Boeing's Starliner

[Mikenike]

On 10/14/2020 at 11:19 AM, Scotius said:

I'm more interested in the names of utility programs Boeing installed to protect the crew from bugs, glitches and other consequences of shoddy programming

CMSA, or what I would call Command Module System with total Authority. 

And I bet Boeing will make it have a failsafe, derived of the "fixed" MCAS. How can you fix something for space when you have a limited knowledge in your company of how stuff will react. 

[Codraroll]

10 hours ago, tater said:

This was posted ~30 minutes after the Starship test. LOL. Glad no one will notice.

Assuming success, 2 years and 27 days after Demo-1.

End of March 2021? That's almost four months into the future, so ... hang on, gotta check the table ...

If a space launch event is said to happen in ...	... it will most likely ...
... more than two years from now ...	... never happen at all.
... 6-24 months from now ...	... be delayed up to two years at a time.
... 1-6 months from now ...	... be delayed by 50 %, relative to the date of the announcement.
... less than  1 month from now ...	... be delayed up to two weeks at a time.

 

... mid-late May, then?

Edited December 10, 2020 by Codraroll

[tater]

 

[YNM]

The brown spots on the heat shield... Are those SRMs ?

[tater]

32 minutes ago, YNM said:

The brown spots on the heat shield... Are those SRMs ?

No, the heat shield is actually dropped, the terminal braking SRMs are underneath, inside of the airbags that deploy around the edge.

Maybe those are mounting points for on the ground, and  are filled?

 

[mikegarrison]

43 minutes ago, YNM said:

The brown spots on the heat shield... Are those SRMs ?

I don't think so. It lands on airbags. Maybe they are the mounting attachment points for the service module.

Just now, tater said:

the terminal braking SRMs are underneath, inside of the airbags that deploy around the edge.

Does it have terminal SRMs? Not sure it needs them with the airbags.

Edited February 4, 2021 by mikegarrison

[tater]

15 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Does it have terminal SRMs? Not sure it needs them with the airbags.

Oh, you are probably right, maybe I'm conflating it with NS which has both.

Regardless, the heat shield does drop to expose the airbags.

Yep, my bad. I was confusing it with New Shepard.

[Brotoro]

I like the cute carry-handle on top of the capsule.

[mikegarrison]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Oh, you are probably right, maybe I'm conflating it with NS which has both.

Regardless, the heat shield does drop to expose the airbags.

Yep, my bad. I was confusing it with New Shepard.

Notice in that picture there are six dark spots on the bottom of the capsule. They seem to line up with the six spots seen on the heat shield. That makes me suspect they are likely how the heat shield is attached to (and then detached from) the capsule.

[kerbiloid]

And maybe the heatshield has same six on bottom at same places, to be attached to the service module.

[tater]

 

[StrandedonEarth]

Almost even seems legit...

[kerbiloid]

Quote

"Space Exploration Technologies"

Does it belong to T2?

[tater]

54 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Almost even seems legit...

Maybe more legit that you might think (or at least it might be a good idea).

While it's there they can look at the hardware as well

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by tater

[tater]

https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-wants-a-soyuz-seat-this-spring-as-backup-plan/

Quote

NASA wants to make arrangements to use a seat on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft this spring in case anything goes awry with the U.S. commercial crew vehicles.  SpaceX’s Crew Dragon delivered four astronauts to the International Space Station in the fall and another flight is scheduled for April 20, but the agency wants to ensure “dissimilar redundancy” by having the option to use Soyuz.  It plans to acquire it on a no-exchange-of-funds basis.

Un-possible, since we have 2 commercial crew provid... oh, yeah, we don't.

Maybe they are not sanguine about CST-100 flying even a demo crew mission this year?

That ^^^ had been set for mid-June.

 (which I had not realized when I posted it the first time)

[tater]

 

8 days is better than what I thought it might be.

[monophonic]

3 hours ago, tater said:

 

8 days is better than what I thought it might be.

How much for they only needed to delay for 7 days, looked at the new date and decided to wait one extra day?

[tater]

2 minutes ago, monophonic said:

How much for they only needed to delay for 7 days, looked at the new date and decided to wait one extra day?

Phasing is a concern with ISS. They can only launch when it's passing over, then they also have to be concerned about the sunlight when they arrive, etc. ISS has loads of complications.

[monophonic]

Just now, tater said:

Phasing is a concern with ISS. They can only launch when it's passing over, then they also have to be concerned about the sunlight when they arrive, etc. ISS has loads of complications.

Indeed, I was just laughing at all the stupid jokes we missed because they did not announce launching Starliner on April Fools' 

But that's just my sense of humour that I picked from the trash can in the QA office.

[tater]

8 hours ago, monophonic said:

Indeed, I was just laughing at all the stupid jokes we missed because they did not announce launching Starliner on April Fools' 

But that's just my sense of humour that I picked from the trash can in the QA office.

LOL, I didn't even notice April 1. Yeah, they might have added a day just to avoid that, frankly.

 

[tater]

 

https://spacenews.com/starliner-test-flight-slips-to-early-april/

 

Quote

One of the last milestones before launch is a complete “end-to-end mission rehearsal” that features the same software that will be used on the Starliner spacecraft as well as “high-fidelity” flight hardware. The lack of complete mission simulations was one reason software problems, like an incorrectly set mission timer on the spacecraft, were not detected before the OFT mission.

You'd think end to end testing would be... more common.

[tater]

Neutral and hot matter on electrical lines. Go figure.

[tater]

Spaceflightnow has the launch NET May.

[mikegarrison]

Quote

NASA and Boeing are evaluating a new target launch date for the CST-100 Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test-2, or OFT-2, to the International Space Station after winter storms in Houston, and the recent replacement of avionics boxes, set the program back about two weeks. NASA also is weighing the volume of verification and validation analysis required prior to the test flight and the visiting vehicle schedule at the space station.

Previously, the launch was targeted for no earlier than April 2.

An important factor the teams are evaluating is the visiting vehicle schedule at the International Space Station, which already has a scheduled crewed Soyuz launch and NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission in April. Based on the current traffic at the space station, NASA does not anticipate that OFT-2 can be accomplished later in April. NASA and Boeing are working to find the earliest possible launch date.

Sounds like the new date is TBD. Besides the problems with the Texas storm, they are now running into a traffic jam at the ISS.

[tater]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

Sounds like the new date is TBD. Besides the problems with the Texas storm, they are now running into a traffic jam at the ISS.

Yeah, I was talking to my friend (who will work on the NASA side of that flight after it clears the tower) and ISS planning is super complex. He said the scheduling people have it well in hand in terms of when they can fly, but the actual opportunities can sometimes be few and far between depending on the existing schedule, any launch/supply delays or new EVAs that happen, etc. Having a set date is really good, and if it slips a bunch, they might have to sort of start from scratch on finding a date range that works with the ports they have.