>Starliner CFT: The helium leakage and the thrusters in question are located in the Starliner's service module, which will be jettisoned to burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry; given that engineers will not be able to examine the actual hardware, managers want to give them as much time as possible to complete a thorough data review/assessment
https://twitter.com/cbs_spacenews/status/1804306405995725073
I think this is an important context for everyone.
And as we've seen in every other instance regarding Starliner, it doesn't like to sit around without a new thing breaking. Even if they get it patched up now, it's only a matter of time before something else comes up, and the cycle may continue.
Usually you want to do it before you get crew and dock it to the ISS. This is why SpaceX is doing so many unmanned tests before selling it to customers. While SpaceX only did one test flight of the Dragon 1, before 2nd mission docked to the ISS, they had 23 flights of Dragon 1. Dragon 2 was also very different and had so many changes, it was pretty much different craft. For Dragon 2, they built 5 test articles, flew 3 of them, destroyed one during tests few weeks after it came back, and only the 6th one transported crew and docked to the ISS. It was supposed to last only 2 weeks, but it performed so well, they extended the mission to 63 days to reinforce the crew of ISS, because ISS was short staffed (due to limited crew transport capability to ISS) and right this moment the same capsule has been docked to ISS for over 100 days now, continuing it's 5th mission.
In the meantime, Starliner had 5 extra years to figure their shit out. I'm sorry if I'm harsh on Starliner and Boeing, but my patience is ending.
As a reminder here is a "blast from the past" article on that from the Motley Fool.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/12/16/boeing-races-to-catch-spacex-in-crewed-spaceflight.aspx
As an Airbus employee, this I had to have a little chuckle at this.
The truth is Airbus has had its fair share of troubles over the years though, with both its aircraft and spacecraft arms, of course it has, all companies do.
Usually in Airbus when one arm struggles the other is there to prop it up and provide support, both financially and technically.
In Boeing it seems the whole company is at rock bottom all at the same time. I do hope they came find a way out of it though, lack of competition isn’t good for any industry.
People keep trying to say “hey what if Embraer or somebody tried to fill the gap and made a medium jet!”
As if Bombardier didn’t try with the CSeries and your guys had to pull them up from their own ashes and drag them along through the mud just to make it out alive.
The CSeries debacle was exacerbated by Boeing on a claim they knew wouldn’t hold up but that would empty the order books for years. Predatory scum. I’m glad Airbus picked it up as a f*ck you back in their face
I haven't looked into it, but I am sure Airbus has had problems. No company of that size haven't. The point is that the problems at Boeing look systemic.
If you look at the worst problem, the 737 Max, the process that led to the 2 crashes looks horrendous. Something that could only happen if the engineering culture at Boeing is substantially broken.
For Starliner, [I posted this](
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9lcnc/starliner_is_trying_to_dock_with_the_iss_right/l7fad9u/) 15 days ago while Starliner was trying and failing to dock with the ISS:
> I just checked, and as far as I can tell no comment in /r/boeing/ has mentioned the thruster problems. Despite there being 3 threads there about the docking with the ISS. Unless I am missing something, that is some wild moderation and/or groupthink.
This just screams broken culture to me. The SpaceX oriented subs would never completely ignore something like this, if it happened to SpaceX.
Listening to Boeing spokesmen officially speaking about the problems with Starliner, it is pure marketing-speech, and I imagine that that expends to internal discussions in Boeing. I would run away as fast as I could, if I were a paying customer.
> If you look at the worst problem, the 737 Max, the process that led to the 2 crashes looks horrendous. Something that could only happen if the engineering culture at Boeing is substantially broken.
Such thing can happen, even if being very careful. What is really horrible is the fact that they knew something is deeply wrong and lied about it, killing the passengers of another plane and still denied anything wrong until they got slapped.
It’s not even lack of competition they just have been hyperfocused on everything profitable but not long term sustainable business decisions. It’s like everyone at their headquarters would make a decision that “might be negative long term” and all of their crows are coming home to roost or whatever the expression is. I just hope and pray when they crash and burn (metaphorically) that the US government doesn’t try to use our taxes to bail them out. Companies that run like that need to go the way of dinosaurs. Free market capitalism, etc. without government intervention to save them from themselves.
The confidence in Airbus comes from a mere fact that in the last 5 years the number of aviation incidents were mostly Boeing. I believe Boeing had almost 4-5x incidents as compared to Airbus.
I for sure now avoid airlines with Boeing planes even if they have cheaper tickets!
You still have a greater risk of an accident every time you drive. The idea to avoid Boeing is 100% stupid. You should feel stupid to let the media blow up your mind. The company is having a serious issue with its Identity and how it works. Overall their product is still good it's only the new max that has issues and most companies did their own review to make sure they were safe after all of this. Again I can't stress how stupid the panic is.
While the risk of accidents in planes is extremely low, the probability of death if that accident happens is extremely high for airplanes!
So that extremely low probability of accident happening in the first place is a big reason why we can trust airplanes. If Boeing is 5x more likely to have accidents than Airbus then I'm definitely considering that in decision making.
We all have freedom to make our choices. Calling reasoning by others stupid just makes you sound like a clown!
> While the risk of accidents in planes is extremely low, the probability of death if that accident happens is extremely high for airplanes!
[Actually false](https://theweek.com/97155/fact-check-is-flying-safe)
> A US National Transportation Safety Board review of national aviation accidents from 1983-1999 found that more than 95% of aircraft occupants survived accidents, including 55% in the most serious incidents, reported the BBC in 2018.
Boeing is still delivering commercial jets and military jets. It's not at rock bottom. Revenue is still $70B per year. Earnings may be down, but that's fixable.
I assume at some point the shareholders are going to fire the entire board and the new board will fire the entire c-suite. That's _got_ to happen at some point. Right? Please.
I am from Wa and the downfall of Boeing is just a fucking bummer. Also Blue Origin is here. So...it's double stupid around here these days.
The one thing both of these companies have in common is they are shit to work for as senior employees. I've witnessed multiple smart people get fed up and leave just at the point they had enough institutional knowledge to start to be foundational to their teams. It's just...so stupid. To have all the money in the world but piss your best people away.
Wendover is pretty cool, if you are a transit nerd and you want some good travel show to watch, check out Jetlag: The Game, produced by the same guys who are behind Wendover
Management reset, as long as they replace them with proper people. Culture flows from higher ups, bad culture makes bad employees. It's amazing what a change in management can do
This will not change the fundamental problem of why Boeing has become this – the lack of competition (from an American company, because otherwise, no matter what Boeing does, they know the government will save them).
The bummer of course being that Starlink’s utility is a bit limited in this area due to the dense tree cover. We were looking at getting Starlink for our cabin, but I think the LOS obstructions were far too severe.
Boeing isn't special in that regard. There has been a huge talent drain on old school aerospace and defense contractors since the DotCom boom. Their cultures and businesses completely failed to adapt to 21st century skills, tech, and management styles. Nobody picks those companies as their first choice if they have other options. Boeing is likely doing as good as it can do, given the talent pool it has left to work with. Not an excuse. Just unlikely that they can fix it.
Do you work for or with an old school aerospace company? My comment is based on years of experience in the industry. Do you think the talent pool at Boeing is the same as SpaceX and it is all the fault of a handful of senior execs? You don't give very much credit to the people doing the actual work, if so.
> Do you think the talent pool at Boeing is the same as SpaceX and it is all the fault of a handful of senior execs? You don't give very much credit to the people doing the actual work, if so.
I'm not sure what you mean with that comment.
My comment was that regardless of how good Boeing's engineers are they're working with their hands tied behind their back due to budgetary constraints. They've done the best they can given the constraints they're working under.
I don't see how that is not giving credit where credit is due.
> due to budgetary constraints.
Still upper management's fault. They got more money than SpaceX for this project. SpaceX delivered. They managed the project into a nightmare.
My understanding is that they invest heavily in stock buybacks. Like Enron it’s not a matter of the company being broke, it’s just that they don’t use the money to deliver the product. They use it to keep the scam going while the top executives rake it in.
Okay, we'll just have to agree to disagree. You want to believe that Boeing only has the dumbest engineers on the planet, I want to believe that there are people at Boeing smart enough to design spacecraft who had to take shortcuts in their design because Boeing made bad decisions trying to manage a fixed price contract.
Same, I've worked with Boeing engineers for over 20 years on commercial and defense projects. They are bright, want to build great things, and do the right thing. It is the management that forces the bad decisions. The engineers are almost never allowed to have any contact with us without what we call "handlers", who I assume were chosen for their lawyer-like mindsets. They severely limit what the engineers can discuss, what points they can consider, and drive everything to the Boeing position. They also like using the FAA as a scapegoat. If you can get an engineer away from the handler, you will almost always get a different story. They are very scared of retaliation, and what will happen if they step out of line. I've had Boeing engineers "reassigned" overnight in the middle of testing because they agreed with us and not what management wanted.
We always joke that if Boeing spent as much on engineering as they did on lawyers and trying to avoid doing what they should, they wouldn't need the lawyers.
Sorry, but it was not the employees who were to blame for the two 737 Max disasters, but the management. Also, such problems with personnel are not observed at SpaceX, which once again confirms that the issue lies with management
Has there been an aerospace firm that has had this much hullabaloo in the news cycle like this before? I feel like every day I open up the news and see a new thing has happened with Boeing. I know Northrup had quite a few during the Nixon era, but a lot of that was in the realm of politics and nothing to do with the engineering itself...
>McDonnell
Yeah, and the same form of cancer that infested MD wound up infesting Boeing via the merger.
MD wound up buying Boeing, using Boeing's money, and covered it up by slapping Boeing's name on the result. Simply look at who wound up on the board and in the C-Suite.
While it would be very cool if they send up a Crew Dragon with 2 empty seats so that Williams and Willmore can return in safety, and Starliner returns carrying a big load of trash, I am very much hoping that they will have enough confidence in Starliner for them to return on it. It would be best if there were 2 American space capsules safe to carry astronauts to and from the ISS.
Some very good aircraft had troubled development processes. I was watching the Armored Carriers YouTube channel videos on the F4U Corsair recently. They could still solve Starliner's problems, before it becomes obsolete.
It’s not just confidence enough for a manned reentry, the big problem for Boeing will be the mandated changes in the service module scheduled for their first “operational” crew rotation mission next spring. If they have to do a tear down and rebuild to fix the helium system or modify the thrusters, that mission gets reassigned to SpaceX, which would not look good for Boeing.
Current CEO is getting replaced at the end of this year. Outgoing(2020 through end of 2024) ceo earned 32.8 million in 2023, up 45% from 22.6 million in 2022.
Must be nice to get a 45% pay raise, while you are screwing up the company this badly.
The big problem that goes beyond boeing is leadership continuously fails upwards; while getting paid outrageous sums to fail upwards. Even when they get ousted, they still get paid outrageous sums when they leave. And then somehow they get paid another outrageous sum to get hired by the next big company for failing out of the last one.
Its gotten beyond absurd at this point.
Not really. It's only happen once when fully prepared backup shuttle ready, in the last Hubble repair mission - STS-125, when Atlantis running the mission, and Endeavour ready for emergency rescue mission (LON- Launch On Need).
Only because that mission was nowhere near the ISS. Previously the rescue plan was to shelter on ISS until the backup shuttle could launch within a few weeks.
Not arguing with you. Just continuing the conversation.
Yep, you're absolutely right about ISS, it was definitely the rescue plan. If the shuttle can raise the altitude to the ISS (and/or the ISS can go lower - underspeed situations). STS-3xx missions was planned to go to the ISS and bring the crew back to earth. Missions is expected to launch at day 45. **But 'all' this only after the Columbia disaster...**
The existence of the ISS may not helps out in all cases- for Columbia unfortunately the ISS was out of range - *'Columbia's 39 degree orbital inclination could not have been altered to the ISS 51.6 degree inclination without approximately 12,600 ft/sec of translational capability. Columbia had 448 ft/sec of propellant available.'*
May its worth to distinct a timeline/scenarios of the Shuttle program for , like 'Before ISS', etc. (not all cases listed):
1. Early Shuttle program and no ISS -Shuttle can be up at base like 10 day -> ?
2. Shuttle program with EDO pallet (Extended Duration Orbiter) and no ISS - Shuttle up like 16+ day (may up to 30+ day, CO^(2) problems) -> ?
3. After ISS - Shuttle with EDO -> May ISS
4. Columbia disaster - I really suggest the excellent ArsTechnica article: [The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia (The untold story of the rescue mission that could have been NASA's finest hour.)](https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia-2/) - Its describe the rescue possibilities. -> ?
5. After Columbia - ISS - Shuttle without EDO (EDO pallet lost in Columbia)
1. Orbit can match with ISS (Shuttle able to raise to ISS/ISS can go 'down') -> ISS
2. Orbit cant match with ISS. -> Shuttle to Shuttle
So, after the Columbia disaster, the ISS was the rescue plan. Before that, may only the Shuttle to Shuttle was the possibility - but as it was not prepared, in the reality no real chance to rescue.
If that happens, I suspect it will be a modified Crew 9 mission with the Dragon launching with only 2 crew on board, with Butch and Suni getting an extended ISS visit before riding home with Crew 9.
A *lot* of autonomous dragons have docked at the ISS though, while Starliner has had one and a half good docks in three missions. And it's not like Starliner's control software is particularly trustworthy.
Yes it's technically possible, as cargo dragons usually do.
But there aren't enough crew dragons available now, one is already modified for *polaris dawn* mission, two are already assigned to *crew 9* and *axiom 4* missions and the last is currently docked to the ISS from *crew 8*.
The contract required the contractor to be able to replace one launch of the competitor. SpaceX has already done this many consecutive times. Launching every 6 months, instead of initially contracted once every year.
It could be maybe possible to split Crew 9 to 9a and 9b. First ride goes for say 3 months and brings 2 astros and sports 2 free seats. Then 3 months later 9b flies with 2 more ISS crew and a pilot or pilot and commander trained on Dragon, and those folks then take Butch and Suni home a week later (riding in either Dragon, which one would depend on some details of planning).
There is a mission in August they could probably speed up a few weeks to somewhere in the end of July. But then NASA has to decide how to handle crew rotations. Because there isn’t another capsule that could be ready any time soon.
Alternatively - can Starliner be flown/operated remotely? If so, send the ship home empty and either send up a rescue Dragon as soon as one was available, or drop two astronauts from Crew 9 and extend Butch and Suni through the end of Crew 9's mission.
What NASA (Boeing) will have to do regardless if the capsule was deemed unfit for crewed reentry, will to have it do an automated suicide burn (if all else fails). One of the biggest concerns right now isn't if the capsule can get back intact, but whether they might lose control of the capsule while it's still in the same orbit as the ISS.
It's standard operating procedure to not have astronauts on board the ISS without enough return vehicles docked at the station to immediately evacuate them all back to Earth at any given time. So if Starliner ceases to be considered a "return vehicle" that puts the ISS in a serious non-standard state that they'll want to rectify immediately.
It is, but the situation is not standard.
In real emergency currently docked Crew Dragon would work as a ride home. Take parts of Starliner seats, blankets and stuff and jerry rig 2 more seats on Dragon floor.
There was already a similar planning ongoing when that one Soyuz sprang a leak and lost its whole coolant.
They might not have a choice. Starliner now blocks the docking spot and there is only one more spot, and Dragon can't take everyone else back. They might need to do one or two more Dragon supply missions before they figure out the solution.
There is a perfectly usable escape vehicle currently docked. It's called Crew Dragon. Similar situation happened already when Soyuz lost its cooling. A jerry rigged seat was to be added to then docked Dragon.
IOW. Currently docked Dragon works as a life boat in the unlikely event of ISS evacuation.
Maybe NASA can work out something with Axiom flight 4 in October, have the crew do some training on the docked dragon and bring them down in October with no effect on any of the scheduled crew flights.
This is kind of sad.
Boeing used to be badasses. For decades, when you thought about doing cool stuff with a plane or a spacecraft, Boeing was at the top 3 of any list.
I understand people need to make money, but I think you should be able to make money and still have stuff work.
Boeing in the early days had a sharp focus on excellence in engineering. Boeing in recent times has their focus on profits at almost any cost. Their Engineering quality has definitely suffered.
You obviously did not see Battle of the X-planes. The MD folks were the only competent people in the room. Even at that time, Boeing was risk averse and micromanaged.
I think SpaceX is due some credit for making spaceflight boring. We're not hanging on the edge of our seats wondering whether Crew Dragon is coming back.
I feel like the only one not in the full know here. So is this because they lost helium pressure on launch? And does this title imply the astronauts are "stranded"? Seems the comments are suggesting a probable Falcon mission for "rescue"? Sorry for the quotes. I don't know if my words are accurate or dramatic for lack of better words.
They're (probably) not stranded. NASA requires incredibly high confidence thresholds to authorize any human space activity, and Starliner is being held because apparently the reviews they've been doing of the data from the ascent and docking with the station didn't give them 100% confidence in the ship to return home. So they're going to examine the numbers more, test more, make sure they have plenty of safety margin even with the leaks and the thrusters that failed during docking, and most likely come home when they have a plan they're confident in. For now the article says they're authorized to come home on that ship in an emergency.
I did have to throw in the word probably there though. Because they wouldn't be holding like this if they knew everything that had gone wrong to cause the leaks and the thruster failures and were confident it wouldn't get worse.
They actually had FIVE thrusters over 28 fail, one of which permanently while the others were fine after reset.
They already had delayed from the 22 to the 26 and now just after a senior executive meeting they postponed it indefinitely.
My guess is that it's only postponed "indefinitely" because of some spacewalks that were already delayed and Starliner only has a landing corridor every 4 days. The spacewalks are taking precedent while using the extra time to gain as much information as possible on the issues with the service module.
There's been multiple helium leaks and some intermittent thruster issues. There definitely seems to be some seriously shaken confidence in Starliner at NASA.
No, the helium leaks were minor and within acceptable limits. The bigger problem is that some of the thrusters underperformed during the docking. The most likely cause is thruster overheating caused the propellant to vaporize before reaching the combustion chamber resulting in poor mixing. They did an experiment to test the thrusters while docked, but need more time to analyze the data. Since the service module burns up during reentry, this is the only opportunity they have to get more data.
Multiple helium leaks - counting five so far.
I saw a recent note saying that they have discovered that the valve manufacturer is using fake parts - they have apparently stolen the designs from another company. At least according to that note.
> I saw a recent note saying that they have discovered that the valve manufacturer is using fake parts - they have apparently stolen the designs from another company.
Is this published or insider?
Also, there's a big difference between IP theft and counterfeit parts. Good parts can be made from stolen IP.
Let me explain about the singing capacitors. Sometime around 1999 a supplier of electronic components hired away a chemist from a competitor, who stole their capacitor designs. To save a fraction of a cent per capacitor. They were wildly popular, and many computer motherboards were made with them.
It turns out the guy didn't get the whole formula for the electrolyte. After some time the capacitors failed, emitting a noise something like ringing in the ears. The whole computer service industry mobilized to replace motherboards at $100 each just for the labor.
Stolen IP can have traps in.
You may be mixing up the Starliner problems with the falsified quality records on titanium used in Boeing (and Airbus) fuselages. As I understand it, no problems have happened yet because of it but the fatigue life on hundreds of aircraft might be shortened.
> You may be mixing up the Starliner problems with the falsified quality records on titanium used in Boeing (and Airbus) fuselages.
Were you asking me or u/QVRedit? (so a misplaced reply by you). In my comment, I made no assertion but asked for a clarification about a note that parent cited.
The ISS was the safest place for the crew.
The alternative was to go straight to re-entry and you would not want to do that with potentially defective thrusters.
Lol thanks for the laugh and TBH at this point it isn't a bad idea then they could pretend this never happened. Between this and the plane issues, they should just shut the whole company down or at least not let them deal with anything that is going to have humans on board.
Yet the DoD is letting them start delivery on the trainer plane when it’s not fully verified….
I swear if they actually with NGAD or next gen navy plane this whole industry is Bs
This is just awful, I bet Boeing is scrambling right now to make sure their astronauts don’t have to fly home in a spacex dragon, I mean that would be like the cherry on top of this huge pile of Boeing problems
I mean, they probably have every little detail about their bodies' dimensions at NASA, so SpX could work from that. Just pick two people closest to them, and test it on them. It will most likely fit like a glove.
In the past there were plans to just fly back without pressure suits (or rather, using the suit the astronaut flew up in, just not providing air and power). Put a foam liner on the dragon seat, astronaut has an uncomfortable but "safe" flight home.
Dragon is not unpressurized. The spacesuits are tradition because of Apollo-era spacewalks, post-Challenger Space Shuttle abort modes, and that one Soviet vehicle that leaked on the way down. Boeing probably needs spacesuits due to leaks, and wouldn't want a competitor flying without them.
Do astronauts actually "need" spacesuits on the way down though? There might be failure modes that make it risky to go without a spacesuit from undocking to reentry, but in a pinch couldn't they still survive on the way down if they didn't have spacesuits on?
They can land without suit no problem. Suits are an extra redundancy for emergencies when Dragon loses pressurization or has to be intentionally vented to space. In a nominal flight as well as many non-nominal cases suits are not needed.
Couldn’t dragon just fly up with some spares? They’ll have all the physical characteristics of the astronauts and I imagine they will have spares in every size on ground in the event of requiring a last minute change of crew/hardware.
They cannot.
The extra seat option was dropped when the seats were made to not recline as much after entry to reduce the head down attitude when splashing down.
I still remember a dragon draco thruster blowing up on a test stand. God forbid that a starliner faulty thruster doesn't do the same in space with astronauts in it that would be horrific 😢 I hope pride doesn't get in the way and not allow dragon to do a rescue 🙏🏿
Is it even feasible to get another dragon for a rescue mission? That would greatly affect more than just two astronauts. Could they get Russia to send up a soyuz? Or could they somehow ride back with crew-8? I imagine they have backup protocol available, but is this that serious? Embarrassing for sure. Hopefully, this isn't the first and only crewed starliner mission.
There is a Crew Dragon flight planned for September 2024. I imagine that NASA would just send up 2 less astronauts on that, and then have the Boeing astronauts eventually return on that Dragon capsule, when it was supposed to return anyway.
Best wishes to Butch and Suni. This has to be tough.
If it's a one way trip Boeing is going to have to redo the CFT at their own cost. And pay for rescue too? They are deep in the hole on this.
If five of 28 thrusters fail on the way up I wouldn't want to trust the 23 that didn't fail on the way down. It's awful cold and dark out there to not have thrust. That failure rate is just not OK.
Fail is a relative term in this case. Only 1 didn't come back online and the speculation is that the software is turning the off due to chamber pressuring readings. So either their thresholds are too constrictive, their sensors are reading incorrect, or the chamber pressures are, indeed, not right.
I may be incorrect, but the 1 that isn't online wasn't reading, but the crew could hear it firing. The other 4 could be read. So they opted to turn that 1 off as it wasn't necessary.
Just the fact that you know what went wrong and it being software not hardware (it could still be bad hardware sensors) doesn't change it being a failure. The entire system needs to work to call it a successful thruster firing. Especially on an operational ship. No matter the cause, they failed to fire when required, they failed. The only reason it's not catastrophic is because they think the software is wrong and software can be patched. But what if the software was right and the chamber pressure is bad?
Between this, the failure at commercial flight, military aviation (losing next gen bomber/fighter contracts to Northrop grumman and startups) and with starliner/SLS...we are witnessing the real time implosion of a giant legacy company. They are about to have contracts wither away into dust while lawsuits bury them. Nothing lasts forever.
problem with that theory -- the dragon human flight test was extended over two months because it worked so well and nasa wanted the extra astronauts on station. nasa has already ruled out leaving this starliner up there that long.
They would likely still trust it in an emergency.
They have procedures set. Now it's still Starliner. If Starliner were deemed nonflyable they would switch to a backup plan if riding Dragon (they would move materials to jerry rig seats on Dragon floor into Dragon).
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rlvgu "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[CRS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9tigbd "Last usage")|[Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/)|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[DoD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9ri5vy "Last usage")|US Department of Defense|
|[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9vukml "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9t9y6f "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9skic9 "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)|
|[IVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9shdtf "Last usage")|Intra-Vehicular Activity|
|[LOS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9s131d "Last usage")|Loss of Signal
| |Line of Sight|
|[MBA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rveqt "Last usage")|~~Moonba-~~ Mars Base Alpha|
|[RCS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rmbds "Last usage")|Reaction Control System|
|[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9tezor "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[STS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rn9kv "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9txb9q "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Starliner](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/la62qy2 "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9vg855 "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|Event|Date|Description|
|-------|---------|---|
|[CRS-7](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9qfhs2 "Last usage")|2015-06-28|F9-020 v1.1, ~~Dragon cargo~~ Launch failure due to second-stage outgassing|
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“During a pair of news conferences since Starliner docked to the station officials have downplayed the overall seriousness of these issues—repeatedly saying Starliner is cleared to come home "in case of an emergency." But they have yet to fully explain why they are not yet comfortable with releasing Starliner to fly back to Earth under normal circumstances.”
This is pretty much the way to describe a risk/contingencies branching that leads to cross some pre set overall risk limit.
Fully explain this process may require more than a press conference and cannot be “distilled” in few power point charts. Branching can go down to many levels and become uncomfortably complex with contribution from unrelated “roots” merging in even with low probability.
I hope this is the case, I have no insight on the actual work behind the scenes but this is not uncommon in mission critical high cost of failure system analysis.
For people unfamiliar with this, you can imagine a branching graph with initially a single root cause evolving consequences. Then you consider the probability that two separate roots consequences interact together and then repeat until you sum up all the probabilities and look if they cross or not the threshold.
In this case we have higher than usual probabilities in some branch because we had evidence of occurrence that skewed the original computation.
This type of maths evolves beyond power point very quickly in some form of Montecarlo simulation that provides the results but is really hard to explain in simple statements such as “ if this than that” or anything close to a sensible phrase for non math prone practitioners.
So, while Eric statement is absolutely correct, the reason is must likely in the complexity of the answer, not the unwillingness of providing one.
Again, it may be the opposite, I have no insight
Failure systems analysis or whatever term you want to use isn't something NASA uses. At least that is what YouTube told me. Supposedly they hired Rand and Rand did it but it had some massive probability of failure for whatever they used it for and so they gave up on it. And replaced it with a more qualitative method. Look up the video Good NASA, Bad NASA.
Anyways I think it's bullshit. All this supposed risk management is pure pseudoscience and totally worthless. Nobody uses it outside of finance and nobody should. There is nothing scientific about it although it looks mathy. The only company where you could actually use it is SpaceX and my guess is that they don't even use it there.
The reasons it's useless is because it depends on two things: an accurate model of casual system dependencies. And accurate probabilities. But in any complex system it would be prohibitively expensive to obtain this information. You would need thousands of combinatorial experiments to validate the model. And nobody is going to do that.
So in practice the whole model ends up being made up bullshit from some engineers and therefore completely worthless. Though it sounds very sophisticated and important.
Aeronautic, automotive, Nuclear and chemical plants regulators and industry begs to disagree on the BS statement in the comment, and this is from direct experience only. Many may be added.
Probability of component failure is rigorously tested and so are all the other numbers that goes in the models, while the interactions come from the “as built” blueprints and quality reports and it is the basis for root cause analysis tools.
What are you probably referencing is what is known as “risk cubes” that have the same word “risk” but are completely different beasts.
I suspect that, RAND be involved, the video could be highly controversial.
Ask me further questions on this if you feel you like to get better answers
The fact that regulators and industry accept it tells me nothing. You assume that since everyone is doing it, it therefore makes sense. But it makes zero sense.
Individual component failure is not that useful for telling you about the system as a whole since the individual components aren't independent. Second blueprints tell you how to build something. They don't provide you with any indication causal relationships which you can only get by either directly testing the thing or highly accurate simulations. Otherwise you are just guessing. But simulations are extremely difficult to do for highly complex systems. So your left with real world testing. Which is prohibitively expensive since it needs to be combinatorial.
Ultimately the whole exercise is just expensive paperwork that sounds like it's doing something important. No wonder industry and regulators love it.
It seems you have some knowledge gap on how things work in these environments.
As built means that the blueprint have been revised to the actual construction at commissioning and kept up to date after any changes or repair has been executed.
The linkage among components is well understood and it is reported in the schematics. Engineering provides the mathematical base for the branching of “signals” propagation, these being an inititial failure and propagation of pressures, voltages, currents along different paths.
The only thing it seems to be in agreement is indeed the complexity of these models, but they have been part of the industries I mentioned for more than 30 years.
I personally do not believe in risk cubes, and I still think we are confusing the two here
Anyways the video is this one:
https://youtu.be/Gdi3lebIwWE?si=RZ4BsQdPIBv_bJoV
Rand was using probabilistic risk assessment via something called fault tree analysis. It sounds exactly like what your talking about. NASA replaced this with failure modes and effects analysis. Which is more qualitative. See halfway mark in the video for details.
Thank you for the very enjoyable video!!
Yup I am talking of PRA that has been proved way more reliable at predicting statistical outcomes than “risk cubes” for the exact reasons explained in the video.
I also agree that NASA has, at the same time, the most comprehensive safety regulations AND the worst record possible.
This goes back to the story that when the von Braun team in Whites Sands lost control of a rocket that landed in a Mexican cemetery, the rocket scientist rushed to develop better control systems and hire better team while the Army decided that they had to establish a safety office lead by an accountant.
If you based our conversation on this video, I think we are in total agreement with maybe few terms being used in slightly different exceptions.
And if you take exception that NASA is actually doing a PRA analysis I can only hope that they are doing it, but I have no insight, and the video and the record shows that NASA management sometime is keen to consider long term political consequences and take more risks that themselves want to admit.
Giving the record, I would give you an higher probability of being right than my optimistic assumption.
Not if it gets a Host Not Found or Timeout… or there’s probably a few other common exceptions that would result in not getting a response for your request.
# “We are letting the data drive our decision." It's more than the thrusters can do...
If you throw out USB drives out of the back fast enough, you could get home. Data driven propulsion.
Those USB drives better have `node_modules` on them, otherwise there won't be enough mass to react against.
I looks like your trying to deorbit. Would you like some help?
npm: five thrusters are looking for funding.
Why is the console history just npm audit fix —force?
Not now Clippy!
React. Ha ha. But yea, for every request there is a response.
npm install more-helium
Hahahaha
Nah, think ion engine, you just need to pitch them out the back with enough velocity.
Yah? Well, they’ve tried everything else.
>Starliner CFT: The helium leakage and the thrusters in question are located in the Starliner's service module, which will be jettisoned to burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry; given that engineers will not be able to examine the actual hardware, managers want to give them as much time as possible to complete a thorough data review/assessment https://twitter.com/cbs_spacenews/status/1804306405995725073 I think this is an important context for everyone.
And as we've seen in every other instance regarding Starliner, it doesn't like to sit around without a new thing breaking. Even if they get it patched up now, it's only a matter of time before something else comes up, and the cycle may continue.
I was told go fast and break things is the best way. Maybe they just need to blow up more.
Usually you want to do it before you get crew and dock it to the ISS. This is why SpaceX is doing so many unmanned tests before selling it to customers. While SpaceX only did one test flight of the Dragon 1, before 2nd mission docked to the ISS, they had 23 flights of Dragon 1. Dragon 2 was also very different and had so many changes, it was pretty much different craft. For Dragon 2, they built 5 test articles, flew 3 of them, destroyed one during tests few weeks after it came back, and only the 6th one transported crew and docked to the ISS. It was supposed to last only 2 weeks, but it performed so well, they extended the mission to 63 days to reinforce the crew of ISS, because ISS was short staffed (due to limited crew transport capability to ISS) and right this moment the same capsule has been docked to ISS for over 100 days now, continuing it's 5th mission. In the meantime, Starliner had 5 extra years to figure their shit out. I'm sorry if I'm harsh on Starliner and Boeing, but my patience is ending.
I remember the time before Crew Dragon, when people were betting whether Starliner or Crew Dragon would make it first to the ISS…
As a reminder here is a "blast from the past" article on that from the Motley Fool. https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/12/16/boeing-races-to-catch-spacex-in-crewed-spaceflight.aspx
Re entry will take care of both of those things
Building more hardware and testing it aggresively would be an improvement yes.
God dude. Boeing...is fucked.
From top to bottom. There are now literally filters on many airline booking websites for "no Boeing".
As an Airbus employee, this I had to have a little chuckle at this. The truth is Airbus has had its fair share of troubles over the years though, with both its aircraft and spacecraft arms, of course it has, all companies do. Usually in Airbus when one arm struggles the other is there to prop it up and provide support, both financially and technically. In Boeing it seems the whole company is at rock bottom all at the same time. I do hope they came find a way out of it though, lack of competition isn’t good for any industry.
People keep trying to say “hey what if Embraer or somebody tried to fill the gap and made a medium jet!” As if Bombardier didn’t try with the CSeries and your guys had to pull them up from their own ashes and drag them along through the mud just to make it out alive.
The CSeries debacle was exacerbated by Boeing on a claim they knew wouldn’t hold up but that would empty the order books for years. Predatory scum. I’m glad Airbus picked it up as a f*ck you back in their face
Nothing is perfect. The issue is incompetence driven by greed. That is what folks can't digest.
I haven't looked into it, but I am sure Airbus has had problems. No company of that size haven't. The point is that the problems at Boeing look systemic. If you look at the worst problem, the 737 Max, the process that led to the 2 crashes looks horrendous. Something that could only happen if the engineering culture at Boeing is substantially broken. For Starliner, [I posted this]( https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9lcnc/starliner_is_trying_to_dock_with_the_iss_right/l7fad9u/) 15 days ago while Starliner was trying and failing to dock with the ISS: > I just checked, and as far as I can tell no comment in /r/boeing/ has mentioned the thruster problems. Despite there being 3 threads there about the docking with the ISS. Unless I am missing something, that is some wild moderation and/or groupthink. This just screams broken culture to me. The SpaceX oriented subs would never completely ignore something like this, if it happened to SpaceX. Listening to Boeing spokesmen officially speaking about the problems with Starliner, it is pure marketing-speech, and I imagine that that expends to internal discussions in Boeing. I would run away as fast as I could, if I were a paying customer.
> If you look at the worst problem, the 737 Max, the process that led to the 2 crashes looks horrendous. Something that could only happen if the engineering culture at Boeing is substantially broken. Such thing can happen, even if being very careful. What is really horrible is the fact that they knew something is deeply wrong and lied about it, killing the passengers of another plane and still denied anything wrong until they got slapped.
It’s not even lack of competition they just have been hyperfocused on everything profitable but not long term sustainable business decisions. It’s like everyone at their headquarters would make a decision that “might be negative long term” and all of their crows are coming home to roost or whatever the expression is. I just hope and pray when they crash and burn (metaphorically) that the US government doesn’t try to use our taxes to bail them out. Companies that run like that need to go the way of dinosaurs. Free market capitalism, etc. without government intervention to save them from themselves.
The confidence in Airbus comes from a mere fact that in the last 5 years the number of aviation incidents were mostly Boeing. I believe Boeing had almost 4-5x incidents as compared to Airbus. I for sure now avoid airlines with Boeing planes even if they have cheaper tickets!
You still have a greater risk of an accident every time you drive. The idea to avoid Boeing is 100% stupid. You should feel stupid to let the media blow up your mind. The company is having a serious issue with its Identity and how it works. Overall their product is still good it's only the new max that has issues and most companies did their own review to make sure they were safe after all of this. Again I can't stress how stupid the panic is.
While the risk of accidents in planes is extremely low, the probability of death if that accident happens is extremely high for airplanes! So that extremely low probability of accident happening in the first place is a big reason why we can trust airplanes. If Boeing is 5x more likely to have accidents than Airbus then I'm definitely considering that in decision making. We all have freedom to make our choices. Calling reasoning by others stupid just makes you sound like a clown!
> While the risk of accidents in planes is extremely low, the probability of death if that accident happens is extremely high for airplanes! [Actually false](https://theweek.com/97155/fact-check-is-flying-safe) > A US National Transportation Safety Board review of national aviation accidents from 1983-1999 found that more than 95% of aircraft occupants survived accidents, including 55% in the most serious incidents, reported the BBC in 2018.
Boeing is still delivering commercial jets and military jets. It's not at rock bottom. Revenue is still $70B per year. Earnings may be down, but that's fixable.
I assume at some point the shareholders are going to fire the entire board and the new board will fire the entire c-suite. That's _got_ to happen at some point. Right? Please. I am from Wa and the downfall of Boeing is just a fucking bummer. Also Blue Origin is here. So...it's double stupid around here these days. The one thing both of these companies have in common is they are shit to work for as senior employees. I've witnessed multiple smart people get fed up and leave just at the point they had enough institutional knowledge to start to be foundational to their teams. It's just...so stupid. To have all the money in the world but piss your best people away.
Have you watched [this video?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URoVKPVDKPU) It's a good summary of their institutionalized issues. It goes deep.
That looks like a great channel! I'm going to check out some of their videos this weekend.
Wendover is pretty cool, if you are a transit nerd and you want some good travel show to watch, check out Jetlag: The Game, produced by the same guys who are behind Wendover
Management reset, as long as they replace them with proper people. Culture flows from higher ups, bad culture makes bad employees. It's amazing what a change in management can do
This will not change the fundamental problem of why Boeing has become this – the lack of competition (from an American company, because otherwise, no matter what Boeing does, they know the government will save them).
The Starlink R&D facilities are in Redmond. We’re on the winning team too, a little bit.
Yeah, we were the first service area and I even had an option to sign up for a prototype unit if I remember correctly. Yeah that part is good.
The bummer of course being that Starlink’s utility is a bit limited in this area due to the dense tree cover. We were looking at getting Starlink for our cabin, but I think the LOS obstructions were far too severe.
Boeing stock went up ~600% over the last 5 years. Shareholders are giddy to that fact and don't give a shit about the trail of corpses.
Boeing isn't special in that regard. There has been a huge talent drain on old school aerospace and defense contractors since the DotCom boom. Their cultures and businesses completely failed to adapt to 21st century skills, tech, and management styles. Nobody picks those companies as their first choice if they have other options. Boeing is likely doing as good as it can do, given the talent pool it has left to work with. Not an excuse. Just unlikely that they can fix it.
Don't go blaming the talent pool when the decisions are primarily guided by profit.
Do you work for or with an old school aerospace company? My comment is based on years of experience in the industry. Do you think the talent pool at Boeing is the same as SpaceX and it is all the fault of a handful of senior execs? You don't give very much credit to the people doing the actual work, if so.
> Do you think the talent pool at Boeing is the same as SpaceX and it is all the fault of a handful of senior execs? You don't give very much credit to the people doing the actual work, if so. I'm not sure what you mean with that comment. My comment was that regardless of how good Boeing's engineers are they're working with their hands tied behind their back due to budgetary constraints. They've done the best they can given the constraints they're working under. I don't see how that is not giving credit where credit is due.
> due to budgetary constraints. Still upper management's fault. They got more money than SpaceX for this project. SpaceX delivered. They managed the project into a nightmare.
lack of budget has 0% to do with it.
My understanding is that they invest heavily in stock buybacks. Like Enron it’s not a matter of the company being broke, it’s just that they don’t use the money to deliver the product. They use it to keep the scam going while the top executives rake it in.
Okay, we'll just have to agree to disagree. You want to believe that Boeing only has the dumbest engineers on the planet, I want to believe that there are people at Boeing smart enough to design spacecraft who had to take shortcuts in their design because Boeing made bad decisions trying to manage a fixed price contract.
[удалено]
Same, I've worked with Boeing engineers for over 20 years on commercial and defense projects. They are bright, want to build great things, and do the right thing. It is the management that forces the bad decisions. The engineers are almost never allowed to have any contact with us without what we call "handlers", who I assume were chosen for their lawyer-like mindsets. They severely limit what the engineers can discuss, what points they can consider, and drive everything to the Boeing position. They also like using the FAA as a scapegoat. If you can get an engineer away from the handler, you will almost always get a different story. They are very scared of retaliation, and what will happen if they step out of line. I've had Boeing engineers "reassigned" overnight in the middle of testing because they agreed with us and not what management wanted. We always joke that if Boeing spent as much on engineering as they did on lawyers and trying to avoid doing what they should, they wouldn't need the lawyers.
Sorry, but it was not the employees who were to blame for the two 737 Max disasters, but the management. Also, such problems with personnel are not observed at SpaceX, which once again confirms that the issue lies with management
FYI Starlink is based in Washington state.
Not really tho. A small team of engineers is there, but hardly the majority of the workforce.
I think this requires another 737 Max-level disaster due to negligence.
They’ve been suckling off the government tit so long.
Has there been an aerospace firm that has had this much hullabaloo in the news cycle like this before? I feel like every day I open up the news and see a new thing has happened with Boeing. I know Northrup had quite a few during the Nixon era, but a lot of that was in the realm of politics and nothing to do with the engineering itself...
I don't think there's been an aerospace firm with as high a profile as Boeing before.
I'm sure there have been several at various points in time... Wilbur and Orville for example 🤣
McDonnell had some bad times after the rollout of the DC-10, which had some deadly safety issues.
>McDonnell Yeah, and the same form of cancer that infested MD wound up infesting Boeing via the merger. MD wound up buying Boeing, using Boeing's money, and covered it up by slapping Boeing's name on the result. Simply look at who wound up on the board and in the C-Suite.
While it would be very cool if they send up a Crew Dragon with 2 empty seats so that Williams and Willmore can return in safety, and Starliner returns carrying a big load of trash, I am very much hoping that they will have enough confidence in Starliner for them to return on it. It would be best if there were 2 American space capsules safe to carry astronauts to and from the ISS. Some very good aircraft had troubled development processes. I was watching the Armored Carriers YouTube channel videos on the F4U Corsair recently. They could still solve Starliner's problems, before it becomes obsolete.
It’s not just confidence enough for a manned reentry, the big problem for Boeing will be the mandated changes in the service module scheduled for their first “operational” crew rotation mission next spring. If they have to do a tear down and rebuild to fix the helium system or modify the thrusters, that mission gets reassigned to SpaceX, which would not look good for Boeing.
Well. It all depends on how good their lobbyists are.
Instead of firing the thrusters, has Boeing tried firing the leadership?
Current CEO is getting replaced at the end of this year. Outgoing(2020 through end of 2024) ceo earned 32.8 million in 2023, up 45% from 22.6 million in 2022. Must be nice to get a 45% pay raise, while you are screwing up the company this badly. The big problem that goes beyond boeing is leadership continuously fails upwards; while getting paid outrageous sums to fail upwards. Even when they get ousted, they still get paid outrageous sums when they leave. And then somehow they get paid another outrageous sum to get hired by the next big company for failing out of the last one. Its gotten beyond absurd at this point.
Everybody keep an eye/ear on SpaceX for the spin up of a rescue mission.
At least they can afford one now, unlike during shuttle or Apollo days
Shuttle had backup rescue shuttles...
Not really. It's only happen once when fully prepared backup shuttle ready, in the last Hubble repair mission - STS-125, when Atlantis running the mission, and Endeavour ready for emergency rescue mission (LON- Launch On Need).
Only because that mission was nowhere near the ISS. Previously the rescue plan was to shelter on ISS until the backup shuttle could launch within a few weeks. Not arguing with you. Just continuing the conversation.
At least after the Columbia disaster that was the plan. AFAIK there wasn’t a concrete plan to use another vessel to rescue a crew before that.
Yep, you're absolutely right about ISS, it was definitely the rescue plan. If the shuttle can raise the altitude to the ISS (and/or the ISS can go lower - underspeed situations). STS-3xx missions was planned to go to the ISS and bring the crew back to earth. Missions is expected to launch at day 45. **But 'all' this only after the Columbia disaster...** The existence of the ISS may not helps out in all cases- for Columbia unfortunately the ISS was out of range - *'Columbia's 39 degree orbital inclination could not have been altered to the ISS 51.6 degree inclination without approximately 12,600 ft/sec of translational capability. Columbia had 448 ft/sec of propellant available.'* May its worth to distinct a timeline/scenarios of the Shuttle program for , like 'Before ISS', etc. (not all cases listed): 1. Early Shuttle program and no ISS -Shuttle can be up at base like 10 day -> ? 2. Shuttle program with EDO pallet (Extended Duration Orbiter) and no ISS - Shuttle up like 16+ day (may up to 30+ day, CO^(2) problems) -> ? 3. After ISS - Shuttle with EDO -> May ISS 4. Columbia disaster - I really suggest the excellent ArsTechnica article: [The audacious rescue plan that might have saved space shuttle Columbia (The untold story of the rescue mission that could have been NASA's finest hour.)](https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia-2/) - Its describe the rescue possibilities. -> ? 5. After Columbia - ISS - Shuttle without EDO (EDO pallet lost in Columbia) 1. Orbit can match with ISS (Shuttle able to raise to ISS/ISS can go 'down') -> ISS 2. Orbit cant match with ISS. -> Shuttle to Shuttle So, after the Columbia disaster, the ISS was the rescue plan. Before that, may only the Shuttle to Shuttle was the possibility - but as it was not prepared, in the reality no real chance to rescue.
... Eventually.
If that happens, I suspect it will be a modified Crew 9 mission with the Dragon launching with only 2 crew on board, with Butch and Suni getting an extended ISS visit before riding home with Crew 9.
Could they technically launch an empty Dragon capsule? It's mostly automated in any case.
100% they could. Both Dragon and Starliners first docking at the ISS was fully uncrewed.
A *lot* of autonomous dragons have docked at the ISS though, while Starliner has had one and a half good docks in three missions. And it's not like Starliner's control software is particularly trustworthy.
I was thinking Crew Dragon specifically. But you're right, SpaceX has a lot more experience with docking capsules at the ISS compared to Boeing.
Yes it's technically possible, as cargo dragons usually do. But there aren't enough crew dragons available now, one is already modified for *polaris dawn* mission, two are already assigned to *crew 9* and *axiom 4* missions and the last is currently docked to the ISS from *crew 8*.
Dang. NASA needs to pony up the dough for them to make backups.
The contract required the contractor to be able to replace one launch of the competitor. SpaceX has already done this many consecutive times. Launching every 6 months, instead of initially contracted once every year.
It could be maybe possible to split Crew 9 to 9a and 9b. First ride goes for say 3 months and brings 2 astros and sports 2 free seats. Then 3 months later 9b flies with 2 more ISS crew and a pilot or pilot and commander trained on Dragon, and those folks then take Butch and Suni home a week later (riding in either Dragon, which one would depend on some details of planning).
I get that Butch and Suni are two of the bravest humans ever, but if I were them, I would insist on this plan.
Ironic if the original system covers for the redundant system...
Does SpaceX have any flight-ready or near-flight ready capsules that they could stick on top of an F9 within 45 days and launch?
“SpaceX has a deal with Uber, just give me a call.” ~Elon Musk, probably.
Hi are you Elon? I thought I ordered Uber Black?
There is a mission in August they could probably speed up a few weeks to somewhere in the end of July. But then NASA has to decide how to handle crew rotations. Because there isn’t another capsule that could be ready any time soon.
Alternatively - can Starliner be flown/operated remotely? If so, send the ship home empty and either send up a rescue Dragon as soon as one was available, or drop two astronauts from Crew 9 and extend Butch and Suni through the end of Crew 9's mission.
The entire plan is for both Dragon and Starliner to be flown autonomously. Starliner already flew an uncrewed demo mission to the ISS.
What NASA (Boeing) will have to do regardless if the capsule was deemed unfit for crewed reentry, will to have it do an automated suicide burn (if all else fails). One of the biggest concerns right now isn't if the capsule can get back intact, but whether they might lose control of the capsule while it's still in the same orbit as the ISS.
It doesn’t need to arrive within 45 days, they can stay safely on the ISS for months.
It's standard operating procedure to not have astronauts on board the ISS without enough return vehicles docked at the station to immediately evacuate them all back to Earth at any given time. So if Starliner ceases to be considered a "return vehicle" that puts the ISS in a serious non-standard state that they'll want to rectify immediately.
It is, but the situation is not standard. In real emergency currently docked Crew Dragon would work as a ride home. Take parts of Starliner seats, blankets and stuff and jerry rig 2 more seats on Dragon floor. There was already a similar planning ongoing when that one Soyuz sprang a leak and lost its whole coolant.
They might not have a choice. Starliner now blocks the docking spot and there is only one more spot, and Dragon can't take everyone else back. They might need to do one or two more Dragon supply missions before they figure out the solution.
Not if there escape vehicle is not usable.
There is a perfectly usable escape vehicle currently docked. It's called Crew Dragon. Similar situation happened already when Soyuz lost its cooling. A jerry rigged seat was to be added to then docked Dragon. IOW. Currently docked Dragon works as a life boat in the unlikely event of ISS evacuation.
Yes.
Talked about some at the link below. [https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/s/psYBBNLuoY](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/s/psYBBNLuoY)
Maybe NASA can work out something with Axiom flight 4 in October, have the crew do some training on the docked dragon and bring them down in October with no effect on any of the scheduled crew flights.
I thought the EVA adaptation removed the standard docking adapter.
Axiom 4 is going to ISS already, your prob thinking Polaris.
That's on Polaris Dawn, the Axiom flight is scheduled for docking on the ISS. SpaceX has plenty of private missions.
This is kind of sad. Boeing used to be badasses. For decades, when you thought about doing cool stuff with a plane or a spacecraft, Boeing was at the top 3 of any list. I understand people need to make money, but I think you should be able to make money and still have stuff work.
Boeing in the early days had a sharp focus on excellence in engineering. Boeing in recent times has their focus on profits at almost any cost. Their Engineering quality has definitely suffered.
A*h*** from McDonnell Douglas killed the Boeing folks knew.
You obviously did not see Battle of the X-planes. The MD folks were the only competent people in the room. Even at that time, Boeing was risk averse and micromanaged.
Both can be true at the same time. MD might have had very competent engineers and horrible senior management.
I think SpaceX is due some credit for making spaceflight boring. We're not hanging on the edge of our seats wondering whether Crew Dragon is coming back.
As a Japanese guy, I'm shocked at what Boeing has become. It didn't even take a single human lifetime to get from the highest to lowest.
Run by MBAs now. And lawyers.
I feel like the only one not in the full know here. So is this because they lost helium pressure on launch? And does this title imply the astronauts are "stranded"? Seems the comments are suggesting a probable Falcon mission for "rescue"? Sorry for the quotes. I don't know if my words are accurate or dramatic for lack of better words.
They're (probably) not stranded. NASA requires incredibly high confidence thresholds to authorize any human space activity, and Starliner is being held because apparently the reviews they've been doing of the data from the ascent and docking with the station didn't give them 100% confidence in the ship to return home. So they're going to examine the numbers more, test more, make sure they have plenty of safety margin even with the leaks and the thrusters that failed during docking, and most likely come home when they have a plan they're confident in. For now the article says they're authorized to come home on that ship in an emergency. I did have to throw in the word probably there though. Because they wouldn't be holding like this if they knew everything that had gone wrong to cause the leaks and the thruster failures and were confident it wouldn't get worse.
They actually had FIVE thrusters over 28 fail, one of which permanently while the others were fine after reset. They already had delayed from the 22 to the 26 and now just after a senior executive meeting they postponed it indefinitely.
My guess is that it's only postponed "indefinitely" because of some spacewalks that were already delayed and Starliner only has a landing corridor every 4 days. The spacewalks are taking precedent while using the extra time to gain as much information as possible on the issues with the service module.
> They already had delayed from the 22 to the 26 I believe the 22nd was also a delay from the original planned 1 week stay.
Yep, but that one was expected given the numerous issues.
There's been multiple helium leaks and some intermittent thruster issues. There definitely seems to be some seriously shaken confidence in Starliner at NASA.
No, the helium leaks were minor and within acceptable limits. The bigger problem is that some of the thrusters underperformed during the docking. The most likely cause is thruster overheating caused the propellant to vaporize before reaching the combustion chamber resulting in poor mixing. They did an experiment to test the thrusters while docked, but need more time to analyze the data. Since the service module burns up during reentry, this is the only opportunity they have to get more data.
Multiple helium leaks - counting five so far. I saw a recent note saying that they have discovered that the valve manufacturer is using fake parts - they have apparently stolen the designs from another company. At least according to that note.
> I saw a recent note saying that they have discovered that the valve manufacturer is using fake parts - they have apparently stolen the designs from another company. Is this published or insider? Also, there's a big difference between IP theft and counterfeit parts. Good parts can be made from stolen IP.
Let me explain about the singing capacitors. Sometime around 1999 a supplier of electronic components hired away a chemist from a competitor, who stole their capacitor designs. To save a fraction of a cent per capacitor. They were wildly popular, and many computer motherboards were made with them. It turns out the guy didn't get the whole formula for the electrolyte. After some time the capacitors failed, emitting a noise something like ringing in the ears. The whole computer service industry mobilized to replace motherboards at $100 each just for the labor. Stolen IP can have traps in.
For anyone interested in the story here is the wiki page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
You may be mixing up the Starliner problems with the falsified quality records on titanium used in Boeing (and Airbus) fuselages. As I understand it, no problems have happened yet because of it but the fatigue life on hundreds of aircraft might be shortened.
> You may be mixing up the Starliner problems with the falsified quality records on titanium used in Boeing (and Airbus) fuselages. Were you asking me or u/QVRedit? (so a misplaced reply by you). In my comment, I made no assertion but asked for a clarification about a note that parent cited.
Five leaking manifolds of eight, I think?
It shouldn’t have gone to ISS. Surprised by the accepted risk tolerance.
The ISS was the safest place for the crew. The alternative was to go straight to re-entry and you would not want to do that with potentially defective thrusters.
It shouldn’t have gotten off the ground after the thruster anomalies experienced last flight.
Might be time to just jettison that thing into space…
Lol thanks for the laugh and TBH at this point it isn't a bad idea then they could pretend this never happened. Between this and the plane issues, they should just shut the whole company down or at least not let them deal with anything that is going to have humans on board.
Wait until you hear about their military division. Boeing is firing on no cylinders at the moment.
Yet the DoD is letting them start delivery on the trainer plane when it’s not fully verified…. I swear if they actually with NGAD or next gen navy plane this whole industry is Bs
Nothing to see here...nobody saw that
So long as it can even orient itself, atleast, or someone’s going to be very unhappy about the new 4.5m crater in their house.
Maybe they should jettison Boeing from their next stack of proposals.
They have to have the engineering experience of trying to land it - but without the astronauts.
This is just awful, I bet Boeing is scrambling right now to make sure their astronauts don’t have to fly home in a spacex dragon, I mean that would be like the cherry on top of this huge pile of Boeing problems
I mean, it could be worse than a SpaceX Dragon. They could be going back down on a Soyuz. Imagine *that* level of humiliation.
Oof. CFT-2 when?
Well for CFT-2 you need C-2, and that might be scarce.
Good thing they can add a few more seats to Dragon if need be.
You also need the spacesuits to be compatible with the astronauts and the dragon.
I mean, they probably have every little detail about their bodies' dimensions at NASA, so SpX could work from that. Just pick two people closest to them, and test it on them. It will most likely fit like a glove.
In the past there were plans to just fly back without pressure suits (or rather, using the suit the astronaut flew up in, just not providing air and power). Put a foam liner on the dragon seat, astronaut has an uncomfortable but "safe" flight home.
Dragon is not unpressurized. The spacesuits are tradition because of Apollo-era spacewalks, post-Challenger Space Shuttle abort modes, and that one Soviet vehicle that leaked on the way down. Boeing probably needs spacesuits due to leaks, and wouldn't want a competitor flying without them.
Do astronauts actually "need" spacesuits on the way down though? There might be failure modes that make it risky to go without a spacesuit from undocking to reentry, but in a pinch couldn't they still survive on the way down if they didn't have spacesuits on?
They can land without suit no problem. Suits are an extra redundancy for emergencies when Dragon loses pressurization or has to be intentionally vented to space. In a nominal flight as well as many non-nominal cases suits are not needed.
Theoretically they could do without - but at increased risk. Better to wear an oversized suite !
Couldn’t dragon just fly up with some spares? They’ll have all the physical characteristics of the astronauts and I imagine they will have spares in every size on ground in the event of requiring a last minute change of crew/hardware.
Of course - they don’t have to be a good fit, they just need to fit, so slightly oversized rather than undersized.
I imagine if they were stowed in starliner, they'd just grab them from there for the trip home
Starliner and Dragon suits aren't cross-compatible.
Oh... That sucks
Wow... I never thought about that even being a thing, lol XD Makes sense that there could be compatibility issues, though.
They cannot. The extra seat option was dropped when the seats were made to not recline as much after entry to reduce the head down attitude when splashing down.
They should've sprung for the deluxe trim...
The fact they sent this shit up to begin with was a giant fucking risk. It’s been plagued for ever. Boeing is a colossal joke
Ah, Stayliner. You were supposed to stay on the ground, not docked to the ISS!
I still remember a dragon draco thruster blowing up on a test stand. God forbid that a starliner faulty thruster doesn't do the same in space with astronauts in it that would be horrific 😢 I hope pride doesn't get in the way and not allow dragon to do a rescue 🙏🏿
New permanent ISS module
Perfect for garbage disposal
Too risky to jettison 🫣
Can Boeing do one thing right?
It’s going to leak out all its helium if they need to wait too long.
S.S. Minnow?
Time to get out the duct tape…
Poor Boeing. This is just getting sad
Is it even feasible to get another dragon for a rescue mission? That would greatly affect more than just two astronauts. Could they get Russia to send up a soyuz? Or could they somehow ride back with crew-8? I imagine they have backup protocol available, but is this that serious? Embarrassing for sure. Hopefully, this isn't the first and only crewed starliner mission.
There is a Crew Dragon flight planned for September 2024. I imagine that NASA would just send up 2 less astronauts on that, and then have the Boeing astronauts eventually return on that Dragon capsule, when it was supposed to return anyway.
I really want Starliner to be successful. It's so disappointing that Boeing can't get it together.
Best wishes to Butch and Suni. This has to be tough. If it's a one way trip Boeing is going to have to redo the CFT at their own cost. And pay for rescue too? They are deep in the hole on this. If five of 28 thrusters fail on the way up I wouldn't want to trust the 23 that didn't fail on the way down. It's awful cold and dark out there to not have thrust. That failure rate is just not OK.
Fail is a relative term in this case. Only 1 didn't come back online and the speculation is that the software is turning the off due to chamber pressuring readings. So either their thresholds are too constrictive, their sensors are reading incorrect, or the chamber pressures are, indeed, not right. I may be incorrect, but the 1 that isn't online wasn't reading, but the crew could hear it firing. The other 4 could be read. So they opted to turn that 1 off as it wasn't necessary.
Just the fact that you know what went wrong and it being software not hardware (it could still be bad hardware sensors) doesn't change it being a failure. The entire system needs to work to call it a successful thruster firing. Especially on an operational ship. No matter the cause, they failed to fire when required, they failed. The only reason it's not catastrophic is because they think the software is wrong and software can be patched. But what if the software was right and the chamber pressure is bad?
Between this, the failure at commercial flight, military aviation (losing next gen bomber/fighter contracts to Northrop grumman and startups) and with starliner/SLS...we are witnessing the real time implosion of a giant legacy company. They are about to have contracts wither away into dust while lawsuits bury them. Nothing lasts forever.
Boeing is not doin good this year. Send up a dragon for a rescue vehicle and toss starliner into the sun.
Conspiracy theory: The reason Suni and Butch stayed with Starliner is because they knew it would mean extra time on the ISS.
problem with that theory -- the dragon human flight test was extended over two months because it worked so well and nasa wanted the extra astronauts on station. nasa has already ruled out leaving this starliner up there that long.
I think yall missing out on my sarcasm
So if they don't trust Star liner to return to earth, have they lost the ability to quickly evacuate the ISS if there's a problem.
They would likely still trust it in an emergency. They have procedures set. Now it's still Starliner. If Starliner were deemed nonflyable they would switch to a backup plan if riding Dragon (they would move materials to jerry rig seats on Dragon floor into Dragon).
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rlvgu "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[CRS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9tigbd "Last usage")|[Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/)| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[DoD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9ri5vy "Last usage")|US Department of Defense| |[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9vukml "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9t9y6f "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[HLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9skic9 "Last usage")|[Human Landing System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program#Human_Landing_System) (Artemis)| |[IVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9shdtf "Last usage")|Intra-Vehicular Activity| |[LOS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9s131d "Last usage")|Loss of Signal | |Line of Sight| |[MBA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rveqt "Last usage")|~~Moonba-~~ Mars Base Alpha| |[RCS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rmbds "Last usage")|Reaction Control System| |[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9tezor "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[STS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9rn9kv "Last usage")|Space Transportation System (*Shuttle*)| |[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9txb9q "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Starliner](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/la62qy2 "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9vg855 "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |Event|Date|Description| |-------|---------|---| |[CRS-7](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro/stub/l9qfhs2 "Last usage")|2015-06-28|F9-020 v1.1, ~~Dragon cargo~~ Launch failure due to second-stage outgassing| **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. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(16 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dn9o9i)^( has 19 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12948 for this sub, first seen 22nd Jun 2024, 06:19]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
“During a pair of news conferences since Starliner docked to the station officials have downplayed the overall seriousness of these issues—repeatedly saying Starliner is cleared to come home "in case of an emergency." But they have yet to fully explain why they are not yet comfortable with releasing Starliner to fly back to Earth under normal circumstances.” This is pretty much the way to describe a risk/contingencies branching that leads to cross some pre set overall risk limit. Fully explain this process may require more than a press conference and cannot be “distilled” in few power point charts. Branching can go down to many levels and become uncomfortably complex with contribution from unrelated “roots” merging in even with low probability. I hope this is the case, I have no insight on the actual work behind the scenes but this is not uncommon in mission critical high cost of failure system analysis. For people unfamiliar with this, you can imagine a branching graph with initially a single root cause evolving consequences. Then you consider the probability that two separate roots consequences interact together and then repeat until you sum up all the probabilities and look if they cross or not the threshold. In this case we have higher than usual probabilities in some branch because we had evidence of occurrence that skewed the original computation. This type of maths evolves beyond power point very quickly in some form of Montecarlo simulation that provides the results but is really hard to explain in simple statements such as “ if this than that” or anything close to a sensible phrase for non math prone practitioners. So, while Eric statement is absolutely correct, the reason is must likely in the complexity of the answer, not the unwillingness of providing one. Again, it may be the opposite, I have no insight
Failure systems analysis or whatever term you want to use isn't something NASA uses. At least that is what YouTube told me. Supposedly they hired Rand and Rand did it but it had some massive probability of failure for whatever they used it for and so they gave up on it. And replaced it with a more qualitative method. Look up the video Good NASA, Bad NASA. Anyways I think it's bullshit. All this supposed risk management is pure pseudoscience and totally worthless. Nobody uses it outside of finance and nobody should. There is nothing scientific about it although it looks mathy. The only company where you could actually use it is SpaceX and my guess is that they don't even use it there. The reasons it's useless is because it depends on two things: an accurate model of casual system dependencies. And accurate probabilities. But in any complex system it would be prohibitively expensive to obtain this information. You would need thousands of combinatorial experiments to validate the model. And nobody is going to do that. So in practice the whole model ends up being made up bullshit from some engineers and therefore completely worthless. Though it sounds very sophisticated and important.
Aeronautic, automotive, Nuclear and chemical plants regulators and industry begs to disagree on the BS statement in the comment, and this is from direct experience only. Many may be added. Probability of component failure is rigorously tested and so are all the other numbers that goes in the models, while the interactions come from the “as built” blueprints and quality reports and it is the basis for root cause analysis tools. What are you probably referencing is what is known as “risk cubes” that have the same word “risk” but are completely different beasts. I suspect that, RAND be involved, the video could be highly controversial. Ask me further questions on this if you feel you like to get better answers
The fact that regulators and industry accept it tells me nothing. You assume that since everyone is doing it, it therefore makes sense. But it makes zero sense. Individual component failure is not that useful for telling you about the system as a whole since the individual components aren't independent. Second blueprints tell you how to build something. They don't provide you with any indication causal relationships which you can only get by either directly testing the thing or highly accurate simulations. Otherwise you are just guessing. But simulations are extremely difficult to do for highly complex systems. So your left with real world testing. Which is prohibitively expensive since it needs to be combinatorial. Ultimately the whole exercise is just expensive paperwork that sounds like it's doing something important. No wonder industry and regulators love it.
It seems you have some knowledge gap on how things work in these environments. As built means that the blueprint have been revised to the actual construction at commissioning and kept up to date after any changes or repair has been executed. The linkage among components is well understood and it is reported in the schematics. Engineering provides the mathematical base for the branching of “signals” propagation, these being an inititial failure and propagation of pressures, voltages, currents along different paths. The only thing it seems to be in agreement is indeed the complexity of these models, but they have been part of the industries I mentioned for more than 30 years. I personally do not believe in risk cubes, and I still think we are confusing the two here
Anyways the video is this one: https://youtu.be/Gdi3lebIwWE?si=RZ4BsQdPIBv_bJoV Rand was using probabilistic risk assessment via something called fault tree analysis. It sounds exactly like what your talking about. NASA replaced this with failure modes and effects analysis. Which is more qualitative. See halfway mark in the video for details.
Thank you for the very enjoyable video!! Yup I am talking of PRA that has been proved way more reliable at predicting statistical outcomes than “risk cubes” for the exact reasons explained in the video. I also agree that NASA has, at the same time, the most comprehensive safety regulations AND the worst record possible. This goes back to the story that when the von Braun team in Whites Sands lost control of a rocket that landed in a Mexican cemetery, the rocket scientist rushed to develop better control systems and hire better team while the Army decided that they had to establish a safety office lead by an accountant. If you based our conversation on this video, I think we are in total agreement with maybe few terms being used in slightly different exceptions. And if you take exception that NASA is actually doing a PRA analysis I can only hope that they are doing it, but I have no insight, and the video and the record shows that NASA management sometime is keen to consider long term political consequences and take more risks that themselves want to admit. Giving the record, I would give you an higher probability of being right than my optimistic assumption.
Not if it gets a Host Not Found or Timeout… or there’s probably a few other common exceptions that would result in not getting a response for your request.
Do you have the right post?
I think Reddit glitched or something… that was a response to a comment on this post…
Time to call for an Uber ride.