The Boeing Starliner space capsule appears to be in more trouble every time I read about it. The thruster problems experienced during launch and docking with the International Space Station (ISS) have been analyzed to a fare-thee-well, but no solution appears to be imminent - so much so that it may not be safe to allow astronauts to travel aboard the capsule to return to earth.
That means the astronauts may have to travel aboard another spacecraft, while the Starliner returns on its own (or is jettisoned, to burn up in atmosphere). Unfortunately, whoever designed the Starliner set it up so that it can only detach from the ISS if an astronaut is inside the capsule to control it - but once in his spacesuit, the astronaut is too bulky to use the Starliner's hatch to get out of it and spacewalk back to the ISS. Clearly, nobody in his or her right mind wants to be trapped inside a space capsule that may or may not return to Earth safely! However, in that case, is the Starliner to become a permanent - and useless - attachment to the ISS, taking up a docking port that may be needed by other traffic?
Another round of analysis of the capsule's thrusters is scheduled for completion on August 23, following which a decision will be made on whether or not to use it for the return flight. However, I'm sure the astronauts are making their own calculations about that. If I were in their shoes, I'd be logging on to Twitter and sending Elon Musk a personal message, asking for a ride home on the next SpaceX capsule to call at the ISS. If NASA and/or Boeing were to threaten to fire me for insubordination for doing so, I'd be lifting a spaceborne finger to them while asking Elon Musk for a job! I daresay he'd see the humor in agreeing to that . . .
So many things have gone wrong with Starliner, and there have been so many delays (literally years long), and such enormous cost overruns, that it looks to be set fair to become one of the classic engineering disasters of the space age. As blogger HMS Defiant put it:
Do you get the feeling you could eat a handful of titanium filings and puke a better spaceship?
Why, yes . . . yes, I do get that feeling!
Our tax dollars at work, folks.
Peter
18 comments:
Could they upload a new software package that will allow it to decouple and burn up on reentry?
Startling to see the collapse of Boeing.
I vote for a spacewalk with SAWSALL in hand to cut that sucker loose for its last flight into oblivion.
It has done 2 flights previously unmanned. Different software package. This was planned to be a manned flight up and down, so the unmanned capabilities were removed from the software on this capsule. They are currently doing a software update to allow for the capsule to undock without an astronaut on board, but apparently that takes 4 weeks.
It'll come back unmanned, but unfortunately, the source of most of the thruster problems are likely to burn up on reentry, so not much will be learned about why the thrusters failed, other than DEI hiring is a good way to kill a company.
I listened to the 90 minute NASA teleconference about it on Wednesday, and while it was almost content-free, I kinda got a vibe from it that they're just not coming to agreement on whether or not to have Butch and Suni fly it back. Which tells me there's a faction in NASA that don't think it's safe and just won't sign off on using it.
The software thing is a bit involved, but the last test flight of Starliner was fully autonomous. It flew up to the ISS, docked, the ISS crew did whatever, then it undocked and reentered completely by itself. For reasons I haven't seen explained, that SW module was either removed or disabled. It can be put back, but it's more like plugging a game cartridge into an old video game than over radio. A new one will have to be flown up to the ISS, then someone on board the ISS will have to go into the capsule and reload it.
What Justin said was my thought.
Someone needs to figure a way to override the astronaut requirement and get it jettisoned.
Safely.
Apparently, Boeing didn't provide for that capability either. And designing a space system that can't be exited while in a spacesuit is just a special kind of stupid.
John in Indy
I've been following space flight (through thick myopia-corrective lenses) from the time I was seven in 1948; from Bradbury and Asimov on through to reality.
I'm looking at what's happening to our space flight program, our military, our education system, our country ...
Our spending (tax dollars) seems out-or-whack, outrageous for th results received.
We have to bring new minds. a totally new outlook to the challenges facing us in the 21st Century
or we might as well go back to breeding donkeys and horses for transportation.
What's amazing is that Boeing was supposed to get the entire contract for new capsules, but someone decided at the last minute it would look bad, so they awarded 40% of the contract to Space-X, expecting them to fail.
re software update: read tha.t they can do the update remotely but it has to go through the ISS dock and there's a chance it could brick the dock.
engines: besides the KIA thruster there are reduced fuel flows to the remaining thrusters. They tracked that down to some swollen teflon rings. So who falsified the test results of the land based burns? No field expedient fix there.
misc: according to NASA report during build inspections they found FOD in a fuel tank. At that point the thing should have been dissembled to the last nut and bolt and put back together again. By workers with pride, not pride workers.
There is a lot of confusion on this topic. Glad I don't work for Boeing.
The software issue is that it is was configured for manned operation, and had no easy switch to go back to unmanned. In manned operation the computer will sometimes prompt the astronaut and wait. I bet there is a LOT of Fault Management involved. The other issue is that the weight and balance are now different (no crew OR mass simulators) and require some (easier) updates. They were on a Firm Fixed Price Contract, and once the unmanned tests were complete they would not expect to be repeated, so they didn't add the 'gold plating' to make it easy to reconfigure back to unmanned.
The valve issues have been, to me, inexcusable. While the helium leak is not critical, groups of small thrusters were clustered together with larger thrusters and ultimately overheated, melting or softening the valve material. This killed one thruster and while they've tested the other thrusters I bet the investigation is trying to determine exactly what that damaged valve material is going to do.
The Starliner has been having thruster problems on every flight. This flight they were worse (turns out the manual thruster control took the thrusters even more outside the temp range that they work at than the automated flight)
The Starliner does not have the ability to open it's hatch to vacuum, most space capsules don't (only Gemini did among US craft, stations and the shuttle had airlocks)
re: software and autonomous return.
The core software can do it, that capability wasn't removed (they've done two autonomous flights). The problem is the flight plans (i.e. configurations) that they loaded for this flight. Every single one of them includes 'click to continue' steps that can only be done by a functional crew member.
(what would they do if both crew members were injured and needed to be sent to earth???)
to 'fix' these flight plans, they need to take the flight plans from the last missions, check that new software updates didn't break them, load them into the craft (and it's only designed to be loaded on the ground), and train the ground crew to use this mode of operation (doesn't this mean that nobody who was trained and participated in the flight two years ago is available, right???)
One interesting suggestion I heard was to send up a couple of Tesla's Optimus robots, while they can't run things autonomously, they can be remote controlled to press the 'click here to continue' buttons :-)
Word is they may stay a full year. I think that answers the question; are the salary or hourly?
@Trumpeter they will not stay a year, normal flights to the ISS are 6 months, so they may stay through the Crew 9 6 month flight, which would make their stay ~8 months.
I somehow don't think they will mind that much, the phrase that comes to mind is "don't throw me into that brier patch" :-)
The main focus of being an Astronaut is to spend time in space, being "forced" to spend an extra 6 months in space probably generates a similar reaction to what most people would feel if they were 'forced' to take an extra 6 months of vacation (while being paid) on a tropical island
Sounds good to me; alternatively, a plasma torch.
Elon can send up one of his android robots to enter the Boeing derelict and "push the button" uncoupling it from the ISS. SpaceX wins again.
It had never had a successful flight, so of course they sent people up in it. After all, they had all the data they needed to fix all the bugs the previous two flights uncovered, right?
Let's be serious, SiG.
If NASA flies anything up to Deathliner to get it back online, it's probably going to be a couple of rolls of duct tape and baling wire.
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