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Boeing's Starliner


Kryten

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It's as if they believe the tests is just a milestone to be completed as quickly as possible. The point of the tests being to pass the tests, so that a box can be checked and the product shipped. "We mustn't do any tests the product is likely to fail, because that would delay the project and make shareholders unhappy".

It's almost strange that they haven't swapped out the entire leadership. Sure, the head honcho had to go, but it seems the philosophy remains.

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5 minutes ago, .50calBMG said:

I would like to reiterate that Boeing got more than twice the money SpaceX got so they could compete "fairly" against them, and IIRC so they could be ready first...

And there were given an additional 287 M$ last year because they would be flying crew early on a full mission, and would have to fly 2 times in a year instead of the 2 times a year they were already paid to expect to do.

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Well, I'm gonna start saying Starliner Launch Service. If it's starting to look and act like it's bigger brother, we might as well call them both SLS.

 

Oh, hey, look at that, both have Boeing as a prime contractor, it can't be a coincidence.

Edited by .50calBMG
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5 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Does that mean the Starliner has sixty one issues that need fixing? On top of the two almost catastrophic failures that happened during the flight? 

No. 61 recommendations.

Quote

The 61 corrective actions found by the independent review team do not mean there are 61 separate problems with the mission. John Mulholland, vice president and manager of the Starliner program at Boeing, said the panel reviewed the three problems previously discussed: a software issue that caused the spacecraft’s mission elapsed timer to be off by 11 hours, an incorrect software mapping for thrusters in the spacecraft’s service module, and intermittent communications problems.

“There were 61 recommendations. They don’t map to 61 design issues,” added Jim Chilton, senior vice president at Boeing Space and Launch.

Neither NASA nor Boeing, though, would immediately release the list of 61 corrective actions or give other details about them. Loverro, asked by reporters several times during the call to release that list, said “we hadn’t had that conversation with Boeing” yet about making the list public.

https://spacenews.com/no-decision-yet-on-need-for-second-starliner-uncrewed-test-flight/

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2 minutes ago, tater said:

No. 61 recommendations.

Still that’s a lot. Amazing that it even managed to return in one piece.

6 minutes ago, tater said:

There were 61 recommendations. They don’t map to 61 design issues

Maybe they map to more than 61 issues.

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10 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

Still that’s a lot. Amazing that it even managed to return in one piece.

Maybe they map to more than 61 issues.

Pretty much every spacecraft is going to have issues on its first flight. If bet that the vast majority of the issues found were minor.

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1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Pretty much every spacecraft is going to have issues on its first flight. If bet that the vast majority of the issues found were minor.

When they needed a crash deep dive to test *everything* and found a show stopper mid-flight does not bode well.  Certainly the vast majority will be minor.  It is how many that endanger the crew & mission and how likely they are to occur is the big deal.

I suspect they knew they had lousy tests, designed to meet contract requirements.  That they found real problems with real tests that quickly shows that they need to do the whole thing over again with real testing.  Of course, the fact that in the end the crew would have survived implies that it probably isn't all that bad (not Apollo 1 or Soyuz 1), but still needs some real testing and a lot of fixes.

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There could be more recommendations than issues with the spacecraft.

The recommendations will include things like changes to the way testing is done and corporate culture at Boeing.

Edited by RCgothic
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2 hours ago, Codraroll said:

If they recommend sacking each board member individually, they could rack up quite a few recommendations on that alone.

That's exactly what should happen. Purge the management.

This sort of corner cutting is mind boggling. 

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  • 5 weeks later...
11 minutes ago, tater said:

 

“Flying another uncrewed flight will allow us to complete all flight test objectives and evaluate the performance of the second Starliner vehicle at no cost to the taxpayer. “

Finally, as everyone  expected,  a little bit of common sense ( and a nice pr stunt)

 

 

It's  also true that Boeing  just go a 17 billion  dollars bailout, now that is for the entire company to avoid bankruptcy, but saying that they won't  use these money for this launch  would be disingenuous 

Edited by Flavio hc16
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2 hours ago, Flavio hc16 said:

It's  also true that Boeing  just go a 17 billion  dollars bailout

I don't know where you heard that. I certainly haven't heard it. Do you have a source for it?

It's true that the US is offering bailout money to US aerospace companies, but last I heard Boeing was sounding like they probably wouldn't take it. It's not like the money doesn't come with conditions.

Edited by mikegarrison
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https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/27/business/boeing-bailout-government-stake/index.html

Quote
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was asked earlier this week about how he felt about the prospect of the government taking a stake in his company in return for help, he said he was not in favor of such a move.
In an interview on Fox Business, he said that if the government required an equity in exchange for help, that Boeing would "look at all the other options, and we've got plenty of them."

That was published March 27.

Things could have changed, bu I haven't seen anything to indicate that.

Edited by Shpaget
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