Atlas V: Boeing Starliner OFT (NASA incident review: 100+ problems)

[Dr Mordrid]

Commercial Crew: Boeing StarlinerOFT (un-crewed test flight to ISS)

Launch Readiness Review completed

Date: December 20, 2019
Time: 0636 Eastern (1136 UT)
Pad: KSC LC-41 (ULA's pad)

Roll-out and integration

The cylindrical skirt below the spacecraft's service module is intended to protect the soda-can thin Centaur upper stage tanks from being crushed by hypersonic shockwaves, something discovered in the wind tunnel. Boeing did paper milestones first, waiting to cut, bend & test metal.

The 13,000 kg Starliner will be the heaviest payload ever orbited by Atlas V, the previous record being a 7,492 kg Cygnus cargo vehicle.

[Dr Mordrid]

Launch

S2

SECO

S2 sep

Starliner is in an elliptical trajectory

In 15 min Starliner does an orbital insertion and circularization burn (Atlas V is deltaV limited)

[Dr Mordrid]

Uh-oh...off nominal insertion, and mission manager is arm waving so there are clear problems.

They've pointed the solar panels at the sun to recharge, but something's seriously wrong.

Now at least 15 min late for the full insertion & circularization. "Assessing options."

[Dr Mordrid]

Broadcast ended

@JimBridenstine
Starliner in stable orbit. The burn needed for a rendezvous with the ISS did not happen. Working the issue.
||
More information at 9am ET news conference. Watch live: https://t.co/wwsfqqvLN7

https://twitter.com/JimBridenstine/s...04815483260933

[Dr Mordrid]

Press release

Despite launching successfully at 6:36 a.m. EST Friday on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Boeings CST-100 Starliner is not in its planned orbit. The spacecraft currently is in a stable configuration while flight controllers are troubleshooting.

Yeetch...

Scott Manley @djsnm
Starliner was pointed at 90 degrees to prograde while they were trying to perform insertion.

https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/1208006636746330120

[MultimediaMan]

It is in a stable orbit... the wrong orbit, no fuel left to alter the orbit. Echoing Scott Manley; what is the Perigee? Bueller? Bueller? IMHO: This mission is FUBAR.

[MultimediaMan]

It's official: they are attempting a recovery de-orbit and landing at some point (soon). The service module bus graphic is showing many attitude thruster firings (and for long periods). Software/Navigation issue, it appears. Same morons that did the 737MAX software, I'll bet

[Dr Mordrid]

FUBAR is right, they must be running MCARS on that sonofabitch.

Coming home to White Sands in 48 hrs. No trip to ISS.

75% props, will do what tests they can.

[Dr Mordrid]

NBC: do you find it startling that in 2019 with sophisticated automation, that the wrong clock was used

Astronaut Finke: This is why we test. Our job to wring out issues. We test pilots will work this so non astros can trust the automation. But have the way out from automation if needed.

Commercial Crew: we missed something, it was the handoff from launcher to craft where the timer anomaly surfaced

Boeing: yes there was an anomaly, we don't know why. The craft is in a good enough orbit for us to diag and complete whatever tests we can.

[Dr Mordrid]

One thing SpaceX is known for is their use of redundant voting systems; in this case three flight controller strings.

From the presser

AP; Is there any impact to SpaceX plans?

Bridenstine : Important to maintain dissimiilar redundancy. [meaning 2+ vehicles doing things in different ways] The other system can keep going forward in the face of one system anomaly. [meaning Crew Dragon]

Seems to indicate Starliner cannot

[Dr Mordrid]

NASA Commercial Crew ✓ @Commercial_Crew
Tune in on Sunday, Dec. 22 for live coverage of the deorbit and landing of @BoeingSpaces CST-100 #Starliner spacecraft at White Sands, New Mexico.

Deorbit burn is scheduled for 7:23 a.m. ET, landing for 7:57 a.m. ET.

Coverage will begin at 6:45 a.m. ET:
https://t.co/YeWrpz41EN
https://t.co/wm0AfD3Kx4

https://twitter.com/Commercial_Crew/...79201147404289

[Dr Mordrid]

Apparently the thrusters doing emergency rapid firings was enough to overheat their sensors, which were then turned off. "So far, they're all working..." doesn't exactly leave me with the warm & fuzzies. Makes one wonder how well they'll work for this mornings re-entry attempt.

Space News...

Starliner mission to end with Sunday landing

>
What caused the problem with the mission elapsed timer remains under investigation. Jim Chilton, senior vice president for Boeing's space and launch division, said the timer is initialized by getting data from the Atlas 5 rocket prior to liftoff. "Our spacecraft needs to reach down into the Atlas 5 and figure out what time it is," he said. "We reached in and grabbed the wrong coefficient."

Chilton added that it appeared to be an issue with Starliner's systems and not the Atlas 5. Exactly why the spacecraft got the wrong time value, he said, is unknown. "If I knew, it wouldn't have happened," he said, citing "extensive testing" done prior to launch. "We are surprised. A very large body of integrated tests, approved by NASA, didn't surface this."

That timer problem also affected the spacecrafts propulsion system. The heavy use of attitude control thrusters shortly after the spacecraft separated from the Centaur, caused by the spacecraft having the wrong time and thus thinking it was in a different phase of the mission, put a lot of duty cycles on those thrusters, Chilton said. Sensors in those thrusters started reporting errors or providing intermittent data.

Controllers confirmed that the problems were with the sensors, and not the thrusters themselves, by turning off the sensors and performing thruster burns, using the spacecrafts guidance system to determine if the thruster performed as expected. "So far, they're all working, so we think we heated up some sensors by stepping on the gas hard," he said.
>

[Dr Mordrid]

Landing webcast is live

Deorbit burn coming up

[Dr Mordrid]

Deorbit burn

Shutdown

Service module jettisoned

[Dr Mordrid]

Good landing!!

Now to see if the post-launch excitement caused any damage.