Boeing's Starliner capsule just landed with no crew aboard. What's next for this astronaut taxi?

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Starliner's recently completed Crew Flight Test mission faced several technical problems in space. Will NASA certify the spacecraft for long-duration astronaut flights?

Boeing's Starliner capsule just landed with no crew aboard. What's next for this astronaut taxi? : Read more

 

[steve_foston]

It is sensible that NASA have more than 1 way for the USA to get there and back to the ISS so I wish Starliner well for the future. However is it sensible that the spacesuits for both vehicles are incompatible surely this needs sorting out - its like the air filters on A13 were a makeshift device allowed a square peg to go into a round hole surely we should have learnt something from this

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Glad to see it made the return flight without any more problems.

Hopefully, Boeing will stick with this project and make the capsule work reliably without having to "baby" the thrusters. Having tight limits on thruster use that are OK when everything else works as planned does not sound like a prudent policy, because there might not be enough margin to handle the thruster needs when something else is not going right.

Considering that the capsule had thruster problems on its last 2 flights and NASA was unwilling to bet the crew's lives on the capsule for this reentry, it seems logical that Boeing is going to need to do another uncrewed flight to show that it has fixed the thruster problem sufficiently to warrant certifying it for crew.

 

[trailrider]

If I understand correctly, one objective in creation of both crew and cargo spacecraft is reusability. Also, being able to check over major systems postflight is smart. How, then does Boeing justify a design like Starlink that discards a major portion of its RCS after a single flight?

It is probably too late in the game for Boeing to do a redesign of Starlink, but perhaps some other company would be willing to come up with a spacecraft to back up Dragon, perhaps in conjunction with some commercial space station when ISS is deorbited. Also, there definitely should be compatability between space suits.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Trailrider,

First, Boeing's capsule is "StarLiner" and this one was named "Calypso". " StarLink" is the SpaceX communication satellites.

SpaceX's Dragon capsule also has a "service module" between the Falcon 9 booster and the Dragon capsule, which gets burned-up and not reused. When Sierra Space gets it DreamChaser capsule going, it will have a similar small service module that will not be reused.

The huge SpaceX "StarShip" and its "SuperHeavy" first stage will be the first (nearly) totally reusable system, with both stages being able to reenter and be reused without an intermediate service module.

The service modules for the current crop of capsules are designed to be the least expensive parts.

 

[SDelMonte]

How long till we hear if the capsule was actually human-safe on reentry? Seems like it might have been, but I want actual confirmation.

 

[Maurizio88100]

It seems clear that the service module needs to be substantially revised. I think this will push back the availability of the StarLiner capsule by another year. At that point the Vulcan rocket will have to be certified. How many missions will it be possible to fly before the ISS is retired? Yet another epic fail for Boeing, I'm afraid.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I just saw an article that says there were additional problems detected in the reentry leg of the mission. From that other space news site:

"The return to Earth was not without issues. Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said at the post-landing briefing that during the 58-second deorbit burn, two RCS thrusters got hotter than expected but did not fail. He said that controllers had changed software to keep it from turning off thrusters that got too hot during that burn, but didn’t know if the thrusters reached temperatures that would have triggered a shutdown without the software change.

"One of 12 separate thrusters on the crew module also did not work in tests before reentry. Stich said those thrusters are a different design from those on the service module and it wasn’t clear why it failed. A redundant thruster, though, did operate normally and did not pose a problem during reentry."

So, there is some substantial work to be done before this capsule is ready for commercial certification.

 

[newtons_laws]

Yes, there were some additional problems during the Starliner reentry according to https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/...r-departs-space-station-and-returns-to-earth/

Quote "A couple of fresh technical problems cropped up as Starliner cruised back to Earth. One of 12 control jets on the crew module failed to ignite at any time during Starliner's flight home. These are separate thrusters from the small engines that caused trouble earlier in the Starliner mission. There was also a brief glitch in Starliner's navigation system during reentry."

 

[Unclear Engineer]

And now there is a strike at Boeing. see https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8jlj3dnlw7o

The big issue seems to be pay, with Boeing offering 25% increase and the workers demanding 40%, and voting to strike even though the union leadership recommended taking the 25% deal.

Last time that happened, in 2008, it lasted 8 weeks and cost Boeing $3billion.

This can't be good for Boeing's prospects for even wanting to try to complete their StarLiner capsule project at their own cost, especially when they are already at 1.5billion loss on that project.

NASA needs a Plan C to get redundancy for crew launches, now that only Plan B (SpaceX) has actually worked, and Plan A (Boeing) is looking less and less hopeful.

 

[newtons_laws]

NASA needs a Plan C to get redundancy for crew launches, now that only Plan B (SpaceX) has actually worked, and Plan A (Boeing) is looking less and less hopeful.

Sierra Space Corporation's Dream Chaser seems like the obvious candidate, they've already got a NASA contract for the cargo version. As regards a crewed version much preliminary work has already been done, Dream Chaser was a candidate for the initial crew vehicle contest run by NASA to find two suppliers, but they opted for Boeing and Space X. ESA have also expressed strong interest in a crewed version.