Atlas V: Boeing Starliner CFT (crewed flight test)

[bguy_1986]

On 07/09/2024 at 12:02, DocM said:

Will Boeing bail out of Commercial Crew after this mess? You tell me...

Boeing statement

"I want to recognize the work the Starliner teams did to ensure a successful and safe undocking, deorbit, re-entry and landing," said Mark Nappi, vice president and program manager of Boeing's Commercial Crew Program. "We will review the data and determine the next steps for the program."

 

 

My money is on them backing out of it.  IIRC @DocMor somewhere I read they are about in the red, or will be going in the red.  Boeing has a lot of problems going on right now, they probably need to step back and refocus before taking this project back on.

That said, I'm hopeful that the new CEO can turn things around and we can eventually have some redundancy and competition.  What are the chances Starliner can get some Cargo missions?

[DocM]

On 07/09/2024 at 19:07, bguy_1986 said:

My money is on them backing out of it.  IIRC @DocMor somewhere I read they are about in the red, or will be going in the red.  Boeing has a lot of problems going on right now, they probably need to step back and refocus before taking this project back on.

That said, I'm hopeful that the new CEO can turn things around and we can eventually have some redundancy and competition.  What are the chances Starliner can get some Cargo missions?

 

Even in yesterday's success there were sprouted seeds  of potential failure; 

1) the Starliner crew module, the part that comes down, has two strings of 12 RCSb thrusters, primary and backup. One of the primary string thrusters refused to fire, so fearing the rest of the string could also fail they switched to the backup string. 

The primary string thruster that failed was the top one, which controls pitch during reentry. If the same thruster failed on the backup it would have been a loss of pitch control, causing either a very rough ride or loss of mission.

2) a navigational system also ran out of redundancy exiting the plasma plume of reentry. Fortunately it came back on after reset.

They have a crapload of work to do on this vehicle before flying it again.