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[Spaceflight] NASA confirms Starliner not cursed, just haunted
Hevach
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Starliner is cursed. Cursed to failure. Cursed to expense. Cursed to dominate the first few dozen pages of this thread. But how cursed?
The result of an $18 million award from NASA, the CST-100 was unveiled in 2010 as an Orion Light, primarily intended to serve as the assured crew return vehicle for the ISS. It could launch on the Atlas V, Falcon 9, or Delta IV Medium, none of which were then crew rated yet. It could dock autonomously at the ISS and allow shuttles to leave crew long term without Soyuz seats available to retrieve them. NASA awarded Boeing another $92 million for ongoing development.
In 2011 Boeing was given a shuttle processing building just for Starliner work. In 2012 NASA awarded Boeing $460 million more for development.
In 2014, despite claiming the vehicle already existed, Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion for development of Starliner and eight launches - one uncrewed, one partially crewed and six fully crewed. This was nearly twice the amount awarded to SpaceX for the Crew Dragon, because as a long time industry veteran Boeing could be trusted to deliver on their promises. The first launch was to occur in 2016 with crewed flight starting in early 2017. Additionally $6.7 million was allocated to ULA for human certification of the Atlas V's N22 and 522 configurations for Starliner and Dreamchaser, respectively.
Then 2015 happened. The first sign of problem was Boeing Starliner being dropped from the Commercial Resupply Service program, and the first launch slipped to 2017.
Then it slipped to late 2017... Then 2018. As problems stacked up Boeing was given an extra $287 million to fix their shit.
Throughout 2018 and 2019 Starliner was plagued by thruster problems caused by the hypergolic thruster system never being tested in a humid environment like coastal Florida, further delaying the debut.
In 2019 Starliner finally launched. It carried, among other things, Christmas presents from the families of astronauts and Cosmonauts who would be in space for the holidays. 31 minutes into flight a botched orbital insertion burn rendered the craft unable to reach the ISS. Christmas was ruined for the seven people aboard the station. But it gets worse! Later in the mission a critical software bug was detected that would have likely caused the capsule to collide with the service module during reentry, compromising the heat shield and possibly destroying the vehicle (with the presents still on board). This at least was fixed and Starliner Calypso landed on December 22, 2019, and the presents were recovered for the next Dragon flight.
Initially the failure was blamed on a communications lapse and it was noted a crew could have corrected the issue easily. NASA was considering moving ahead with a full crewed expedition for launch two... However things took a grim turn from there.
After the flight, it was determined that both issues would have been caught in testing of Boeing had done it right. They tested all phases of flight, but none of the transition points between them, where both errors occurred. Further 61 hardware and software faults were identified, including unsuitable insulation materials, faulty wiring, and exterior ablation on unshielded surfaces.
As problems continued Boeing had blown all its money and began taking out charges against future earnings from NASA. $410 million in 2020, $185 million in 2021, and $288 million in 2022.
The next flight would be scheduled for 2020 but would not fly until 2022 due to ongoing issues with the OMS thrusters, eventually requiring the entire rocket to be unstacked and the service module disconnected. This time the vehicle would not be graced with the dignity of a name, it was merely named Vehicle 2.
This time nothing of personal or mission import was along for the ride, just some perishable food, and the sort of PR things NASA is always sending to space - some flag pins from historically black colleges, and a plushie of Jedediah Kerman. The flight would not go smoothly. Multiple thrusters failed on route to the ISS, and docking was delayed by an hour due to issues with the retractable ring in its NDS docking port.
But, Vehicle 2 did complete its mission and deliver Jedediah safely to the ISS where he remains to this day, and Vehicle 2 returned to earth carrying empty air canisters.
The first crewed flight was scheduled for July 2023, but this time flammable tape and bad parachute harnesses would intervene. When it was finally ready, a valve issue with the Centaur upper stage caused a launch scrub. Had that not happened the errors that followed might have been missed. For weeks after the Centaur was fixed persistent helium leaks delayed launch attempts, until Starliner tied for the most scrubs on any single launch at 7.
Finally in May 2024 the flight finally launched, with Calypso from the first failed demo getting its shot at redemption. Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore launched from Cape Canaveral (the first crewed flight since Apollo 7 to do so, as well as the first crewed Atlas rocket launch since Gordon Cooper's Mercury-Atlas 9).
And again thruster problems happened. Five of the twelve thrusters failed, though four were able to be restored. Multiple new helium leaks were detected after launch.
As of this writing Starliner is stuck in space on day twenty-one of its nine day mission, taking up a docking port and hanging around the ISS like in-laws as Christmas becomes New Year's and rapidly encroaches on Valentine's Day.
Starliner launched with the capacity to remain at the ISS for six months, but the leaks put a 45 day limit on its stay. As of right now there is no indication that there is any danger, but as the problems are all on the expendable service module and will never be looked at by human eyes the stay is being delayed to gather as much information as possible.
Contingencies include a two crew Dragon or solo crew Soyuz to retrieve the astronauts, with Starliner returning empty in disgrace. But Dragon collides with rules about assured return and sheltering during docking procedures, as the only open docking port for a crewed vehicle is an RSSV port on the Russian side.
The plan as of now is still to use Starliner to come home but the situation is still literally up in the air.
And all that money? The $5.95 billion that Starliner has cost NASA since 2010? (That's 1.5 Artemis 2s or 0.75 Artemis 3s for scale) Boeing is still billions in the hole and likely to sink much deeper by the time they deliver on their end of the contract.
Spacecraft More Cursed Than Starliner
placeholder text remove this when one exists
Update September 2024
NASA ended up doing two rounds of ground testing. The identified a fundamental flaw in the service module design that caused excess heat retention, leading to Teflon seals in the valve system deforming.
The astronauts at the ISS attempted to confirm the issue and not only did they not confirm it... Several thrusters mysteriously started working fine. This meant the newly discovered problem probably not the problem in space, meaning they had just discovered an unknown potential problem that compromised the entire spacecraft's design while still having no fucking clue what was wrong in space or why it randomly fixed itself.
While this was going on there were poorly sourced reports that somehow Starliner could no longer autonomously undock when empty, and with EVERYTHING ELSE going on NASA was uneasy about doing a software update. It turns out this was untrue and Starliner would have no problem returning empty in disgrace, BUT as reports solidified it does appear Boeing had told NASA it couldn't for unknown reasons.
And then to make matter worse days before it's scheduled return the communications speakers in Starliner have started to emit random beeping and singing noises when they shouldn't. Which is *probably* an electrical problem and one more for the pile, but I cannot conclusively confirm that it isn't actually haunted.
On September 7, Starliner finally returned home, suffering further failures in thrusters and guidance on the way, finally sealing the craft's embarrassment and promoting Boeing execs to no show at the post landing press conference. Nonetheless Bill Nelson says Boeing is committed to milking this thing for another billion continuing the program to completion.
The Starliner crew was be rolled into the next full expedition rotation on Crew-9, and will return on Crew Dragon in February, 2025.
Around mid-September Starliner suffered the final humiliation of all failing businesses in the US.
The result of an $18 million award from NASA, the CST-100 was unveiled in 2010 as an Orion Light, primarily intended to serve as the assured crew return vehicle for the ISS. It could launch on the Atlas V, Falcon 9, or Delta IV Medium, none of which were then crew rated yet. It could dock autonomously at the ISS and allow shuttles to leave crew long term without Soyuz seats available to retrieve them. NASA awarded Boeing another $92 million for ongoing development.
In 2011 Boeing was given a shuttle processing building just for Starliner work. In 2012 NASA awarded Boeing $460 million more for development.
In 2014, despite claiming the vehicle already existed, Boeing was awarded $4.2 billion for development of Starliner and eight launches - one uncrewed, one partially crewed and six fully crewed. This was nearly twice the amount awarded to SpaceX for the Crew Dragon, because as a long time industry veteran Boeing could be trusted to deliver on their promises. The first launch was to occur in 2016 with crewed flight starting in early 2017. Additionally $6.7 million was allocated to ULA for human certification of the Atlas V's N22 and 522 configurations for Starliner and Dreamchaser, respectively.
Then 2015 happened. The first sign of problem was Boeing Starliner being dropped from the Commercial Resupply Service program, and the first launch slipped to 2017.
Then it slipped to late 2017... Then 2018. As problems stacked up Boeing was given an extra $287 million to fix their shit.
Throughout 2018 and 2019 Starliner was plagued by thruster problems caused by the hypergolic thruster system never being tested in a humid environment like coastal Florida, further delaying the debut.
In 2019 Starliner finally launched. It carried, among other things, Christmas presents from the families of astronauts and Cosmonauts who would be in space for the holidays. 31 minutes into flight a botched orbital insertion burn rendered the craft unable to reach the ISS. Christmas was ruined for the seven people aboard the station. But it gets worse! Later in the mission a critical software bug was detected that would have likely caused the capsule to collide with the service module during reentry, compromising the heat shield and possibly destroying the vehicle (with the presents still on board). This at least was fixed and Starliner Calypso landed on December 22, 2019, and the presents were recovered for the next Dragon flight.
Initially the failure was blamed on a communications lapse and it was noted a crew could have corrected the issue easily. NASA was considering moving ahead with a full crewed expedition for launch two... However things took a grim turn from there.
After the flight, it was determined that both issues would have been caught in testing of Boeing had done it right. They tested all phases of flight, but none of the transition points between them, where both errors occurred. Further 61 hardware and software faults were identified, including unsuitable insulation materials, faulty wiring, and exterior ablation on unshielded surfaces.
As problems continued Boeing had blown all its money and began taking out charges against future earnings from NASA. $410 million in 2020, $185 million in 2021, and $288 million in 2022.
The next flight would be scheduled for 2020 but would not fly until 2022 due to ongoing issues with the OMS thrusters, eventually requiring the entire rocket to be unstacked and the service module disconnected. This time the vehicle would not be graced with the dignity of a name, it was merely named Vehicle 2.
This time nothing of personal or mission import was along for the ride, just some perishable food, and the sort of PR things NASA is always sending to space - some flag pins from historically black colleges, and a plushie of Jedediah Kerman. The flight would not go smoothly. Multiple thrusters failed on route to the ISS, and docking was delayed by an hour due to issues with the retractable ring in its NDS docking port.
But, Vehicle 2 did complete its mission and deliver Jedediah safely to the ISS where he remains to this day, and Vehicle 2 returned to earth carrying empty air canisters.
The first crewed flight was scheduled for July 2023, but this time flammable tape and bad parachute harnesses would intervene. When it was finally ready, a valve issue with the Centaur upper stage caused a launch scrub. Had that not happened the errors that followed might have been missed. For weeks after the Centaur was fixed persistent helium leaks delayed launch attempts, until Starliner tied for the most scrubs on any single launch at 7.
Finally in May 2024 the flight finally launched, with Calypso from the first failed demo getting its shot at redemption. Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore launched from Cape Canaveral (the first crewed flight since Apollo 7 to do so, as well as the first crewed Atlas rocket launch since Gordon Cooper's Mercury-Atlas 9).
And again thruster problems happened. Five of the twelve thrusters failed, though four were able to be restored. Multiple new helium leaks were detected after launch.
As of this writing Starliner is stuck in space on day twenty-one of its nine day mission, taking up a docking port and hanging around the ISS like in-laws as Christmas becomes New Year's and rapidly encroaches on Valentine's Day.
Starliner launched with the capacity to remain at the ISS for six months, but the leaks put a 45 day limit on its stay. As of right now there is no indication that there is any danger, but as the problems are all on the expendable service module and will never be looked at by human eyes the stay is being delayed to gather as much information as possible.
Contingencies include a two crew Dragon or solo crew Soyuz to retrieve the astronauts, with Starliner returning empty in disgrace. But Dragon collides with rules about assured return and sheltering during docking procedures, as the only open docking port for a crewed vehicle is an RSSV port on the Russian side.
The plan as of now is still to use Starliner to come home but the situation is still literally up in the air.
And all that money? The $5.95 billion that Starliner has cost NASA since 2010? (That's 1.5 Artemis 2s or 0.75 Artemis 3s for scale) Boeing is still billions in the hole and likely to sink much deeper by the time they deliver on their end of the contract.
Spacecraft More Cursed Than Starliner
placeholder text remove this when one exists
Update September 2024
NASA ended up doing two rounds of ground testing. The identified a fundamental flaw in the service module design that caused excess heat retention, leading to Teflon seals in the valve system deforming.
The astronauts at the ISS attempted to confirm the issue and not only did they not confirm it... Several thrusters mysteriously started working fine. This meant the newly discovered problem probably not the problem in space, meaning they had just discovered an unknown potential problem that compromised the entire spacecraft's design while still having no fucking clue what was wrong in space or why it randomly fixed itself.
While this was going on there were poorly sourced reports that somehow Starliner could no longer autonomously undock when empty, and with EVERYTHING ELSE going on NASA was uneasy about doing a software update. It turns out this was untrue and Starliner would have no problem returning empty in disgrace, BUT as reports solidified it does appear Boeing had told NASA it couldn't for unknown reasons.
And then to make matter worse days before it's scheduled return the communications speakers in Starliner have started to emit random beeping and singing noises when they shouldn't. Which is *probably* an electrical problem and one more for the pile, but I cannot conclusively confirm that it isn't actually haunted.
On September 7, Starliner finally returned home, suffering further failures in thrusters and guidance on the way, finally sealing the craft's embarrassment and promoting Boeing execs to no show at the post landing press conference. Nonetheless Bill Nelson says Boeing is committed to milking this thing for another billion continuing the program to completion.
The Starliner crew was be rolled into the next full expedition rotation on Crew-9, and will return on Crew Dragon in February, 2025.
Around mid-September Starliner suffered the final humiliation of all failing businesses in the US.
Hevach on
+24
Posts
Basically, yes. They never did a full end to end mission simulation before the first demo flight.
They simulated every stage of the mission but not an entire mission in one go. The first issue sprung up when the craft tried to go from orbital insertion to rendezvous mode, a clock error (which it wouldn't care about in either mode but was suddenly critical in the transition between modes) caused it to perform the next burn incorrectly.
Same thing on reentry - they simulated all the steps, but not all back to back, so they never noticed that they would recontact the service module after separation.
Management can’t stop tripping over piles of dollars to save pennies.
Boeing management is terrible at the higher levels (like literally nearly all points above the 1st/2nd line ones). They’ve mismanaged both the time and cost aspects of this program, somehow spending way, way too much money while simultaneously not being able to devote enough personal/engineering to meet schedule.
Boeing caught what McDD had when they bought the scraps, and has been in a gradual spiral ever since. Shit like Starliner, 737 Max, and SLS (they don't make the whole thing but their core stage is literally the only thing that held up Artemis 1 and was by several years the last piece for Artemis 2 to be delivered) are the terminal stage, though Boeing is bigger than McDonnell Douglas was - it takes a lot to actually kill a company.
I'm not even sure how mismanaged the program has been, relatively speaking. It's just as likely that the C-level guys looked at the $500M (or whatever) contract spent $450M of it on buybacks, dividends, and scotch; and told the Starliner program guys to just figure something out with the remainder.
I was shocked when I went through the program history and started doing the math. Between the original payments, the commercial crew contract, the bail out, and the charges against future earnings (which have left Boeing on the hook to deliver not just six Starliner flights but most of two SLS cores for free) Boeing has received just short of $6 billion for Starliner, some of which is strictly speaking SLS/Artemis money on NASA's budget, but Boeing's reason for taking the charges were for Starliner, not SLS*. And they're still $1.5 billion in the hole.
Artemis 2 is just over $4 billion. Artemis 3 is expected to come in under $10 billion. (Note these are mission specific costs, not including prior development spending). The ISS costs $3 billion per year. This is bonkers money.
And the whole reason they got this while Dragon has not is because at the time Boeing was considered the safe bet.
*-As much as SLS was delayed by Boeing related bullshit they don't make any moving parts and the future block upgrades are on Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman, neither of which has turned fuckwit yet. All Boeing has to do is keep producing a core tank every few years.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/27/russian-satellite-debris-international-space-station
NASA gave one of the most substantiative updates on Starliner to date.
The craft is certified for reentry and ACR use (Assured Crew Return - basically it can be used for shelter actions and to evacuate the station in an emergency), but not for nominal return use.
What's going on right now: a Starliner thruster is being tested on the ground at a NASA facility in New Mexico along with the ones currently in space. This will take roughly two weeks, at the end of which they may certify Starliner to return to Earth, or make a decision on keeping it past the current 45 day time limit - the batteries are holding out and the helium system apparently doesn't leak when it's shut down at the manifold, so it could technically stay for six months.
https://x.com/AJ_FI/status/1807339807640518690
https://m.weibo.cn/detail/5050998629862652#&video
If I ever sound like a SpaceX fanboy, it's not because I'm pro-Elon or pro-private enterprise taking over space, it's just that it's refreshing to have a space launch program that can seemingly find its rear with both hands.
Technically does this count as a test succeeding beyond expectation?
(I'm glad it sounds like no casualties, but this is why rockets should have flight termination systems).
China's apparent general lack of FTS on their rockets aside, would an FTS normally be fitted for a static fire test even in the US since it's not supposed to go anywhere? I don't know if that's a normal thing they do for static tests or not.
It seems like they were able to shut down the engine mid "flight". With the size of the explosion at the end, it doesn't appear that shutdown was due to expending all its fuel.
I don't think they shut the engine down. Right when it loses upward acceleration there's a burst of fire and smoke and the flamey end remains flamey until it crashes. I think the engine exploded.
https://x.com/jenniferzeng97/status/1805001605110169692
That was actually China's second recent rocket crash. Looks like the Long March 2 is doing inland launches again. This was a French payload, so much for international participation pressuring China to be better about this shit.
Also, I learned a new rocket euphemism courtesy of Jonathan McDowell, astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center:
https://www.youtube.com/live/AfNPzSOalEU?si=SSRjWiDvuO97yqld
Arianne 6 maiden flight and first liftoff official live stream on YouTube!
I feel this is on brand for the Ariane, She's just a bit performance shy.
Also, she has expensive taste.
I'm sorry, Yeah, That's much better.
Also, it has Chat! Something the French stream doesn't have. I haven't decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
The external camera feed seems to have cut out, but think that was just a streaming thing.
edit:
Seems we're going to space today!
The Netherlands has a Province in the Caribean as backup.
But overall, while it is working out great, The EU also has no problems with building huge telescopes in Chile. I'm sure coorperation would've been possible too if a launch place was needed.
SpaceX has spoiled us but live video feeds from rockets in flight isn't usually a thing. Probably went too far for the signal and/or too fast for the directional antenna. As long as the telemetry keeps coming all's good. Video's useful but it's more interesting to the nerds at home than the nerds in the control room.
The feed came back later, it just seemed to have a short hiccup during the actual seperation.
It does give us the mandatory "Look at that blue marble" shot:
edit: Also, if you look at 1:06:00 after lift-off, you see it actually eject the payload. (Cube-sats)
Looking back at the launch, Ariane seems..speedy.
Might be the camera angle, or the size of the rocket playing an illusion, but it looked like it was booking it out of there.
I think Ars had a blast from the past example of some ESA upper big wig pulling a 'Silly SpaceX and your silly rocket attempts.' back when Falcon was kabooming on a regular basis. Which isn't great, but understandable somewhat back in the 'teens. A decade later and you haven't adjusted though...
Official statement confirms the obvious and it's some kind of lox leak, satellites are doomed. It's worded in a way that suggests the engine did suffer some kind of destructive failure, maybe the lox ran dry and the turbopump spun up and flew apart?
The FAA has opened an investigation and F9 has been grounded.
Joe Engle, the last surviving X15 pilot and two time shuttle commander (three if you count the approach and landing tests) has passed away.
Engle was also the original Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17, however the cancellation of the Apollo program prompted NASA to fly the first scientist-astronaut on the last flight instead.