NASA orders more tests on Starliner, but says crew isn’t stranded in space
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"Our astronauts have a safe way back to Earth, unless we decide to try them using the Starliner to do it."
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Not quite. Before you throw a die, if you know nothing about it or the way it is thrown, you assume that the die is fair and the throw is not a factor. You create a model, and the model tells you a probability. The probability is not a property of the event itself. If you had more information, however, you might be able to tell it with near certainty, save for quantum effects. Once you roll the dice, you know what you could have predicted, given enough information.
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I thought this whole thread started with Space Shuttles initial estimation of a 1/100000 chance of failure versus the observed 2 fatal failures in 135 flights. If that's not the point, or not the point anymore, then my comment was indeed useless.
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Before the Shuttle launched for the first time that would've been acceptable. After that? They knew how to mangle the odds. They just chose not to.
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All decades of space travel have had failures. Imagine in the 60's and 70's with men on the moon. There was no rescue ship available in space, or even built on the ground to go help.
Hats of to the men and women engineers of yesterday and today!
Hats of to the men and women engineers of yesterday and today!
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It is indeed the case, but the downgrading wasn't because of the observed failures but because of assumptions made that were later to be found unfounded. The odds were never that good, but they were massaged to be good enough.
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As has been previously noted, the Starliner is considered safe for an emergency return. It's not an emergency. There's no reason to send Butch and Suni back. They're doing productive work on-station. They're not running out of food or water or LOX. Why send them back unless it's strictly necessary?
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Future Starliner missions (if any) are expected to last a lot longer than 45 days. So, by design, the batteries need to have a much longer life than the 45-day limit initially set for this verification-and-or-testing mission. The batteries are pretty much verified at this point. It would be better public relations (PR) to say “verified” rather than “waiver”, but I’m not holding out much hope.
In my experience in software, tests designed for problem solving are very, very different from general integration testing or product verification testing. Something similar could easily be going on with the thruster tests. They might find the problem. They might learn nothing new. They might find something odd and conclude that they need more testing and thus more time.
“We have the luxury of time” ... until we don’t. NASA seems to be able to manage contingencies, but I doubt if they like talking about it.
In my experience in software, tests designed for problem solving are very, very different from general integration testing or product verification testing. Something similar could easily be going on with the thruster tests. They might find the problem. They might learn nothing new. They might find something odd and conclude that they need more testing and thus more time.
“We have the luxury of time” ... until we don’t. NASA seems to be able to manage contingencies, but I doubt if they like talking about it.
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Why send them back just because their scheduled mission is over? At that point you're just accumulating excused for not sending them back.
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“I want to make it very clear that Butch and Suni are not stranded in space."
Well, thanks for confirming the situation is bad enough that needed to be clarified in an official press conference.
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You are entirely correct. So why, exactly, were these particular batteries only certified for 45 days to begin with? Does Boeing produce substandard batteries for such usage?
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BTW I believe that Starliner and Dragon use a common port design.
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“I want to make it very clear that Butch and Suni are not stranded in space."
Of course they're not stranded. They can jump:
https://www.redbull.com/us-en/videos/i-jumped-from-space
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I certainly wouldn’t trust the guy who bets his house on the coin being double-tailed.
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Are we sure these are the same batteries that Starliner will be using during operational missions? During Dragon's certification mission it was launched with temporary solar panels that were not certified for a longterm stay, which became an issue when its stay was extended, so it wouldn't be unprecedented.
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No, but at least we can be assured that these particular batteries would not have been certified for a longer stay. How, exactly, is that to be considered to be assuring is left as an exercise to the reader.
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What is assuring is they have real measurements of the actual batteries in use on Starliner and are confident they are working better than certified and will last longer. An actual experiment rather than modeling.
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What is assuring is that Boeing claims to be capable of producing batteries good for a 6 month stint and these aren't it.
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As best I can tell that's for an entire 210 day mission - the risk on the descent phase should be far lower
a. The LOC probability distribution for the ascent phase of a 210 day ISS mission shall have a mean value no greater than 1 in 1000
b. The LOC probability distribution for the entry phase of a 210 day ISS mission shall have a mean value no greater than 1 in 1000
c. The LOC probability distribution for a 210 day ISS mission shall have a mean value no greater than 1 in 270
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No real idea. As a guess, the length of testing during the un-crewed flights gives them confidence to plan on 45 days for the first crewed flight. I only know a little math, but I don't know any Boeing math.
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What kills me about this whole situation is that it took NASA engineers something like hours to figure out how to save the crew of Apollo 13 from carbon dioxide poisoning but it's taking them weeks, or even a month, to figure out that Starliner's thrusters are FUBAR'd and the astronauts are going to have to hitch a ride back on something else.
I mean, I get that there isn't huge urgency here, and lives aren't in danger as long as Starliner comes back EMPTY (even assuming it survives reentry using thrusters that don't work properly/reliably). The pressure isn't as enormous as it once was, either.
Still, weeks? Really?
I mean, I get that there isn't huge urgency here, and lives aren't in danger as long as Starliner comes back EMPTY (even assuming it survives reentry using thrusters that don't work properly/reliably). The pressure isn't as enormous as it once was, either.
Still, weeks? Really?
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Unlike the crew of Apollo 13, this crew is already in a relative safety of the ISS. It's only coming back that exposes them to the danger of trusting Boeing.
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Nope. But I'm more concerned about how the batteries are organized into a power system and how things are monitored. I'd like to be sure they can see problems coming with a couple of weeks of imperfect use left. Systems that stay close-to-perfect until seconds before everything degrades all-at-once are not so useful.
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What you are saying here is that Boeing doesn't trust these batteries to hold beyond 45 days but NASA does.
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Starliner is not dead, it is just sleeping, pining for the fjords
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The crew isn't stranded, we just haven't decided on how to get them down.
... Is that really the best they can do?
... Is that really the best they can do?
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After its tortured series of test flights, all of which rhymed with "QA/QC? What QA/QC?", any company's product would be making everyone nervous.
Off top of my head:
-Parachute not attached during pad abort test
-Wrong clock timer on first demo test, leading to circularization chaos
-Wrong thruster/orientation mapping during re-entry on first demo test
-Thruster failures throughout all three flights
-Completely stuck valve on attempt at uncrewed demo
-Wires wrapped in flammable tape necessitating a capsule rebuild (discovered somehow only weeks before a launch attempt)
-Helium leaks on this flight
-Thruster failures while approaching the station on this flight
You don't even need to go into Boeing's wide array of other quality crises to be nervous about Starliner, Starliner has earned the nerves all by itself.
Though in that list, I realize that their successful uncrewed demo doesn't make an appearance. Was it really flawless? That was my memory, I thought at the time "ok, they finally got it together".
Edit: No, it had thruster issues IIRC.
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CNN reported a few minutes ago that they are considering extending the flight up to 90 days.
Unbelievable-
Unbelievable-
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No. More along the line of being very sure the batteries will last at least 45 days on orbit ... which maybe is enough to be very sure the batteries on the next flight will last long enough for a much longer mission. I don't know what testing they did on the ground, but it matters that testing occur on orbit and the on-orbit tests are the basis for verification. Neither Boeing nor NASA should be over-relying on ground tests, even though ground tests are definitely required.
Data from previous flights is less support than data from all flights, including this one. So "45 days" is appropriate at the start of this mission and "longer" is appropriate when also including data from this-mission-so-far.
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But it took much, much longer to figure out what happened and get to where they knew Apollo 14 would be okay.
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I posted in the previous thread that there's still a fairly benign hypothesis that jives with NASA/Boeing's behaviour: the vehicle is actually ok, and they have very good reasons to believe it so (but don't feel like sharing them?). Since the thrusters that shit the bed will be destroyed forever on re-entry, it makes a lot of sense to gather as much behaviour data as possible, so that maybe the issue is actually, finally fixed properly on Starliner's 4th try.
Of course, there's also the non-benign hypothesis of: the vehicle is not fine and they're not being candid. This is backed up by Boeing's past behaviour and the fact they keep scheduling these news releases for Friday afternoons.
And, of course, the worst possible hypothesis: the vehicle is bad but they think it's good.
In all 3 scenarios, keeping it attached as long as possible makes sense. You get more data, or you get a chance of a steely-eyed-missile-man setting SCE to AUX.
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Boeing didn't trust to guarantee them before they docked with the ISS. Now NASA and Boeing have more information and I am sure Boeing agrees with NASA that they will last longer.
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post fugam alterius
Smack-Fu Master, in training
This thread of largely wrong-headed b.s. proves it wasn't misunderstanding that led to "STUCK" & "STRANDED" headlines
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That'd make sense if we were talking about the next set of batteries, not the set already in space docked on the ISS.
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