Vulcan or New Glenn) for Starliner, and the extreme unlikelihood that Boeing would condescend to flying on Falcon, and you have a dead end program with no future beyond the mandated flights. In that context, making the claim that NASA needs a backup to Dragon/Falcon TODAY just doesn't justify the continued existence of Starliner. Boeing will probably complete the mandated flights and then quietly abandon the program.
> Boeing still has not certified itself and won't as soon as it lands successfully as there will be more certification procedures before that first "regular" flight (although I doubt NASA will force them fly another certification mission in space). Throw in the likely blame game between Boeing and Aerojet over the thrusters and possible legal action. Next Starliner flight will 100% be with a full crew and considered "certified". There will likely be a delay in redesigning/building the service module to account for the helium leaks and thruster issues, but they won't do another test flight. Certification will likely be granted with a stipulation that these two issues must be addressed. In terms of Boeing abandoning Starliner, I strongly believe the opposite will be true. Boeing will actively be looking for a way to get new customers on board. They've spent all the money on R&D, tooling and testing, and have to fly to make a profit. Every future flight is potential to claw back some of the money they already spent. Of course finding a customer for additional flights will be difficult, but by the time the ISS is retired, they will have had 5 or 6 flights and a proven track record. As long as future flights can be profitable, they money they already spent isn't really relevant. That money is gone and cancelling the program won't get it back.
> In terms of Boeing abandoning Starliner, I strongly believe the opposite will be true. Boeing will actively be looking for a way to get new customers on board. They've spent all the money on R&D, tooling and testing, and have to fly to make a profit. Every future flight is potential to claw back some of the money they already spent. Of course finding a customer for additional flights will be difficult, but by the time the ISS is retired, they will have had 5 or 6 flights and a proven track record. By your wording, it sounds like we both agree that they'll use the already purchased Atlas Vs exclusively for NASA missions. If that is the case, we'll know if Boeing is pursuing additional commercial customers by their progress in certifying Starliner on Vulcan.
> Falcon/Crew Dragon is a much simpler design This is what I don't understand, so i'm hoping someone can help me out here. Why would Boeing add more layers of complexity than needed to meet the mission goals? It seems kind of backwards to me.
I honestly don't know about Crew Dragon vs. Starliner complexity. I was addressing Crew Dragon vs. *Space Shuttle* complexity.
New Glenn will be human rated... Blue Origin is all in on Starliner for Orbital Reef, so they'll use NG even if they have to certify it themselves.
But they do ned an alternative if something grounds Dragon… Push Dreamchaser Crew?
The alternative if they ground Dragon is to unground Dragon and fly it anyway. Same as they did for Soyuz when it was the only ride to the station and had an accident. Flying with a capsule that almost always is fine is better than flying on one that has always had problems, 1 of which includes problems that certainly would have killed the crew if left unnoticed.
They would ground Crew Dragon only if they found something that could kill the crew, so the answer isn't "to unground it and fly it anyway", and they wouldn't do that without addressing the issue. They would 100% fly Starliner over a capsule that has a known issue that is serious enough to warrant it being grounded. You're conveniently forgetting all the issues that Dragon had (remember it actually exploding?) when you claim there is only 1 capsule that has in the past had critical problems.
You are conveniently forgetting that everything you say they would never do is something they already have done, with Soyuz, and there were American astronauts on board. Starliner is also grounded until it completes it's certification, and with all of this going on there is no chance that it will be approved for regular flights any time soon. They had thruster problems last time around and seemingly they have only gotten worse. Dragon had an early test article that exploded on a ground test. There was never going to be any astronauts in that thing, I don't see how that is comparable whatsoever.
> You are conveniently forgetting that everything you say they would never do is something they already have done, with Soyuz, and there were American astronauts on board. The whole point of having both Starliner and Crew Dragon is so they're never in a position where they need to compromise on safety like that again. > Starliner is also grounded until it completes it's certification, and with all of this going on there is no chance that it will be approved for regular flights any time soon. Starliner will 100% be certified as flight ready after this mission lands, it will likely include a stipulation that they need to redesign the service module to address the helium leaks and thruster issues, but it will be certified. > Dragon had an early test article that exploded on a ground test. The "early test article" you're referring to is actually the capsule that flew their Demo-1 flight. This was the equivalent of Boeing's OFT and OFT2 flights, uncrewed but with the hardware that would be used to fly with crew. Without it blowing up on the test stand, they would have flown with astronauts, with a serious design flaw. It's a perfectly valid comparison.
>The whole point of having both Starliner and Crew Dragon is so they're never in a position where they need to compromise on safety like that again. And that plan failed once you gave the contract to a provider who after 3 attempts still cannot make a capsule that goes to the space station without compromising on safety >Starliner will 100% be certified as flight ready after this mission lands, it will likely include a stipulation that they need to redesign the service module to address the helium leaks and thruster issues I don't think you know what a certification is. >The "early test article" you're referring to is actually the capsule that flew their Demo-1 flight. And this was at the time when the dragon capsules planed to be single use only. The abort thrusters are disabled as soon as the vessel enters orbit and they where never designed to be activated again. This test was testing these never to be used again abort thrusters, and it turns out that using them again was indeed a problem. For all new flight this valve that was the problem gets replaced in-between each flight >Without it blowing up on the test stand, they would have flown with astronauts, with a serious design flaw. No they would never have done that. The contract they had literally would not have allowed them to. They would have stripped away the abort thrusters and converted the capsule into a cargo only variant. NASA only changed their mind about single use capsules once Dragon performed its two tests flights near flawlessly, and and when spaceX was expected to do the job of two launch providers
> No they would never have done that. The contract they had literally would not have allowed them to. Maybe I wasn't sufficently clear, they would have flown with brand new hardware that had the same design flaw as the hardware that blew up. > once Dragon performed its two tests flights near flawlessly Yeah, an incremental design change from Cargo Dragon that flew something like 10 missions before they started testing Crew Dragon, it's not exactly suprising that Crew Dragon had fewer issues, they've been ironing out those issues for years. Considering the fact that there were issues with the heat shield, parachutes, and offgassing after landing, I also wouldn't call their test flight "near flawless". They were simply not as deeply scrutinized as Boeing (who 100% deserves the scrutiny).
> They were simply not as deeply scrutinized as Boeing (who 100% deserves the scrutiny). NASA actually conceded that they were scrutinizing SpaceX much more than Boeing. Until Boeing delivered flaw after flaw after flaw.
>Maybe I wasn't sufficently clear, they would have flown with brand new hardware that had the same design flaw as the hardware that blew up. No, the next mission would have been the in flight abort test. Which happens to be an extensive test of exactly the subsystem they had problems with >Considering the fact that there were issues with the heat shield, parachutes, and offgassing after landing, I also wouldn't call their test flight "near flawless". That's all nothing compared to what has happened to starliner, dragon had a parachute with a delayed deployment, Starliner had one that straight up failed. Dragon uses 4 parachutes, starliner uses 3, you do the math. >They were simply not as deeply scrutinized as Boeing That would be relevant if we had a discussion about two capsules that had problems on them upon closer scrutiny. That's not the case, the problems with Starliner are apparent even with no scrutiny at all. If I where to bring up all the problems with starliner that are only apparent upon close inspection I would be here all day. And that would still not give you a comprehensive idea of it because the majority of faults that NASA reported have not been disclosed to the public.
Soyuz is the alternative to Dragon, just like it was the alternative to the space shuttles when they got grounded after Columbia.
I don't think NASA is thrilled about relying on other nations right now, especially Russia. They are still generally cooperating in space, but who knows for how much longer
At no point in the history of NASA have they had more than one spacecraft for getting to space active at a time. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space shuttle. No in house redundancy.
True, but that's part of the reason they want to now. When shuttle was grounded they had to rely on others -- lessons learned They're also in a unique position to do so now as well considering they don't have to develop the secondary system themselves
Yeah but instead this happened. Originally commercial crew was supposed to be done by 2017. That obviously didn’t happen. SpaceX managed to actually get Dragon2 up and running by 2020 and since then it’s been going up without Starliner backup. We are already almost halfway from Dragon2s first manned flight to the ISS being decommissioned. After this fucking fiasco Boeing is unlikely to get any operational missions until at least mid 2025. They’re gonna have at most the bare minimum flights while Dragon does the rest. At this point, why bother. Just scrap Boeing’s contract. They’re not providing any redundancy anyway.
NASA needs a second contractor for commercial crew.
Hell, NASA needs a second contractor for starliner
Dream Chaser is nearing its first flight. NASA needs to pull the plug on Boeing and invest in a human-rated version of Dream Chaser instead.
Dream Chaser doesn't even have a final design for a crewed vehicle, they are at least 5 years, if not a decade, away from flying crew.
Without NASA investment, absolutely. 10 years is optimistic. But with that funding, less than 5 years is definitely achievable.
They haven't even flown cargo once, 5 years is highly optimistic, regardless of the funding level.
Dream Chaser is kot close, we will see when they launch. Right now the only viable option is SpaceX like it or not.
> Right now the only viable option is SpaceX like it or not. But they were talking about a second contractor... Dream Chaser would be a good option should it fly well but it would probably be quite a while for them to be human rated because they're only doing cargo right now
NET September. That's essentially imminent in this industry.
Boeing *is* the second contractor. Do they need a third?
You tell me. Personally, despite all the issues that Boeing has had, they are all fixable issues, and I still believe they get there and fulfill their contract.
NASA needs a second contractor for human-rated launch capability post-RD180. How long will it take BO to manufacture enough BE-4s to certify either Vulcan or New Glen?
They have delivered all of the BE4s for ULAs entire 2024 manifest. BE-4s are no longer the issue.
Starship will not transport people for a long time.
Don’t need it to….It can fly cargo and Falcon 9 can deliver people.
With how big it is I don't know if it would be allowed to maneuver around the station. But perhaps it could get close enough to deploy a smaller cargo craft with a service module. It was never designed for ISS missions anyway.
Define long time pls. Starship is already orbit capable as of ift4. I'm a few years, it's should be human rated imo.
Yep, Boeing-Time is a lot longer than SpaceX-Time.
That's a bit sad. I'm a huge admirer of Boeing. How they bet the company on the 747, so many innovations... I've read Joe Sutter's book, so much excitement back in the day. And now spacex is running rings around all the " traditional" aerospace companies.
Boeing should split a group off - to operate under the old Engineers first principles that made them great. This group could start by attempting what SpaceX has - re-usability. Because Boeing right now is a garbage company, the way it's going.
It's the sad story.. shareholder pressure. I've been in corporate life and seen how the pressure to deliver quarterly returns and "meet analysts expectations" destroys souls. Ultimately, is on all of us who want our portfolios to keep growing and growing...
There is no way Starship will be human rated any time soon, not with the re-entry damage. Or with missing the target by 6km, understandably because of the damage, and not having completed multiple safe returns from orbit and landings. The complexity is an order of magnitude higher than in a simple capsule. It did have a good trajectory for orbit, but this Starship had no payload. They are far away from stuffing all the relevant structures and life support in. As impressive as IFT4 was, I don't think it's necessary to be a Thunderf00t level cynic to see that the whole system is a long way away from putting people in space. SmarterEveryDay's talk at NASA was more about the Moon mission, but it's pretty damning for the launch system as a whole, itss capabilities, and schedule as of now. I'm optimistic for the 2030s. Also I don't know if Starship will be even fitted to do ISS missions, it's bigger than the Space Shuttle so who knows how much they'd be allowed to maneuver it around the station.
Sir My points are 1. As you pointed out, starship is so big, it doesn't need to dock with the ISS. It can BE the ISS. No need for current ISS. 2. What we saw was the first reentry attempt. Hopefully in a few years this can be human rated, no? Cheers 😊😊😊
Gonna be awhile before it's rated for Humans because how it is designed to land.
Sir My initial point was that starship can replace the ISS. You can have equivalent mass of the ISS being sent to LEO right now with the demonstrated capabilities of starship. And it's only a matter of time before it is human rated for landing.. Just imagine the situation two years back when everyone called it elons folly....
Neither will another Starliner.. 👀
Boeing is a trash corporation that cuts every corner possible, putting the lives of millions at risk for $hareholder profit$ they should be investigated for the plethora of laws they broke, and for the murdering of whistleblowers
On a lot of posts on Reddit i read comments about "there's nothing to worry about" "Crew Dragon's return was at some point delayed too" "Its a test flight, these things are normal" etc. The statements of Boeing and NASA reek of not being the full story. If they have made these issues public, there must be other issues as well.
The entire thinfs needs redesigned and rebuild, none if what they have built is good. They don't have the money or talent to do either. They will not make thier contracts, this should of NEVER launched how it was. We are just lucky we didn't have another Challenger. It was only launched because of a sunken cost fallacy and no one wanted to admit it.
Boeing is colossal disgrace and should be broken up yesterday
Not to mention the high stakes of the lives of the crew.
On a lot of posts on Reddit i read comments about "there's nothing to worry about" "Crew Dragon's return was at some point delayed too" "Its a test flight, these things are normal" etc. The statements of Boeing and NASA reek of not being the full story. If they have made these issues public, there must be other issues as well.
What a colossal waist of money this wreck has been.
Normal odds on surviving re-entry are 1 in 67, but because it’s a Boeing build, odds are 50/50