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

[Dr Mordrid]

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1208740026693169154

IMG_20191222_082918.jpg

[Dr Mordrid]

Wow...

Eric Berger ✔ @SciGuySpace (Ars Technica)
Per Boeing's Jim Chilton, the "mission elapsed timer" on the Starliner spacecraft was 11 hours off.
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Chuck Boyle @boyledad
So... time travel as it accelerated through 88 miles per hour?



https://twitter.com/boyledad/status/1208802021886832640

just one side @pilotjcf
You could hear the air leave the room when he said that. Amazing question to end on. I think the reporter who asked that was too surprised to ask the obvious follow up: how?

https://twitter.com/pilotjcf/status/1208793341430784009

[MultimediaMan]

Press Corps: "OK, mission clock pre-checks and syncs missed?"

Real World Translation: "Let's see if Boeing can kill an astronaut at some random time in the future. "

Boeing Spin: "This is what flight testing is for."

Um, no. This should have been picked up in a very early procedure check.

This is gross incompetence... as in "Revocation of the Ongoing Salary Participation Program at Boeing"...

Jeez... A Valid Time Reference is essential for any networked computer to function... up to and including dead reckoning: Vespucci, Magellan, and Galileo are spinning in their graves. I've been doing this for over 20 years: Hell, in every puppet class I write, and nearly all update scripts I send, I always have systems make sure the NTP client is refreshed, the system time is correct, and the RTC synced (if physical), and the local timezone validated (if applicable - Most stay on UTC). We're talking maybe 5-10 Lines of code if you are a neat freak...

[Dr Mordrid]

Here's more; someone found this November quote WRT Atlas V and payload communications; this was the first time.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/11/0...r-test-flight/

"Electrically, one of the unique things about this mission is that the launch vehicle and spacecraft are going to be talking to each other," Weiss said in a recent interview. "We normally don't have that. They will be sharing data throughout (the) flight."

Atlas V powered up 11 hours before T-0, and things went south when apparently Starliner read its power up pointer instead of the MET pointer. Then things cascaded with absent error checking, orientation loss, losing track of TDRS, excessive props usage, thrusters overheating, thruster sensors going batsh*t & having to be shut down, etc., etc.

Charlie Foxtrot

And if we're to believe them, none of this presented in sims.

The common thread running through all of this is fault tolerance being AWOL, and the near universal conclusion it was an institutional failure. Left hand/right hand, head/feet, hardly anyone was on the same page wrt how their systems were talking to each other. Or not.

If I were NASA Admin. Bridenstine, their next private meeting with Boeing would be fugly.

[Dr Mordrid]

Boeing's Starliner trouble list has grown...bigly

Joey Roulette @joroulette (Reuters)

Oct 1, 2020
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ASAP members have previously cited lists tallying 100+ recommendations combined from NASA+Boeing's post-OFT reviews, projecting a tough path to OFT2. 1st time, however, the panel cast doubt on Boeing's projected dates and cited additional, currently unknown Starliner problems.
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Starliner problems found during post-OFT reviews have reverberated around NASA and prompted reviews in other Boeing-involved programs like SLS. Safety panel member Paul Hill says it was an engineering “gift," (or wakeup call).

https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1311701988749574153