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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 20 May 2022, 08:10 
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They had this all figured out on the Shuttle program. :pullhair:

Do you know what the shuttle program did to resolve the valve issue or are you just saying that they used the same kind of valves successfully?

To inhibit corrosion, the Shuttle used a 12-hour nitrogen purge to remove any remaining water from the hydrogen/oxygen fuel. Then, desiccant plugs were installed.

IIRC; the Saturn V engines also used a nitrogen purge cycle to inhibit corrosion.

Dunno why Boeing decided to skip the purge cycle on the first service module. The second service module that flew yesterday apparently includes nitrogen purge, yet two valves malfunctioned - dunno why.
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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 20 May 2022, 08:20 
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Not exactly a trouble-free flight:

- Two of 12 orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters located on Starliner's aft side had initially fired but then shut down, forcing a third to take up their slack.

- The sublimator responsible for cooling the spacecraft was slow to start.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 20 May 2022, 17:02 
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Not exactly a trouble-free flight:

- Two of 12 orbital maneuvering and attitude control (OMAC) thrusters located on Starliner's aft side had initially fired but then shut down, forcing a third to take up their slack.

- The sublimator responsible for cooling the spacecraft was slow to start.

And they're still talking about flying people on it next time. NFW I'd set foot in that thing, and I would dearly love to fly in space.

Interesting that SpaceX has none of these issues and costs a tiny fraction of Starliner's price.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 20 May 2022, 23:43 
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Interesting that SpaceX has none of these issues and costs a tiny fraction of Starliner's price.

SpaceX Dragon capsule has its share of problems, but seemingly not something so basic as thrusters, though.

SpaceX did Demo-1 (the unmanned equivalent of OFT-2 by Boeing just now) so easily because they had flown the Dragon Cargo capsule so many times in the past. Boeing has no cargo version of Starliner so they have to make all the mistakes on the manned version from day one.

Brilliantly, SpaceX doesn't split its rockets and capsules into "cargo" and "crew" separate machines. Instead, they build all their hardware to "crew" level and perfect that. Then they only have to maintain and improve one design. Every cargo flight is improving the next manned flight. The cargo flights get to enjoy the higher standard, too.

This is why all the manned spaceflights by SpaceX seem to go so smoothly, they've flown the same "man rated" hardware many times before, so they are very experienced as opposed to Boeing doing it for the first time (well, at least as far as docking is concerned, OFT-1 did fly but failed to complete the mission).

I would not want to be crew on an early Starliner flight.

Meanwhile, SpaceX is sending civilians to space in Dragon with seeming ease.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 21 May 2022, 09:08 
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SpaceX did Demo-1 (the unmanned equivalent of OFT-2 by Boeing just now) so easily because they had flown the Dragon Cargo capsule so many times in the past. Boeing has no cargo version of Starliner so they have to make all the mistakes on the manned version from day one.

Yes, but even allowing for that, I don’t recall Cargo Dragon going through this sort of drama. They struggled to get a launch vehicle to work long, long ago, and landing the booster was challenging for a while, but the spacecraft itself, unless I’m forgetting something significant, has been very reliable from the beginning. Boeing OTOH, being part of the “old school” of Spaceflight should have been designing for perfection vs iteration from the start. My expectation would have been that Boeing would have taken longer but been perfect from flight 1 and Dragon would have been the one that had to version its way to crewed status.

It all goes back to Boeing and their decayed corporate culture. The old school of milking the cash cow only goes so far, and at some point you have to produce. There are so many ways that things can go wrong with a vehicle like this that I don’t trust that they can identify and address them all. Iterating FTA after FTA is not a solution in a crewed spacecraft.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 21 May 2022, 11:31 
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Yes, but even allowing for that, I don’t recall Cargo Dragon going through this sort of drama. They struggled to get a launch vehicle to work long, long ago, and landing the booster was challenging for a while, but the spacecraft itself, unless I’m forgetting something significant, has been very reliable from the beginning.

Mostly true.

There was some sort of problem with a Dragon 1 thruster on CRS-2:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Dragon

They got it to the ISS even so and it seemed to not be something mechanically wrong, but control/software issues and full function was restored prior to docking.

Dragon 2, which comes in cargo and crew variants, has had no serious issues, though they did have a toilet issue once.

Quote:
My expectation would have been that Boeing would have taken longer but been perfect from flight 1 and Dragon would have been the one that had to version its way to crewed status.

Nothing is perfect.

There is no faster teacher than experience.

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It all goes back to Boeing and their decayed corporate culture.

The entire space industry, besides SpaceX, is obsolete. Adapt or die.

Also, nobody seems to be paying much attention to China who are launching a lot of stuff these days and have their own space station.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 21 May 2022, 12:15 
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The entire space industry, besides SpaceX, is obsolete.

I wouldn't call JWST or all the Mars rovers obsolete.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 21 May 2022, 12:30 
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Username Protected wrote:
Quote:
The entire space industry, besides SpaceX, is obsolete.
I wouldn't call JWST or all the Mars rovers obsolete.

Sorry, sub in "commercial space industry" or "space launch industry" to catch my meaning.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 21 May 2022, 14:52 
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...why was it only caught on the pad at the last minute? Are no tests run prior to that?
You've heard the phrase, "Faster, Better, Cheaper...Pick any Two." I think Boeing picked faster and cheaper. The Space Shuttle program was routinely criticized for being too expensive but at least we kept a purge on all pumps and valves to prevent corrosion. After landing, the main engines were purged with hot Nitrogen for 12 hours to carry away any remaining water from the Hydrogen/Oxygen fuel. Dessicant plugs were applied to all the thrusters. We also tested just about everything before rolling out to the launch pad. We chose "Better". :pullhair:

P.S. Since the stuck valves are in the hypergol system, they're going to have to drain and purge the system before they can even look at those valves. On the Shuttle program, we had a Hypergol Maintenance Facility [HMF] way out in the boonies where such dangerous operations were handled. I have no idea if Boeing built a similar facility for the Starliner but they're going to need one.


GN2 trickle purge on the SSMEs downstream of the MPS pre valves, this is only while on the MLP and in between periods of maintenance and testing.

Just after orbital insertion, a vacuum inert is completed by fully opening the MPS fuel and and oxidizer pre valves to the vacuum of space.

Post landing a heated GN2 purge is applied to the High Pressure Turbopump bearings only.

Another 8 hour heated GN2 purge is applied to additional areas of the engine after removal from the orbiter.

Desiccated covers are only installed for OPF rollout to the VAB, and VAB rollout to the pad.

LO2/LH2 system dewpoints are measured at the farthest point in the system (SSME drain exits) prior to tanking.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 24 May 2022, 17:40 
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And the hits just keep on coming.

Ten minutes to close the hatch, with multiple repositioning attempts. Lots of "explanations" about how this is a shakedown flight and helps them to "learn" how to work the systems. Yeah right. It's a hatch. It should be intuitive and take less than a minute to secure. Fine Boeing engineering once again.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 25 May 2022, 21:52 
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They made it back alive.

OK there was nothing alive on board, but they made it back. :)

Hopefully they can get their bugs sorted out quickly.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 25 May 2022, 22:51 
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Hopefully they can get their bugs sorted out quickly.

Will NASA declare it human ready without another flight?

If they say "yes", do you want to be on the first crew?

If they say "no", that's going to be disruptive and feels like a contract dispute.

I don't think the answer is clear yet.

It feels like this flight created a new set of squawks not experienced on the first test. That feels like there's more to go wrong on the third flight.

Commercial Crew funding (2010 to date):

Boeing: $5.1B (0 human flights)
SpaceX: $3.1B (7 human flights, 5 for NASA)

People sometimes complain about the federal money SpaceX gets, but it seems like they deliver far better value for the dollar versus the old guard. Further, they are putting that money to work in developing Starship, the largest rocket ever, which will enable missions currently impossible. No other rocket country/company is doing anything remotely as ambitious.

Given the situation with Russia, if Boeing had been the only contract for commercial crew, we'd be in deep doodoo since it feels like we are at least a year from the first human Starliner flight, if not more. Also, Atlas 5 uses a Russian RD-180 engine, so that setup is not yet completely free of Russian dependence even so.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 25 May 2022, 23:00 
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I thought it was interesting that the first thing they do on the Boeing capsule is recharge the batteries from the space station power. The SpaceX capsule has extra solar panels on it and it provides power to the station. It also has all that space to bring additional cargo in the unpressurized area. I’m not really seeing the value to the taxpayer in maintaining this parallel path


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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 26 May 2022, 00:54 
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I thought it was interesting that the first thing they do on the Boeing capsule is recharge the batteries from the space station power. The SpaceX capsule has extra solar panels on it and it provides power to the station.

I bet this is a statement about the power efficiency of the systems on the two spacecraft. I'd bet Dragon is using far less electrical power than Starliner in orbital free flight.

Also, the Starliner seemed to have very little solar cell area. The Dragon had one whole side of the trunk covered. This can explain why the Dragon has a 10 day free flight duration and the Starliner only has 2.5 days.

I doubt the space station needed Dragon to charge it. It has massive and powerful solar panels, reaching a total power output of 250 KW.

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 Post subject: Re: Boeing Starliner: 80 Problems
PostPosted: 26 May 2022, 08:00 
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Will NASA declare it human ready without another flight?

If they say "yes", do you want to be on the first crew?

If they say "no", that's going to be disruptive and feels like a contract dispute.

I don't think the answer is clear yet.

It feels like this flight created a new set of squawks not experienced on the first test. That feels like there's more to go wrong on the third flight.

Commercial Crew funding (2010 to date):

Boeing: $5.1B (0 human flights)
SpaceX: $3.1B (7 human flights, 5 for NASA)

People sometimes complain about the federal money SpaceX gets, but it seems like they deliver far better value for the dollar versus the old guard. Further, they are putting that money to work in developing Starship, the largest rocket ever, which will enable missions currently impossible. No other rocket country/company is doing anything remotely as ambitious.

Given the situation with Russia, if Boeing had been the only contract for commercial crew, we'd be in deep doodoo since it feels like we are at least a year from the first human Starliner flight, if not more. Also, Atlas 5 uses a Russian RD-180 engine, so that setup is not yet completely free of Russian dependence even so.

All of the remaining РД-180s are already allocated and all of the remaining Atlas launches booked. In that sense there is no more Russian dependance, we're simply out of engines. If the BE-4 isn't demonstrated human flight worthy pretty quick, ULA is going to find themselves in a bind.

Will the next Starliner flight be crewed? Boeing is talking like it's a done deal, but of course they've read from that script in the past and come up short. Given the nature of the issues I think that NASA is in a bind. If I were Bill Nelson I would want some hard evidence that the thruster issue is well understood and has been mitigated before I approved a crewed flight. I doubt that Boeing can give that assurance. It would have been helpful if the affected system were able to be examined back on the surface, but C'est le vol spatial.

Had only one thruster had a problem, and it was the first time, I might see letting it slide, but it was two together, and I don't think this is the first time they've had a problem with these. Two out of three? Down to the last one? That's not OK to me.

In addition to that, apparently they had a problem with the automatic thermal control system and had to control it manually, then the docking adapter had a glitch and had to be reset, and finally it took ten minutes to wrestle the hatch into place and get it latched for undocking. Imagine if they had to leave in a hurry.

Meanwhile back at Boeing: “This is all part of the learning process for operating Starliner in orbit,” he said... In a statement, Boeing said the spacecraft “continues to perform well.”

I suppose that in a relative sense it's performing well; better than ever before anyway.

Would I fly on it? No thank you, I'll wait for the next Dragon flight.

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