Posted on 09/07/2024 4:39:03 AM PDT by george76
Starliner has finally come home, more than three months after it launched on a planned 10-day mission..
Starliner's long space odyssey is over.
The Boeing capsule, named Calypso, returned to Earth early this morning (Sept. 7), touching down in the New Mexico desert at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; 11:01 p.m. local time on Sept. 6).
"Great landing of Calyspo!" NASA astronaut Suni Williams said on the agency's webcast. "I don't think that could have gone better."
The landing was long-delayed, coming more than three months into an orbital mission originally expected to last about 10 days. And, while Starliner launched with two NASA astronauts aboard — Williams and Butch Wilmore — nobody rode it home.
It wasn't supposed to end like this.
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A crucial test flight..
The roots of the just-completed mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), go back a decade. In 2014, NASA gave SpaceX and Boeing multibillion-dollar contracts to finish work on their astronaut taxis — capsules known as Crew Dragon and Starliner, respectively.
The agency wanted one or both of those vehicles to start flying astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS) by 2017, reestablishing a homegrown orbital human spaceflight capability — something the U.S. had lacked since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.
...
Neither capsule hit that ambitious target. SpaceX's first astronaut mission, a test flight to the ISS called Demo-2, lifted off in May 2020. Starliner's crewed debut was CFT, which launched atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, sending Williams and Wilmore to the orbiting lab for a planned eight-day stay.
CFT had been slated to fly last year, but it was delayed to deal with parachute issues and to remove large amounts of insulating tape from the capsule's wiring system. (Analsyes determined that the tape was flammable and thus posed a safety risk.)
The mission encountered issues more recently as well. A planned May 25 launch attempt was scrubbed, for example, after team members noticed a small helium leak in Starliner's service module. More helium leaks popped up after launch, as Starliner chased the ISS down in orbit. And, more concerningly, the capsule experienced propulsion problems: Five of its 28 reaction control system (RCS) thrusters conked out not long after liftoff.
The thruster problems scuttled Starliner's first ISS docking attempt on June 6. The capsule succeeded on its second try that day, and team members eventually brought four of the five faulty thrusters back online. But the issue loomed large over the rest of the mission.
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A tough decision..
NASA extended CFT's orbital stay repeatedly, giving mission team members more time to analyze and troubleshoot the thruster problems. Such work included modeling studies and testing both in space (with Starliner) and on the ground (with a Starliner RCS thruster at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico).
Ultimately, NASA concluded that bringing Williams and Wilmore home on Starliner posed an unacceptable safety risk.
"The decision to keep Butch and Suni aboard the International Space Station and bring Boeing’s Starliner home uncrewed is the result of our commitment to safety: our core value and our North Star," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on Aug. 24, the day the agency announced the news.
Williams and Wilmore will stay aboard the ISS until February, when they'll hitch a ride home on a SpaceX Crew Dragon — the one flying the company's Crew-9 mission, which is set to lift off later this month. To make room for them, Crew-9 will lift off with two astronauts instead of the usual four.
Starliner, meanwhile, was packed up for an uncrewed return to Earth. Among the gear that it carried home were the "Boeing Blue" spacesuits that Williams and Wilmore wore aboard the capsule. The astronauts have no need for them now.
"The suits are not compatible," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, said during a press conference on Wednesday (Sept. 4). "So the Starliner suits would not work in Dragon, and vice versa."
Sticking the landing..
Starliner undocked from the ISS on Friday (Sept. 6) at 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT) as planned. It performed a series of burns to set itself up for the uncrewed landing, which occurred under parachutes in New Mexico's White Sands Space Harbor just after midnight today.
Everything went well.
"I'm happy to report that Starliner did really well today in the undocking, reentry and landing sequence," Stich told reporters after the touchdown. "It was a bullseye landing, a great landing out at White Sands."
He added that Wilmore and Williams would have been fine if they'd been aboard the capsule. "It would have been a safe, successful landing with the crew on board," Stich said. But he added that NASA's decision to err on the side of safety with the data they had on hand before landing still stands: "I think we made the right decision."
Boeing representatives did not participate in the post-landing briefing, instead ceding mission representation to NASA, the space agency said. But Boeing did release a statement shortly after Starliner's return.
"I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, reentry and landing," Mark Nappi, Boeing's vice president and program manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, said in the statement. "We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program."
This was the third touchdown overall for Starliner, by the way. The capsule also flew two uncrewed test flights to the ISS, one in December 2019 and one in May 2022. Starliner failed to meet up with the orbiting lab on the first flight after suffering several glitches. The second uncrewed mission was a success, though Starliner experienced some thruster issues on that flight as well. (These were a different set, associated not with the RCS but with Starliner's orbital maneuvering and control system.)
A cloudy future..
Boeing and NASA had hoped that CFT would pave the way for Starliner's certification, allowing the capsule to begin flying six-month-long astronaut missions to the ISS.
The first such operational flight, Starliner-1, had been targeted for February 2025. That launch has already been pushed back, however, to August 2025 at the earliest. And it's unclear at the moment if Starliner will be certified by then — or what additional tests, if any, NASA will require before certification can occur.
"I think what we need to do now is really lay out the overall plan, which we have not had time to do," Stich said in the Sept. 4 press conference.
"We haven't, because the teams have been so focused on this flight, laying out that overall search strategy, the overall amount of work we've got to go do," he added. "And then when we do that, we'll have a better understanding of, When can we certify the vehicle, and when can we resume flights?"
Crew Dragon, meanwhile, was certified shortly after Demo-2's successful conclusion in 2020. The SpaceX vehicle is now gearing up for its ninth operational astronaut flight to the ISS for NASA. (That would be Crew-9, as the name suggests.)
SpaceX has also flown a handful of private crewed missions to the station, as well as the Inspiration4 astronaut flight to Earth orbit, which did not meet up with the orbiting lab. And it's preparing to launch Polaris Dawn, another free-flying commercial astronaut mission, which aims to conduct the first-ever private spacewalk.
It’s actually NASA with egg on their face, much less Boeing.
So if the capsule made it back ok, does that mean the astronauts could have come back, with it, after all?
Yes. NASA made the safe decision but the wrong decision.
We could already be drilling the ice moons and hollowing out asteroids for mining and as spacecraft if we eliminated weak, puny, needy meatbag humans.
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We could have had return manned flights form Alpha Centuri or other star by now, if the original Project Orion had not been cancelled in a fit of political weakness in 1964.
Yeah, you shoulda been there!
“Great landing of Calyspo!” NASA astronaut Suni Williams said on the agency’s webcast. “I don’t think that could have gone better.”
Might have been nice if there were actually some humans on it.
I agree with all your points. Well said.
The return flight was absolutely flawless, everything happened on que and all of the systems worked as advertised, even the thrusters. Where is the recognition of that?? It's time to look at some aspects of this other than the hardware.
We have been driven by a media induced hysteria and contemporary cultural norms, to expect failure, not just in Starliner but in many aspects of our lives. Optimism is gone.. The media was filling front pages with this pessimism because there are no hurricanes or shark attacks to dwell on so far this year. Hell, they've even run out of tornadoes.
It is obvious that NASA was afraid to make a decision that wasn't 100% guaranteed. They were more afraid of the political fallout than take the chance for success. John Glen knew his ride on the Atlas was about a 75% shot at success. He had seen too many blow up to delude himself otherwise. Still, he went.
Neil Armstrong landed the LEM on the moon even though his computer gave out on him. Standing NASA instructions were to abort the mission if this occurred. He made an informed decision based on his risk analysis.
I admire the people who know the risks of spaceflight and despite those risks, go anyway. That is the America I grew up in and hope to see again before I die.
It should be named “Barnacle” since it hung onto the ISS for so long.
BRAVO!! Well said.
I have been saying for a while is that China is going to own the Moon.
Why?
Because they don’t care how many people die in Moon missions.
They don’t care how many of them fail.
American bureaucrats and politicians could never take the heat that piles of dead astronaut bodies would generate.
Space is not safe. It is dangerous.
Indeed, and that applies to every aspect of our society.
The utter mediocrities in media and politics can't stand to see other people succeed at all, much less succeed spectacularly. Therefore, they tear people down at every opportunity.
Busk Rogers impressed.
More people die in their bathtubs than die in space, by a long shot.
“more people die in their bathtubs”
Tell that to NASA. I am sure your logic will impress them.
Lol.
Perhaps you could apply as a Public Relations spokesman for the NASA of the future:
“We just had micrometeorites penetrate the spacesuits and kill three of our astronauts driving in their dune buggies on the moon today. Just remember—this was no big deal—more people died today in their bathtubs than died on this Moon mission.”
The reason many not be because they did not want to attempt it. I remember stuff coming out of Kelly Johnson's Skunk Works (much like what Musk has done), in particular the 1960’s project which brought out the SR-71 Blackbird. I've read that it was almost impossible to fly without a computer.
I read about Barry Goldwater having flown it. He was the only person that had not gone through the normal paths (he was a AF Reserve pilot) Even today the speed that flew at is almost unimaginable.
Musk has the instincts. Kelly Johnson had them. Yes, there were very good engineers on board, but the instinct from broad understanding is necessary to run such stuff.
In the early 90's I was installing car alarm systems and there was one customer that wanted the $40.00 alarm system installed on His 60's Mustang and He was not happy with it's limitations and I told Him that We had everything that could be added to that system installed. He wanted to talk to the Company that designed the alarm system so I got them on the phone and was listening to the conversation. About 10 minutes into the conversation he revealed that He was a Retired NASA Systems Engineer. The next thing He mentioned was that He was the Lead Systems Engineer for the Saturn V Rocket REDUNDANCY SAFETY SYSTEMS !!!
After He was finished with the call. I asked Him why didn't He just design and build His own Alarm System for the Mustang ?!
His answer was "I'm retired now."
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