NASA orders more tests on Starliner, but says crew isn’t stranded in space
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Looking at NASA’s history and the pressures at play, I’m concerned they are deliberately leaving the door open to building flight rationale even if they end up not fully understanding the thruster issue before the capsule needs to come back.
Before the launch, someone on another thread made the argument that while a single small leak in and of itself may not be a big deal, what if the same root cause affected other similar areas of the spacecraft and therefore could manifest during the flight. Well, we went from one leak to five.
So I agree that without understanding the root cause of the thruster failures, we simply don’t know how many can be expected to fail during descent. What if it’s a problem that gets worse with use or vibration?
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I think: If they fully understand the problem whilst in space, and can test what they learned on the flight home, then there is a chance that everything is back on schedule for Starliner. If they come home now, with the problems still undiagnosed, then they're going to need a new certification flight. So maybe the pressure is from Boeing to not waste this flight. They don't want to pay for yet another testing/certification flight up.
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Polaris dawn is supposed to launch mid July. They still have not set a date for the launch and seem to be pushing the date for the launch. I wonder if this has something to do with the starliner.
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Boeing PR: Starliner crew are NOT stuck on the ISS. they can return to Earth anytime they want. At 15,000mph as a burning meteor.......But it'd still be a return home, just spread out over the continental United States.
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Polaris dawn is a free flyer that has been modified to support a spacewalk. If it still has the docking port it isn't currently functional. It would make way more sense to pull the next regular crew vehicle forward if that's what they had to do.
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I was thinking more of if the thrusters failed completely to de orbit starliner, the Polaris dawn vehicle would be a high risk rescue where everyone could suit up and then transfer to the crew dragon.
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That would actually make a lot of sense. The cost to postpone Polaris Dawn a few days is presumably negligible in the big context, so no reason not to keep this rescue option open. And Jared Isaacman would surely be very happy to be the heroic rescuer of such a mission.
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The suits that the astronauts wear on Starliner and regular Dragon flights are not intended to be used outside the capsule, and even the Polaris Dawn suits are tethered. There is no way to transfer in space.
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I came for the fiasco story, stayed for the orthogonal concepts.
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This whole PR fiasco stinks of a complex web of stakeholders trying to handle/protect their specific patches. The contradictory statements show the extraordinary politics at play. It's also why the casual space observer has more trust in the candor of SpaceX than a great number of other NASA vendors.
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They aren’t stranded, they’re just in an indeterminate amount of mortal peril thanks to go fever.
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My 'our astronauts aren't standed in space' shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.
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For everyone lamenting that we cant trust Boeing to bring them back safely, Starliner is a death trap, thank god the astronauts are safe aboard the ISS. Don't forget who the prime contractor is in designing and operating the US side of ISS... Yeah, think about it. The peril is far greater than you imagined.
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Def not stranded.
Just a matter of time before Elon says he'll be glad to send the Crew Dragon to pick up these astronauts.
Just a matter of time before Elon says he'll be glad to send the Crew Dragon to pick up these astronauts.
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You could survive for a minute or two on the air available in the suit itself. Disconnect, transfer, reconnect at new location.
I'm not saying it's a great plan, but it is possible. Only in a dire emergency, I suppose... And better than that 2001 method.
Also, I have no idea how long it takes to connect or disconnect.
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That’s a Hollywood plan, not a NASA plan.You could survive for a minute or two on the air available in the suit itself. Disconnect, transfer, reconnect at new location.
I'm not saying it's a great plan, but it is possible. Only in a dire emergency, I suppose... And better than that 2001 method.
Also, I have no idea how long it takes to connect or disconnect.
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Not quite. The Hollywood plan would involve a random hose tangle, a detachment/reattachment issue, an astronaut who can hold their breath for twelve minutes because they're a free dive world champion in their spare time, and a room full of controllers staring at a countdown clock.
I jest... Yes, of course it's a Hollywood plan.
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I can sympathize with Starliner ... If I were traveling somewhere nice and didn't know if I'd ever get to go back there again, I would want to take some extra time and extend my stay there.
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If I remember correctly 2 thrusters failed in the second unmanned test, is there any reason they didn't keep that one on station, run two weeks of trials and find the issue then? Instead they called it at 5 days and reported it as a success. Im just surprised they are surprised that the thrusters are failing like last time
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Yes, I do use vocabulary like that in ordinary conversation.
Yes, my children are doomed.
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Only problem is that they couldn't reconnect as the Starliner and Dragon suits have different connections.You could survive for a minute or two on the air available in the suit itself. Disconnect, transfer, reconnect at new location.
I'm not saying it's a great plan, but it is possible. Only in a dire emergency, I suppose... And better than that 2001 method.
Also, I have no idea how long it takes to connect or disconnect.
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The Starliner suits can’t plug into the Dragon capsule as discussed in previous comments.
Edit: ninja’d
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The batteries were rated at a 45 day service life, plus margin, for a reason. They don't just arbitrarily assign a short service life for giggles and grins. So even if battery performance is at the best end of the tested performance envelope, they're now cutting into margin. Eventually you run out, even with optimal performance.
And no, this wasn't a "test flight." This was a certification flight. It was supposed to be the flight that shows, within reason, that everything is working as-designed and that the vehicle is ready for operational use.
Are we really going to pretend that it's ready, after all these unforseen problems?
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The batteries were qualified or certified for 45 days. That doesn't mean they're only rated for 45 days. They could be the batteries for a full mission, they just hadn't been testing in-use on the ground long enough to say they were ready for 210 days. Instead, they may be executing that testing as they're running now. It's totally valid to say that the internal resistance of the cells is still below a threshold for another period of time (or whatever the metric is). That's not a way to say this batter is capable of making it 100 more days, but they might be able to qualify it for 5 additional days however often they like. Until the battery no longer passes its internal test.
That's not a great way to run a long-duration mission. That's a great way to provide mission flexibility to extend a mission if hardware isn't failing as fast as a worst-case scenario.
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Fair enough. What little aerospace certification experience I have is in structures, which is a bit more determinate, if you'll pardon the pun.
The scenario you describe terrifies me, though. They're extending the life limit out - through testing - in short stages (by necessity), but whenever they do find the limit, their window to act narrows to the duration of the next stage (or two, or "n" if they're using some kind of accelerated life testing.).
That turns it it into a potential "act now/quickly" scenario, with all the attendant pressures - political, corporate, and career. Bad decisions often ensue.
Hopefully it has been factored into contingency planning that the battery life limit is found before thruster testing is complete, or at least complete enough to reasonably assure safe undocking and re-entry. Heck, we may already be at that latter point, but NASA/Boeing PR speak and handling on this mission has been piss poor enough to call anything into question, at this point.
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