Posted on 05/23/2022 5:10:48 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Boeing managed to dock a spacecraft at the International Space Station late last week, but it was not without several minor hangups.
The mission kicked off Thursday evening with a Florida launch, and the Starliner — which is designed to carry astronauts but is flying without people for this test — docked with the ISS Friday night at 8:28 pm ET. The docking occurred about an hour later than expected as ground crews worked through a few issues, including a software issue that skewed graphics, sort of like a misaligned GPS map. There were also issues with sensors and some docking components that were not initially moving correctly. The capsule has a docking ring that pops out as it approaches its port and is used to latch on to the ISS. During the first attempt at docking, some components didn't move into the proper configuration. Ground teams had to try the pop-out process a second time to get everything in the right place. There had also been a small problem with the Starliner's cooling loops, which are part of the system that regulates the spacecraft's temperature.
All those issues had to be analyzed or fixed in time for the Starliner to move ahead, and the docking ultimately went off without a major issue.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I wonder if they have enough fuel and a time window to head back to earth if the docking fails? I imagine they carry their own fuel for the trip back.
I wouldn’t fly in a Starliner. Actually I don’t fly in Boeing airliners either.
Possibly designed by the same engineers that worked on the 737 Max./s
Running the best software the IIT grads at Boeing India can produce. But hey, they work cheap...
“Sounds like the Starliner is a piece of trash.”
Not really.
IAFSCs.
Software functioned as designed.
Really. 30 months to get it right and still had issues.
Too early to know if 2 Thruster failings were hardware of software.
Time to pull the plug on this program. This test should have been perfect. It was a “successful failure”. Kill it.
Probably had software that was hacked by a malicious nation.
It would seem that Spacex is leaps and bounds ahead of Boeing on the crewed vessel front.
CC
As those thrusters are on the service module and that is kicked off before reentry. I believe Boeing said it was not software
Billions over budget and way behind schedule.
That is why it’s an unscrewed test flight, workout bugs,
SpaceX has issues with crew dragon unscrewed test too
Imagine that.
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