US Commercial Crew spacecraft: Boeing Starliner OFT decision

[Dr Mordrid]

Yeah, the differences between the Boeing & SpaceX test programs are rather stunning.

Back when Boeing did a pad abort test? No parachute descent test at the same time - they crashed it into the desert floor.

IFA attempt #2 weather: 60%

SpaceX ✓ @SpaceX
Standing down from today's in-flight Crew Dragon launch escape test attempt due to sustained winds and rough seas in the recovery area. Now targeting Sunday, January 19, with a six-hour test window opening at 8:00 a.m. EST, 13:00 UTC

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1218473546772430848

[Dr Mordrid]

@nasaspaceflight
10:30 AM EASTERN is the new T-0. Still unacceptable test conditions


Crew access arm retracting

[Dr Mordrid]

ZOOMMMmmm...
IMG_20200119_113605.jpg

@julia_bergeron
A better look at the Crew Dragon capsule that experienced some significant stresses during the In-Flight Abort Test. If I had not seen the Super Dracos ignite today you would have a hard time convincing me it happened with this capsule. It's that clean. #IFA https://t.co/qD9ZmNEG4v

IMG_20200120_021025.jpg

https://twitter.com/julia_bergeron/s...79319089303555

[Dr Mordrid]

NASA blog

NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, left, and Doug Hurley, wearing SpaceX spacesuits, walk through the Crew Access Arm connecting the launch tower to the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft during a dress rehearsal at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 17, 2020. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft stand on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A ahead of the company’s uncrewed In-Flight Abort Test. The flight test will demonstrate the spacecraft’s escape capabilities in preparation for crewed flights to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. Behnken and Hurley are slated to fly on the company’s first crewed mission, Demo-2.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]6521[/ATTACH]
Photo credit: SpaceX

[Dr Mordrid]

Oops

https://spacenews.com/boeing-takes-410-million-charge-to-cover-potential-additional-commercial-crew-test-flight/

Boeing takes $410 million charge to cover potential additional commercial crew test flight

WASHINGTON — Boeing is taking a $410 million charge to its earnings to cover a potential additional uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner, although company officials say there’s no decision yet about whether such a flight is necessary.

The company said in its fourth quarter earnings release Jan. 29 that it was taking the charge “primarily to provision for an additional uncrewed mission for the Commercial Crew program, performance and mix.” It noted that NASA was still reviewing data from the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission in December that was cut short, without a docking at the International Space Station, by a timer problem.
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[MultimediaMan]

My Thoughts on Starliner are summed up perfectly by a poster on Spacenews:

Blaise A. Darveaux • a day ago
The test went well.
Well, except for the timing issue, which prevented the mission from being completed.

But everything else worked perfectly, especially the thrusters.
Well, except for some of the thrusters over heated.

But we cycled them to keep them cool and then they worked flawlessly.
Well, except that one of them did not turn back on.

Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
No, no, no. Nothing else went wrong. You can believe us.

More and more of the gold foil is peeling off this still-steaming turd (Starliner)...

[Dr Mordrid]

Ferchrissake...it gets worse

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...are-bug-found/

Starliner faced catastrophic failure before software bug found

During its quarterly meeting on Thursday, NASA's Aersopace Safety Advisory Panel dropped some significant news about a critical commercial crew test flight. The panel revealed that Boeing's Starliner may have been lost during a December mission had a software error not been found and fixed while the vehicle was in orbit.

The software issue was identified during testing on the ground after Starliner's launch, said panel member Paul Hill, a former flight director and former director of mission operations at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The problem would have interfered with the service module's (SM) separation from the Starliner capsule.

"While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected it would have led to erroneous thruster firing and uncontrolled motion during SM separation for deorbit, with the potential for catastrophic spacecraft failure," Hill said during the meeting.

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The safety panel also recommended that NASA conduct "an even broader" assessment of Boeing's Systems Engineering and Integration processes. Only after these assessments, Hill said, should NASA determine whether the Starliner spacecraft will conduct a second, uncrewed flight test into orbit before astronauts fly on board.
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[MultimediaMan]

had a software error not been found and fixed while the vehicle was in orbit...

There are almost no words for this... This mission was doomed to fail from the start. This was a very high risk patch, and I am amazed it worked at all. There is no way this software could have been fixed, peer reviewed, tested and pushed to production ~with safety~ in three or four days. Yes, I am glad they were able to do these things to salvage the mission... but it should these kinds of issues should have been caught very early as part of some dress rehearsal. This is a spacecraft orbiting at 20,000+ MPH, not some 2lb drone cruising at 20MPH in a field or some simulation... Yes, it was a test flight, but you would think these scenarios would have come up after almost 60 years of spaceflight and nearly 100 years of aerospace experience from Boeing...

From the description, it sounds like they had to alter the control code ~and~ the flight code to get the craft to separate correctly. Flight Operations was probably going ape over these issues. Now, I'm starting to wonder about NASA's commitment to safety instead of just listening to Boeing Reps. We need "Steely-Eyed Missile Men" auditing the child-geniuses from Boeing.

In his book "The Martian", Andy Weir skewers the design engineers for the Ares program... now we see the reality, perhaps he understated a serious problem...

[Dr Mordrid]

Today's telecon was...frightening.

If not for the first software error (the MET clock), a second error (botched thruster mapping) would have caused a loss of vehicle at service module separation & re-entry (probable recontact), and 34% of Starliner's software wasn't used during OFT so who knows what's still hiding in there?

It's very clear Boeing's entire software development process is a cluster-frack, and making matters worse - they're also coding the Space Launch System.

If NASA doesn't order a thorough anal exam of Boeing, followed by an OFT re-flight, heads need to roll.

[Dr Mordrid]

Here we go...

Eric Berger @SciGuySpace (Ars Technica)
Working date for SpaceX's Demo-2 launch is May 7. Dragon is in good shape.

Launch date is fluid and mission may move into late April, or push later into May depending on a number of variables not hardware related. No final decision yet on duration.
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Why don't they know the duration of the mission yet? Short answer is there are a lot of moving parts. NASA wants to minimize time of 3 ISS crew members. Still not sure when first SpX operational mission will take place, or when Boeing's OFT flight will occur.
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Dark Energy @Alejandro_DebH
I've heard from a good source mission duration is likely to be around 6 weeks, not too long not too short. And yeah, launch day is still very very fluid but looking like it'll be in Q2 of this year.
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Doug @dougbrec
Any idea when USCV1 hardware will be at the cape?
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Dark Energy @Alejandro_DebH
Likely to be at the Cape before summer

NOTE: if this goes as planned the first SpaceX operational crew mission would be USCV-1. Boeing's still in the wood shed.

Thread

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1226912345571635200

[Dr Mordrid]

The Crew Dragon DM-2 crew is getting robotics and spacewalk training. Sounds like DM-2 will not be a 2 week test but a several months long full mission.

Boeing's Starliner is still in the woodshed.

Garrett Reisman is a former NASA astronaut and current consultant to SpaceX for crewed spaceflight.

Garrett Reisman ✓ @astro_g_dogg
Yep, @DJSnM , @Astro_Doug and @AstroBehnken are being trained for a long-duration mission as #ISS crewmembers. This is a change from the original plan to do a min duration test flight, driven by @NASA needs to staff the ISS.

https://twitter.com/astro_g_dogg/status/1231644054095425536

[Dr Mordrid]

SpaceX ✔ @SpaceX
A year ago today, Falcon 9 launched Crew Dragon on its first mission, which demonstrated the spacecraft’s capability to safely and reliably fly @NASA astronauts to and from the @space_station

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1234552008150900736

[Dr Mordrid]

Crew Dragon DM-2 mission to ISS: late May, 2020

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-spacex-invite-media-to-first-crew-launch-to-station-from-america-since-2011

March 18, 2020

MEDIA ADVISORY M20-041

NASA, SpaceX Invite Media to First Crew Launch to Station from America Since 2011
*
Media accreditation is open for NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 flight test, which will send two astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program. This mission will be the return of human spaceflight launch capabilities to the United States and the first launch of American astronauts aboard an American rocket and spacecraft since the final space shuttle mission on July 8, 2011.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will launch Crew Dragon, with NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard the spacecraft, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA and SpaceX are currently targeting no earlier than mid-to-late May for launch.

This second demonstration mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft is another end-to-end flight test of SpaceX’s human spaceflight system, which will include launch, docking, splashdown and recovery operations. It is the final flight test of the system before SpaceX is certified to carry out operational crew flights to and from the space station for NASA.

Media accreditations deadlines are as follows:

·* * * International media without U.S. citizenship must apply by 4 p.m. EDT Friday, April 17.
·* * * U.S. media must apply by 4 p.m. Friday, April 24.
All accreditation requests should be submitted online at:

https://media.ksc.nasa.gov

NASA is proactively monitoring the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation as it evolves. The agency will continue to follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the agency’s chief health and medical officer and communicate any updates that may impact mission planning or media access, as they become available.

For questions about accreditation, please email*

ksc-media-accreditat@mail.nasa.gov.*

For other questions, contact Kennedy’s newsroom at 321-867-2468.

Reporters with special logistics requests for Kennedy, such as space for satellite trucks, trailers, tents, electrical connections or work spaces, must contact Tiffany Fairley at*

tiffany.l.fairley@nasa.gov*by Friday, April 24.

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry through a public-private partnership to launch astronauts on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil. The goal of the program is to provide safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the space station, which will allow for additional research time and will increase the opportunity for discovery aboard humanity’s testbed for exploration. The space station remains the springboard to NASA's next great leap in space exploration, including future missions to the Moon and eventually to Mars.

For launch coverage and more information about the mission, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew

-end-

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken familiarize themselves with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, the spacecraft that will transport them to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Their upcoming flight test is known as Demo-2, short for Demonstration Mission 2. The Crew Dragon will launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Credits: NASA

[Dr Mordrid]

Boeing has made it official; they're going to re-fly the Starliner OFT test flight. Probably call it OFT-2.

As if NASA was going to let it slide after the very public multiple cluster-f*** OFT was.

No idea as to schedule yet.

[Dr Mordrid]

NASA ASAP report, their safety panel ...

https://spacenews.com/safety-panel-concludes-may-launch-of-commercial-crew-test-flight-is-feasible/

SpaceX Crew Dragon

NASA ASAP says there are a few Crew Dragon DM-2 issues to resolve, but May is possible.

Boeing Starliner

Sounds like Starliner may not fly astronauts in 2021.

“Much remains to be resolved before they will be expected to be certified for human spaceflight,” Sanders said of Boeing, saying that work goes beyond a second OFT mission.

That second flight, she said, “is not sufficient to address the concerns that have arisen following the OFT, and we continue to strongly advise NASA to ensure that the underlying technical and organization or cultural shortcomings uncovered during the investigation of the mishap and subsequent reviews are fully addressed and mitigated before any attempt to launch astronauts on the vehicle.”

Boeing's going to get a deep-dive anal exam