Posted on 08/31/2024 6:08:44 AM PDT by Salman
Boeing's troubled Starliner spacecraft is set to return to Earth just over a week from now with managers setting a date of no earlier than September 6 for undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) and September 7 to land at White Sands in New Mexico.
For the Starliner's crew, however, the stay in space will be far from over as the duo will join the Crew-9 mission and return to Earth around February 2025, once the Crew-9 capsule arrives at the ISS.
After Starliner departs and until Crew-9 arrives, the only emergency escape system available to the Starliner crew, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will be in the pressurized cargo area of the Crew-8 capsule, which has been docked at the ISS since March.
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(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.com ...
Its more like the 21st century version of Gilligan's Island.
If it doesn’t want to leave will Canada Arm rip it from the station and throw it away ? LOL
This is all assuming the thrusters work well enough for undocking, deorbit, and service module separation. Or the helium leaks don’t cause some other problem. Guessing a 50-50 chance that uncrewed Starliner makes it to WSMR.
I wonder if Las Vegas is taking any action on whether the capsule burns up on reentry or safely lands at White Sands.
I wonder what the odds would be ??
I have full confidence in their competent ability to make an accurate thump at white sands.
With their track record they probably should aim for the middle of the Pacific instead.
Wonder if I can see it from Albuquirky. Might be worth the drive south.
Starliner doesn’t have a attachment point for the Canada Arm. All vehicles coming to the station hence forth should have that attachment point IMHO
That is when everything started to go wrong. DEI,corruption and incompetence and one failure after another was the result.
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https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg4526acfdd26e9542a02782e0eb5a5143-lq
More like El Paso taking precautions.
This is heading to white sands missile range in Nee Mexico.
Maybe it will land in Mexico and the Cartels will hold it for ransom.
Maybe it will land in Mexico and the Cartels will hold it for ransom.
Yeah, they pay us if we come to get it.
“With their track record they probably should aim for the middle of the Pacific instead.”
If they will do that, they will probably hit White Sands anyway.
I thought the Russians had a Soyuz spacecraft lander docked at the ISS. How come they don’t use that?
After starliner leaves, there is still a "crew 8 pressurized cargo capsule" attached to ISS? Where did that come from?
In other bad news, there seems to be a lot of solar flare activity this week. How are the crew dosage levels looking? Also, is this a good time to try and remotely operate a vehicle by radio control?
I bet it undocks, re-enters, and lands uneventfully —
— and NASA crows how they were only being super-safe.
The very source of the problem is how all space-faring nations (and now private companies) have never gotten together to establish one standard docking setup, so we've got three or more different incompatible types floating around.
Not unlike how so many submariners un-neccessarily died during the Cold War because neither NATO nor the Warsaw Pact nations would agree on basic docking hatch design that would have saved them.
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