Boeing's Starliner

[RCgothic]

The dragon test failure wasn't intended to be a test to destruction, but it had nothing to do with being wet.

A leaky check valve admitted a slug of oxidiser into a high pressure helium line. This then got fired like a bullet into a titanium valve, causing an ignition. This was a completely unforeseeable failure and the check valves were subsequently designed out.

Criticisms of Dragon should at least be accurate.

[Beccab]

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

And they will fix this.

Fortunately, time is infinite and a capsule that launched a NASA mission in 2020 is extremely late compared to one increasingly unlikely to have a non-demo mission before 2023, provided every demo goes right

[kerbiloid]

Lemme suggest a temporary anti-weather solution for both.

Spoiler

 

[OrdinaryKerman]

22 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

That time they wrote that the valve problem was caused by the contact with seawater.

the video you linked (and the SpaceX article) stated it was a blob of NTO shot through a pressure check valve (by the helium pressurant) and ignited the titanum piping. NOT WATER. GET IT?

 

25 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Of course, a wet Starliner is a shame, while the exploded wet Dragon is nothing special.

At least they got some use out of it before it blew up. Starliner's problems happened before the flight, delaying the test flight itself. And OFT-3. And Boeing Crew-1.

I don't think anyone here wants Starliner to fail. What is not good is it sitting there with yet another problem on something they've had issues with before. See tater's post last page, they had abort motor valve problems since 2018.

Edited August 14, 2021 by OrdinaryKerman

[.50calBMG]

At least Boeing can't duplicate the SpaceX failure. Can't have a post flight failure if you can't fly. 

[kerbiloid]

3 minutes ago, OrdinaryKerman said:

Starliner's problems happened before the flight

That's how a QC properly works.

[.50calBMG]

But all the extra money they got to test parts individually and qualify before flight (and be ready before Dragon), was used for QC. It's very reminiscent of the N1 now that I think about it. They pass the tests on the ground, but once the pieces are integrated, they fail spectacularly. 

[OrdinaryKerman]

17 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

That's how a QC properly works.

Yes. I know that. It's just this:

Can't they have gone through all this any faster? If you think their QC works well, then why didn't they catch these problems beforehand? Why was a software error due to bad MET clock not caught out while debugging? Why didn't they do the pad abort in Florida-like weather instead of dry NM desert to see what wetness might do to their engines?

Quote

“According to Boeing officials, Boeing plans to replace components on all of its service modules except for the uncrewed test flight service module. This is because the abort system will not be active for the uncrewed test flight,” the document added.

Why wasn't the abort system enabled on OFT-1 so they could catch this problem earlier?

Edited August 14, 2021 by OrdinaryKerman

[kerbiloid]

4 minutes ago, OrdinaryKerman said:

Why didn't they do the pad abort in Florida-like weather instead of dry NM desert to see what wetness might do to their engines?

Idk about FL and NM, but same rockets fly from Baikonur and Plesetsk, from desert and taiga and swamps.

[.50calBMG]

Don't forget the military heritage Soyuz and Zenit have, though. As far as rockets go, they are built like tanks. If you have a rocket that can launch from Baikonur and Kourou with minimal modification, you have a good rocket. Soyuz can launch in just about any kind of weather and be fine.

[OrdinaryKerman]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Idk about FL and NM, but same rockets fly from Baikonur and Plesetsk, from desert and taiga and swamps.

The problem isn’t with launchers. It’s with the spacecraft itself, and

• Your craft designs all require fairings, giving them a nice, dry place to sit in
• Starliner is a new craft with new engines. The last time you (Russia/USSR) made a completely new space capsule (not counting Buran) was... ‘77. And that was for TKS, which as you know its latest offspring has had... problems. You don’t have these problems with your capsules anymore since your engineers have had over 40 years to work this stuff out. 55 in the case of Soyuz.

For launchers, see post above mine. Basically your rockets were all military-derived and so needed to be able to launch in any condition. Like Titans (intended, Titan family rockets were similarly overbuilt. Atlas isn’t anywhere near as weather-resistant due to the rocket family’s historical priorities of minimizing dry mass no matter the cost).

Edited August 15, 2021 by OrdinaryKerman
Anyway, i’m tired of this now. Goodbye kerbiloid, and kindly shut the #### up next time you start thinking of ways to involve SpaceX or Russia in a discussion about something irrelevant

[kerbiloid]

35 minutes ago, .50calBMG said:

Zenit

Zenit is cryogenic. It never was ICBM, it's a sat lifter.

[tater]

They think the water vapor (humidity) was from the factory, not environmental at the pad per the press conference. They are trying to figure out how that became a problem.

[.50calBMG]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Zenit is cryogenic. It never was ICBM, it's a sat lifter.

I never said anything about fuel, but Soyuz is cryo too. Zenit was designed from the boosters on Energia, which was a military project.

Edited August 14, 2021 by .50calBMG

[kerbiloid]

41 minutes ago, .50calBMG said:

but Soyuz is cryo too

Soyuz was ICBM in 1950s, together with Atlas and Titan I.

[.50calBMG]

Yes, those were all military, and they were all cryo. Anyway, before this gets any more off topic... Starliner no workey again

[Rakaydos]

2 minutes ago, .50calBMG said:

Yes, those were all military, and they were all cryo. Anyway, before this gets any more off topic... Starliner no workey again

As much as I'd like to cheer this for team SpaceX, I have to boo team USA, since we're stuck relying on putin for Starliner's launches until it's online.

[tater]

Just now, Rakaydos said:

As much as I'd like to cheer this for team SpaceX, I have to boo team USA, since we're stuck relying on putin for Starliner's launches until it's online.

I don't cheer anything not working. All working is the best outcome as the desired goal is not just NASA crew launches, but commercial launches, without doubt has costs tied to competition. The more options, the better.

 

(that said, I'd pretty annoyed at BO right now and will find any NG setbacks amusing)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

22 minutes ago, tater said:

that said, I'd pretty annoyed at BO right now and will find any NG setbacks amusing

BO is certainly acting the fool at the moment - but if they don't succeed we end up with the single service provider problem. 

What's needed is aggressive competition, low cost and a variety of options for the market to develop in a reasonable amount of time. 

Otherwise we just get a lower cost for what we are already doing - which will result in smaller budgets as people push for more social projects rather than scientific 

[Cuky]

Starliner has been moved back to the factory to fix issues with valves. No new launch date has been set

https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-oft-2-spacecraft-factory-return-photo

[mikegarrison]

Well, this is why they do flight testing.

[.50calBMG]

The prerequisite for a flight test is that it actually flies first...

[mikegarrison]

15 minutes ago, .50calBMG said:

The prerequisite for a flight test is that it actually flies first...

Well, that's not true. But despite the attempt at witticism, you may recall that this is Orbital Flight Test 2.

[.50calBMG]

I understand it is oft-2, but the actual flight test was so long ago it may as well have not happened, and this one is failing before it even gets off the ground. They are somehow making the capsule perform worse the second time. Besides, the first one was such a spectacular failure that I'm frankly amazed it landed in one piece. The only other time it flew before that, it didn't, so I'm amazed they didn't do more integrated ground testing to fix these issues before they got mounted to the rocket. Iirc, they not only had the issues with the clock, star trackers, TDRS connections, and ground station connections, but they also had multiple thrusters that outright failed.

And before the SpaceX fanboy accusations come through, yes, I am aware of the dragon failures, the falcon 9 failures, and starship failures. I am not turning a blind eye to those. CRS-7 and whatever sat blew up during the pad tests should never have happened, but it is irksome to me that SpaceX gets vilified for trying something new that no human has ever done before and having a mishap, while other companies can do nothing but repeat old designs and be given different, often preferential treatment when something goes wrong.

Also, I don't really count oft-1 as a flight test any more than anyone says any of the starship hop tests weren't flight tests. Oft-1 made orbit, sure, but it was so close to orbit when it started you could get away with calling that an accident, and it had nothing to do with getting there, Atlas did all the heavy lifting. If people can move goalposts against SpaceX, then we can move them against Boeing as well.

Edited August 26, 2021 by .50calBMG

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

@.50calBMG

Wait - Starliner is the payload, right?  Is the above argument like saying Dragon 'was so close to orbit when it started...' because Falcon did the heavy lifting?

 

Color me confused.