The First Crew Launch of Boeing's Starliner Capsule Is On Hold Indefinitely (arstechnica.com) 32
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: The first crewed test flight of Boeing's long-delayed Starliner spacecraft won't take off as planned Saturday and could face a longer postponement as engineers evaluate a stubborn leak of helium from the capsule's propulsion system. NASA announced the latest delay of the Starliner test flight late Tuesday. Officials will take more time to consider their options for how to proceed with the mission after discovering the small helium leak on the spacecraft's service module.
The space agency did not describe what options are on the table, but sources said they range from flying the spacecraft "as is" with a thorough understanding of the leak and confidence it won't become more significant in flight, to removing the capsule from its Atlas V rocket and taking it back to a hangar for repairs. Theoretically, the former option could permit a launch attempt as soon as next week. The latter alternative could delay the launch until at least late summer.
"The team has been in meetings for two consecutive days, assessing flight rationale, system performance, and redundancy," NASA said in a statement Tuesday night. "There is still forward work in these areas, and the next possible launch opportunity is still being discussed. NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward."
The space agency did not describe what options are on the table, but sources said they range from flying the spacecraft "as is" with a thorough understanding of the leak and confidence it won't become more significant in flight, to removing the capsule from its Atlas V rocket and taking it back to a hangar for repairs. Theoretically, the former option could permit a launch attempt as soon as next week. The latter alternative could delay the launch until at least late summer.
"The team has been in meetings for two consecutive days, assessing flight rationale, system performance, and redundancy," NASA said in a statement Tuesday night. "There is still forward work in these areas, and the next possible launch opportunity is still being discussed. NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward."
Boeing = not going! (Score:5, Funny)
Boeing = not going!
Shitbox. (Score:5, Insightful)
So when does NASA give up on this over-budget and massively delayed piece of shit? Do we have to watch astronauts die in this thing before we figure out that this is not the Boeing of old that could be relied upon to make aviation hardware that doesn't kill people?
Re: (Score:2)
That being said, I do happen to think that they’re in danger of being left in the dust by SpaceX. If they don’t make progress soon, people will start to ask questions like “why is the Boeing contract twice as big as SpaceX and are we getting twice our moneys worth?”
Re: (Score:3)
NASA desperately wants two certified American astronaut launch vehicles. If a Falcon 9 blows up during a launch, they'll immediately ground all Dragon launches until the root cause has been found and fixed, and if there's a critical flaw in the Dragon itself, it could be out of service for quite some time. Having two separate systems makes the risk of losing access to the ISS very unlikely.
Now if SpaceX gets Starship human rated, or Blue Origin with New Glenn, then Boeing becomes irrelevant. Likewise if
Re:Shitbox. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It gets nullified never. They will always halt after a loss of a crewed vehicle. Even if that particular booster didn't have humans on it, they won't take that chance. Space is already dangerous enough. NASA isn't going to add to it.
Re: (Score:2)
In the wake of the space shuttle Challenger disaster, [wikipedia.org] I recall reading a magazine article that the air force determined that solid rocket booster reliability was no better than 1 in 150 launches/booster or so. So for a two booster system, the air force determined that 1 in 75 or so was the most reliable the Air Force could achieve (based on research likely in the 60s and 70s). NASA thought they could do better with the Space Shuttle.
The Challenger blew up on the 25th shuttle launch ...
NASA lost two shut
Re: (Score:2)
You clearly know nothing about Challenger. They were warned, but then-President Raygun wanted the launch that day, so he could talk about it in his State of the Union speech. The weather was too bloody cold for the O ring.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Shitbox. (Score:2)
It seems to be that Boeing is already obsolete compared to SpaceX and other firms. Realistically, in 10 years do we think the Boeing craft will be frequently used, when other private companies are advancing so rapidly at such lower cost? At Boeing's pace they'll still be using the same technology in 10 years while Blue Origin or SpaceX will be on gen 5.
If Boeing really wants to compete, I think they have to break from the NASA model and start being far more aggressive with their development. There's real,
Re: Shitbox. (Score:2)
Considering that all this came from a desire by certain influential politicians to keep factories that used to make space shuttle parts in business (and the workers in those factories on side) I doubt it will be going anywhere anytime soon...
Re: (Score:2)
Giving up on it risks at best becoming beholden to SpaceX, and at worst Starship fails and China beats the US back to the Moon.
Re: (Score:2)
So when does NASA give up on this over-budget and massively delayed piece of shit? Do we have to watch astronauts die in this thing before we figure out that this is not the Boeing of old that could be relied upon to make aviation hardware that doesn't kill people?
Nah. It's much more profitable for them to keep parading the thing around acting like there may be a point someday, somewhere, somehow, when you wish upon a star you'll never reach because you're flying in a Boeing, it may just work, by gum. That's how government contracts work. Milk, milk, milk. Produce viable output doesn't even have to be brought up as a concept. It's unnecessary, and counterproductive.
Ironically (Score:3)
The First Crew Launch of Boeing's Starliner Capsule Is On Hold Indefinitely
Though not nearly as memorable as Freedom 7 [wikipedia.org] , "Hold Indefinitely" is actually the name of this capsule.
Boeing should be off limits (Score:2)
For any/all new government contracts until they get their s***t together.
They can't be trusted.
Re: (Score:2)
For any/all new government contracts until they get their s***t together.
They can't be trusted.
As if their customer can be trusted? Both sides took turns fucking that goat while pretending neither should be involved in the paternity suit after a clusterfuck was born.
If I had mod points, I'd mod this up. That's some poignant, if repugnant, imagery there. Well done.
Just do the sensible thing (Score:5, Funny)
Stuff the Boeing C-suite into the capsule and launch it already.
However it ends, it ends well.
Re: (Score:2)
OMG! LOL! Thank you.
No More Cost over-runs (Score:3)
Perhaps Boing is only able to function in the old Cost Plus paradigm, this new Fixed Cost Contract is tough for them. Engineering is more complicated when you can't throw boat loads of other people's money at every problem.
Helium leak (Score:3)
No! (Score:1)
$40 billion and counting (Score:3)
Disclaimer : No jobs were lost during this mishap.
Astronauts (Score:3)
Those astronauts are secretly counting their blessings. Would you want to fly in a Boeing spacecraft these days knowing it was built during the worst quality period in their history?
Reminder: bureaucratic assumptions (Score:5, Informative)
When NASA instituted the Commercial Crew Program, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, and Boeing were all given small (by government standards) grants to fund their initial proposal work. This was then narrowed to three providers: Boeing (with Starliner), Sierra Nevada (with DreamChaser), and SpaceX (with CrewDragon) and each received $10M to continue refining. Then NASA narrowed to two contract winners: Boeing and SpaceX.
Boeing brought claims of many decades of experience in manned spaceflight (which it actually did not have - it simply had purchased the companies who had the experience, but no longer had the experienced employees) and their capsule was a recycled version of their proposal for the capsule for SLS (they lost that particular competition to Lockheed with their Orion) and was supposedly an upscaled derivative of the Apollo Command Module. The people in suits and corner offices at NASA simply presumed that Boeing was most-likely to succeed and most-likely to be ready first.
SpaceX was already flying cargo to and from the ISS for NASA with their CargoDragons, so NASA knew they'd eventually be able to make the Dragon crew-ready, but as an upstart "newspace" company there was an assumption that there was a lot they would need to learn and they likely would lag far behind Boeing.
Sierra Nevada, with the lifting body DreamChaser was presumed to be the most complex, yet provided by the smallest, least-experienced, and least-funded company so it was a no-brainer for the suits at NASA HQ to write them off.
NASA gave Boeing $4.2 Biliion, SpaceX was given $2.6 Billion, and Sierra Nevada was given $0 (with the assumption they would shut up and go away. The two winning bidders were supposed to be ready for crews in 2017.
My what the passage of time has revealed...
SpaceX completed more tests than required (particularly including the in-flight MaxQ abort test) and was able to launch the first crewed mission in 2020. This was three years behind schedule. To be fair to both Boeing and SpaceX, SOME of the delays were caused by NASA itself, which had never before run a commercial crew program - all their previous experience was with NASA in firm control of all aspects of a vehicle's design and construction. As of this time, SpaceX has done 8 crew rotation missions to the ISS for NASA.
Boeing has yet to complete a first, short, test flight with only two people aboard. They took the easiest and cheapest path (scaling-up an Apollo capsule) yet have been unable to succeed. The delays have been a seemingly never-ending series of screw-ups they would never have experienced if only they'd had employees with experience in manned spaceflight...
Sierra Nevada, surprised everybody by plodding along, down-scoping their vehicle to cargo-only and asking NASA for unpaid help and advice. Sierra is now on the verge of launching their first unmanned cargo DreamChaser (having eventually won a contract to haul cargo to the ISS). The first DreamChaser will now likely fly to the ISS before Boeing's Starliner, and there is a plan in-place to human-rate it once it is operational.
The paper pushers at NASA simply guessed wrong. They were probably most-confident in Boeing simply because Boeing had vast experience in getting contracts for government projects and looked good "on paper". The agency gave the lion's share of the cash to Boeing on the presumption that the firm with the most experience as a government vendor was the best.
Re: Reminder: bureaucratic assumptions (Score:3)
Another thing worth noting is that much of the delay was caused by the parachute issue. That issue wasnâ(TM)t a problem with dragon per se, but with all capsules that returned on parachutes. SpaceX designed it to operate in the way âoeNASA knew workedâ, and then discovered that actually, it didnâ(TM)t work in some circumstances.
Re: (Score:2)
+1 Informative
Re: (Score:2)
I'm cheering on Sierra Nevada. SpaceX needs some competitors, and though they may be a lot smaller, that likely makes them much more adaptable. Boeing, being the behemoth in the field, should dominate, but clearly they've lost pretty much every aspect of them that made them seem like the sure thing at the start.
Make Balloons (Score:2)
The talent that made Boeing a world-class aviator was driven over the last two decades. They should use all the hot air coming from top management to make balloons instead.