Posted on 09/06/2024 9:30:33 AM PDT by Red Badger
Sept. 5 (UPI) -- The beleaguered Boeing Starliner spacecraft that took two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station will attempt to make its uncrewed return to Earth on Friday evening, the company has announced.
NASA on Thursday issued a timeline and a set of criteria for the Starliner's departure from the ISS and return to Earth.
The space capsule has faced a host of issues since well before its launch, and continued to experience problems even after arriving at the ISS, which ultimately culminated in Boeing making a deal with competitor SpaceX to bring the astronauts back home in February.
The June 5 mission was scheduled to last eight days. Instead, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will spend eight months in space.
"Mission managers will complete a series of operational and weather checks before the spacecraft undocks from the orbital complex," NASA said in a release.
Following the undocking from the ISS, the Starliner will fire a series of departure rockets allowing the capsule to reach its landing site in as little as six hours, pending weather and wind conditions. If those are not optimal, Starliner will try again between 24 and 31 hours later.
"Once clear to proceed, Starliner executes its deorbit burn, which lasts approximately 60 seconds, slowing it down enough to re-enter Earth's atmosphere and committing the spacecraft to its targeted site," NASA said. "Immediately after the deorbit burn, Starliner repositions for service module disposal, which will burn up during re-entry over the southern Pacific Ocean."
Scientists are prepared for a plasma buildup on the craft, causing it to reach 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit and resulting in a possible four-minute gap in communications with ground crews.
Once it re-enters Earth's atmosphere, Starliner will jettison its heat shield at approximately 30,000 feet exposing a series of drags and parachutes which will start the initial slowdown of the craft. At 3,000 feet, Starliner will jettison an additional heat shield and a half dozen inflatable landing bags will be deployed.
The Starliner will be traveling at 4 mph when it touches down, NASA said.
"The NASA and Boeing landing and recovery team is stationed at a holding zone near Starliner's intended landing site," NASA said. "After landing, a series of five teams move in toward the spacecraft in a sequential order."
Those crews are scheduled to "sniff" the capsule for any combustible fuels that did not burn off on re-entry. Another team will then check electrical ground and yet another crew will move in to provide power and cooling to the unit even though there will be no one in it.
NASA was forced to reduce by half the size of its planned crew SpaceX Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station in order to accommodate the return of Wilmore and Williams.
The space agency announced the decision Friday to send only NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov aboard the mission, which will launch no earlier than Sept. 24.
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft has remained stalled at the ISS because of issues with its propulsion system that have led to safety concerns after its initial flight.
NASA decided Aug. 24 to return Starliner from the space station uncrewed due to those safety concerns.
"While we've changed crew before for a variety of reasons, downsizing crew for this flight was another tough decision to adjust to given that the crew has trained as a crew of four," NASA Chief Astronaut Joe Acaba said in the agency's statement last week.
Once the Starliner lands and checks out with ground crews, the capsule will be transported to Boeing facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida for refurbishment ahead of its next flight.
:^)
So where are the Boeing Space Operations naysayers now?
I’ve been watching the ‘Lookner Nerd’ on Agenda Free TV. (It tickles me how excited he gets over things like this...)
“BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!”
The Invaders!
-PJ
Yeah. They’re gonna have to cut the video feed when the aliens emerge and start blasting everyone... :-o
NASA frowns on propulsive landing, starliner uses airbags and chutes only. SpaceX wanted and test flew Dragon as a fully propulsive landing no chutes at all but NASA was like not just no but hellno. SpaceX dropped a Dragon test mule from a helicopter let it hit terminal velocity on the thick lower air and then fired up it’s Super Dragos it landed just fine. You only need chutes to go from aerodynamic terminal velocity to about 3 meters per second with airbags. Without chutes the terminal velocity is about 200 meters per second so you need that much delta V in your engines plus some margins for gravity losses and if you want to hover then 9.8M/sec/per second of hover too. Not a small ask of stored rocket fuel in a small landing craft.
Would you have got onboard and ridden th st bad boy down from the ISS after all the leaks and noises? That’s the real question I’m a family member of a director level Boeing executive and I would not have ridden that down nope no way. My family member was not a DEI hire they hold a PhD in aeronautical engineering and post doctoral work in aeronautics. Every adult member of my family has at least one PhD some have two we are that family.
I think that's a bit premature.
Just because we're thankful that the pilots landed the plane successfully after the door plug blew out doesn't mean we forget that the door plug blew out.
Just because the Starliner landed successfully doesn't mean we forget that 10 thrusters failed to operate during the launch and docking.
-PJ
No, not for this flight. Maybe next. We have similar science PhDs here as well (physics/neuroscience), but retired.
LOL!
He’s fun, though; and very devoted to what he does.
A sophisticated victory, for a sophisticated mission, sophisticatedly written up. Great victory, for More💲💲💲to go where no man should ever go or was meant to go.
No damage was done to the ISS docking port during either arrival or departure and the Starliner’s reentry and touchdown was picture perfect. No complicated systems work perfectly -— at some level there s always departures from engineering norms.
How do you know where man is ‘meant to go’?
That opinion seems like sheer egotism to me.
It was a success. But is it cost effective? SpaceX is way ahead. Boeing is like the government now.
Yes, SpaceX is way ahead. But I agree that (NASA having access to) two dissimilar launch and delivery vehicles is a laudable goal. Some would consider it worth the extra price tag and others not.
tx
SpaceX had 8 uncrewed missions before flying a crewed mission into space.
Starliner had only 2 uncrewed missions before flying this one.
Did they get lucky? Were there enough test flights to find all of the reasonably possible departures from the norm?
-PJ
They did for their thruster bug. On X there are a bunch of posts going after the “rave” dance thruster firing as it left the ISS. If you listened to the broadcast they said as it was far enough away they test fired all 27 thrusters in rapid sequence as a test of them. All of them worked and then they did 12 more multiple thruster burns over the next 5 min yo push back from the ISS. Later it did a 59 second deorbit with four main thrusters burning continuously and since they are not gimballed there was a slew of RCS in attitude control mode it was cool to see the thrusters working on teams to keep it in the lane. Still I would want another full flight empty before my pilot behind gets in it. I would fly in Dragon this morning of offered a ride it’s the safest orbital vehicle humans have ever designed period. Dragon has bright delta V to do a emergency parachutes fail and you are at terminal velocity even over water the Super Drago engines will bring it to a halt and soft shakedown they would be fools to delete the computer code for that contingency since they already have the fuel and engines onboard Dragon plus a drop test under their belt using that code a d engines.
Anyone known how to turn off predictive text on a Android I loath that feature. I looked under keyboard it only shows auto punctuation on off.
-PJ
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