Established Member
Looks like the delay is into May. Do I hear bids on June/July? Thanksgiving?Originally Posted by Roger E. Moore
Spaceflight Now @SpaceflightNow
The second unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station is not expected to launch before May after the recent winter storm in Texas impacted a facility required for spacecraft software testing. https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/02/boe
https://twitter.com/spaceflightnow/s...95547861377026
Moderator
Never?
Order of Kilopi
NASA and Boeing are evaluating a new target launch date for the CST-100 Starliner's Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) to the International Space Station after winter storms in Houston, and the recent replacement of avionics boxes, set the program back about two weeks. NASA also is weighing the volume of verification and validation analysis required prior to the test flight and the visiting vehicle schedule at the International Space Station.
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/N...est_2_999.html
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
Order of Kilopi
(very funny image) Delayed, overbudget and broken. Of course Microsoft's finest would be found in NASA's Orion. [A.K.A. In Space No One Can Hear You Scream (as Windows crashes again)]
https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/08/bork/
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
Order of Kilopi
In my previous job, we had tens of major production ships running their control software on a local network of Windows pc's, asynchronically. Many outsiders believed it would never work, but it did just fine. For decades. Hugely important: these pc's were used for nothing else and had NO INTERNET CONNECTION. Under those conditions, a stable Windows system remains very stable. Of course things are a bit less critical on a floating ship versus a spacecraft.
We avoided Vista and 8.0 though.
With sufficient thrust, water towers fly just fine.
Order of Kilopi
(video) Why Boeing’s Starliner Test Launch Is Mission Critical: After years of cost overruns, errors and delays, Boeing’s space program is facing a major test: Later this year it will likely make its second attempt to launch its Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station. WSJ looks at the company’s path to this crucial moment, and what’s riding on the test flight’s success.
https://www.wsj.com/video/why-boeing...73C6D094D.html
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
Banned
I still like that Orion still has some switches...all glass cockpits worry me.
Established Member
The switches would be a hardware layer over the underlaying digital systems, one which Apollo showed can mechanically fail with interesting results.
Crew Dragon uses multi-redundant voting logic systems with override switches for critical functions; "DEORBIT NOW" being the ultimate bailout button.
NASA's loss of crew (LOC) odds for Orion/SLS are 1 in 75 in a cis-lunar mission. Crew Dragon is 1 in 276 for LEO. The question to ask is if upgrading Crew Dragon for cis-lunar would reduce its safety by 3.5x.
Last edited by docmordrid; 2021-Mar-20 at 06:34 PM.
Order of Kilopi
That is an interesting question. Probability of a failure likely doesn’t change very much, but they are a lot farther from home.
I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. - Jimmy Hoffa
Banned
Has any thought been given to having a largely spent service module do work after capsule recovery as perhaps striking debris on its way down, or flying as an ultra-low satellite over a hurricane eye as it re-enters? I have this vision of a mesh dish where the capsule attached sending one last bit of data on a suicide mission
Established Member
Crew Dragon's service module (propellant tanks, thrusters, consumables) are integrated into the vehicle, all the better to reuse them. The only parts on the disposable Trunk being conformal solar panels and the thermal radiators.
In principle, Dragon XL could serve as a free-flyer after its Gateway mission is complete. It could also serve as a short-term habitat with about 30 m3 of volume.
I don't believe Starliner's service module can be used after separation.
SNC's Dream Chaser will have an external cargo pod called Shooting Star that can become a free-flyer. It's also been contracted to serve as cislunar "outposts" for the US Space Force.
N-G's Cygnus has already been used as a free-flyer.
Established Member
Seems there are so many Dragons flitting about there's no where to dock. Of course this large flock is mainly because of Boeing's own failures.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021...il-early-2022/
It now seems likely that Starliner will not launch crew until early 2022
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One source expressed "hope" that a 2021 launch date could be found for Starliner's crew test flight, but more realistically, the mission will slip into 2022. Although there is an availability of space station ports in November, there are presently no slots in December. A source with knowledge of space station flight schedules suggested that the best opportunity for Starliner's crewed flight test, commanded by astronaut Butch Wilmore, would likely come in February 2022. At that time, tentatively, there is scheduled to be an open docking port on the station. This slot would also provide about seven months to assess data from Orbital Flight Test-2 and clear humans to fly on Starliner.
Finally, if this crew test flight is successful, Boeing could fly its first "operational" Starliner mission for NASA. This would carry a full complement of four astronauts to the space station for about six months and would happen sometime later in 2022, most likely during the April or September time frames.
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