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Boeing's Starliner


Kryten

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https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/08/starliner-undergoing-three-independent-investigations-as-flight-slips-to-2024/

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A Boeing official said Monday that the company has delayed a crewed flight test of its Starliner spacecraft until at least March 2024.

The manager for the company's Commercial Crew Program, Mark Nappi, said the spacecraft should be ready for flight by early March, or seven months from now. However, Nappi said that date is conditional on availability of an Atlas V rocket, provided by United Launch Alliance, and an opening in NASA's visiting vehicles schedule.

According to NASA's internal schedule, there is a docking port available from early April to late June 2024 on the International Space Station. So barring a schedule change to delay a cargo mission, the likely no-earlier-than launch date for Starliner's crewed test flight is April 2024.

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https://archive.ph/5XK8e

(archive of a WashPost article to avoid paywall)

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Boeing had big plans for its new space capsule, even before it won a $4.2 billion contract in 2014 to develop a spacecraft for NASA to fly astronauts to the International Space Station. If space were indeed going to open to the masses, as many at the time were predicting, Boeing wanted to position itself as the premier spacecraft provider, the way it had with commercial airliners.

Nearly a decade later, those dreams have crumbled. Not a single person has flown Boeing’s spacecraft to space. No one has booked a private flight. The company has had to absorb about $1.4 billion in cost overruns, and NASA’s safety advisers have called for an independent review of the program. Meanwhile, SpaceX, which received a contract at the same time Boeing did, but for nearly 40 percent less money, has flown eight missions to the ISS for NASA, as well as additional private astronaut crews.

 

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It's a little mean, but when I saw unread messages here, my first thought was "what's wrong this time?" At least it's just a summary of where the program is to date.

I found this quote interesting,

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SpaceX, however, appears to have made a case that flying successfully can be good business. Since the original NASA contract, it’s won another, for five more missions to the space station, valued at more than $1.4 billion.

Which is roughly equal to the quoted cost overruns Boeing has had to take.

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This does not paint them in a good light at all., but opens up the possibility of other companies coming in where Boeing once would have. And to me, it also does not make it sound like Starliner has much of a future after they've completed their contract with the ISS.

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On 10/26/2023 at 8:59 AM, RCgothic said:

Actually "we won't sign fixed price contracts" isn't what they said. They said they won't do any development work on fixed price contracts. Maybe not as absolute an outcome as my first reading.

Boeing aircraft division will certainly sell the government any of the models of jets it already produces.  They might even be willing to have a fixed price contract for minor  alterations for specific military use.

The catch is that unless the US Govt wants to buy additional Atlas and/or Delta rockets (and not from ULA), anything Boeing does for NASA is going to involve a ton of NRE (non recurring engineering)

- And yes.  I've been on projects with fixed prices and the (DoD) customer insists on customizing the product during design.  There's a reason that those fixed budgets are about 10 times what it would cost to make a product for commercial sales.  But it doesn't look like even that is good enough for Boeing (space).

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On 11/20/2023 at 2:19 PM, Spaceception said:

Good to know, hoping that last test goes well. A spring launch would be nice. I'm sure the Astronauts are ready to go up for their mission.

I'm sure they'll both have 'important personal matters' if that thing becomes clear to fly and promptly retire afterwards ; )

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13 minutes ago, tater said:

Headline:

...Don’t expect perfection on crew test flight

Was anyone expecting perfection at this point?  What an interesting headline.  Hopefully people absorb this guidance better than they attend to the fact that SpaceX is testing things and that failures are possible.  Expect excitement and education

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