Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut mission extended through June 18

[Admin]

The first astronaut mission of Boeing's Starliner capsule won't come back to Earth until June 18 at the earliest, NASA announced over the weekend.

Boeing's 1st Starliner astronaut mission extended through June 18 : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

This seems really odd. Is it the crew of Starliner that will be doing the spacewalk? It seems to read that way, but it is not clearly what was meant.

If it is the Starliner crew, then it seems as though there must be something about Starliner that we are not being told.

 

[newtons_laws]

This seems really odd. Is it the crew of Starliner that will be doing the spacewalk? It seems to read that way, but it is not clearly what was meant.

If it is the Starliner crew, then it seems as though there must be something about Starliner that we are not being told.

Yes, the way it's written it implies the Starliner crew will be doing the spacewalk. Have they trained for that, and which spacesuits will they be using, are the ones they wore in the starliner capsule designed for spacewalking? Or will it be other NASA crew members of the ISS doing the spacewalk?

 

[24launch]

No, it's not the Starliner crew. Their suits, like the current SpaceX suits are only designed for life support in case of loss of pressure within the capsule. This article was a little vague in the wording.

The Live updates thread/article states:

A spacewalk planned for June 13 being performed by a different crew aboard the ISS would have overlapped with Starliner's originally scheduled departure time, so NASA has decided to push the mission's ISS departure to June 18.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

That makes more sense. And is somewhat of a relief, considering the list of issues with Starliner. Attitude control (spacecraft, not astronaut) is critical for reentry, so this problem with multiple thrusters is making me nervous.

 

[HerbJerb]

Boeing issued a 2x value contract and can’t deliver a launch on schedule, and operability is yet to be fully proven. Gotta love that military industrial complex.

 

[24launch]

I hear you all and share your concerns.

In the forums on another space news site there have been a lot more updates and yeah, it doesn't give one a lot of confidence - not that we were overly confident with the mountains having to be moved just getting it launched and docked with the ISS. Especially since this mission is the 3rd flight of Starliner and is supposed to be the FINAL check-out before they start actual commercial missions next spring with a full crew, alternating with SpaceX every 6 months.

I don't know if they've gotten them sorted out but there have been chronic communications issues between Starliner and the ISS as well as between Starliner and the ground stations prior to and since docking. Systems have been going offline with Butch manually bringing them back online and trying to troubleshoot. Plus the whole issue with the cooling system going through all the water and having to resupply from the ISS, requiring an update to the next cargo mission.

Again, why are we seeing this on the 3rd and final "check-out" flight?

I did see that Nelson suggested using camera on the Canada arm to do visual inspections of the capsule to see if there are any external observable issues with the thrusters. Boeing has said both they thought the thurster issues were tolerences set too low in the software (again, why all this again on the 3rd flight??) or potential hardware/QC issues from the supplier (Aerojet Rockdyne). I haven't been following as closely the last day or so to see if that's still a plan. The big problem of course is the thrusters are all in the service module which will be jettisoned before reentry. So they will never be able to inspect it post flight to understand what's really going on.

It will be interesting to follow the post-flight review over the coming months. More details of the issues will be revealed / leaked no doubt!