Boeing's Starliner (CST-100) - Discussion Thread 6

[yg1968]

Starliner can fit 9 with a pilot. Dragon can only do 4. The ability to launch on 7 sailed. They can bring 5th back in emergency. Still relevant to certify and fly it.

From what I recall, Starliner can have 5 astronauts at the most.

[DanClemmensen]

Having a second commercial crew provider for the Commercial LEO destinations program would also be useful in case that one provider has issues.

While redundancy theoretically has some benefits for CLD operators, what they really need is to have more than one provider that is both reliable and economically competitive. Starliner is almost certainly never going to be either of those, and I highly doubt any of the CLD operators will ever buy a seat on Starliner unless NASA either subsidizes it, or forces them to do it. Why on earth would you pay twice as much per seat for a less reliable crew vehicle?

No, NASA should cancel Starliner today (since yesterday isn't an option anymore), buy Dragon flights through end of ISS, but then use the money saved from retiring Starliner plus some of the money spent from canceling EUS and other SLS upgrades to fund one or two new commercial crew vehicles for CLD, and possibly for commercial crew launch to LEO for Artemis missions.

~Jon

In the post-ISS era, Starliner would be competing with Crewed EDL Starship, not with Dragon. Starship should have a lower per mission cost than Crew Dragon and can carry a larger crew. SpaceX will probably quit flying Dragon (and F9) completely.

Without a non-SpaceX competitor who can put price pressure on them, I'm not sure I'd count on Starship being dramatically lower per seat price than Dragon. At least when they gave us numbers a few years back for Starship crew, they weren't noticeably cheaper per seat than Dragon. Hopefully that changes, but I'd much rather see SpaceX get one or two competent competitors in the crew launch market. Until then, they're likely to keep pricing crew seats at whatever they think the market will bear. Which is totally their right, but as a customer of those seats, I think it would be in NASA's best interest to fund some competent competition.

~Jon

Sorry, but that's why I said "cost", not "price". Until there is competition, SpaceX will probably set price to maximize total profit. Lower price might result in more business and higher total profit, or not, but that's the market Starliner would be competing in

[Tomness]

Starliner can fit 9 with a pilot. Dragon can only do 4. The ability to launch on 7 sailed. They can bring 5th back in emergency. Still relevant to certify and fly it.

From what I recall, Starliner can have 5 astronauts at the most.

5 for ISS, apparently 7 now on Boeing website for LEO non-ISS, but I seen a 8 seater plus pilot CST-100 on this form years ago with a pilot raised aboved every one else.

[gaballard]

If they fly at all, and they can find customers, they may as well fly all six of their remaining Atlas V.

Yes, if those incremental missions were cash-flow positive they might fly them. My model doesn't assume that. Instead it assumes Boeing is flying CST-100 as a 'loss leader' to position some later version of Starliner as a viable offering.

Why would they spend the money to develop a new version, though? I can't see them being competitive with SpaceX, and the NASA contract alone probably isn't enough revenue to bother with.

I highly doubt we will ever see another crewed Boeing spacecraft that wasn’t funded 100% from a cost-plus contract.

[jongoff]

It's no magnum-opus, and I've recently made a lot of these arguments on here, but they did finally make me write up the second part of my Starliner Reponendum Est series on why I think almost everyone would be better off if NASA pulled the plug on Starliner (and recompeted it): https://selenianboondocks.com/2026/03/starliner-reponendum-est-part-ii-why-boeings-troubled-capsule-still-needs-to-be-replaced/

[Tomness]

but I seen a 8 seater plus pilot CST-100 on this form years ago with a pilot raised aboved every one else.

Link / source?

https://www.space.com/25734-boeing-commercial-spaceliner-cabin-design-unveiled.html

That was trek trying to find that.  I've been on this forum a long time lol

[KilroySmith]

That was trek trying to find that.  I've been on this forum a long time lol

That was the promise, and this is what was delivered:
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/vTFe6DPaB687ziDMiWJo76.jpg

I see at least three things that are different....

[StraumliBlight]

https://www.space.com/25734-boeing-commercial-spaceliner-cabin-design-unveiled.html

That was trek trying to find that.  I've been on this forum a long time lol

In addition to the blue Sky lighting, which Boeing also integrated into the NASA version of its capsule, the new commercial interior focused on redesigning the seating.

"There is a possibility of actually having nine seats in the lower section, with a seat that has been raised in the capsule for the pilot station — so that's a total of 10," said Rick Fraker, an industrial designer for Boeing.

The number of seats that actually fly will depend on several factors, including customers' desire for storage space, Fraker added. The CST-100 spaceliner utilizes the same location for its "overhead bins" as it does its chairs, so the renderings of the new design show three of the seats being replaced by storage containers.

The design of the seats also considered the amount of time passengers would spend in them.

"The idea was to minimize the seating configuration in some ways because what we imagined would be important in space travel is maximizing the free volume once you are in zero-g," Fraker said. "So unlike in an aircraft, we're not exploiting the comfort equation in the spacecraft. [Instead], we're going to try to provide enough space in the capsule to allow passengers to freely move about the capsule."

[TJL]

Has a mission patch for the April Starliner-1 flight been released yet?

[TorenAltair]

What flight?

[DanClemmensen]

Has a mission patch for the April Starliner-1 flight been released yet?

Isaacman announced during the Starliner press conference that Starliner will not fly until the investigation and any needed changes are complete. This  effectively replaced the "April" date with a "TBD". It may be premature to have a patch.

[DanClemmensen]

ULA has announced that KA05 (Leo on Atlas) will fly on 30 March. It seems based on history that VIF and pad turnaround is at least a month, so I think we can assume that Starliner-1 will not fly in April.

[russianhalo117]

ULA has announced that KA05 (Leo on Atlas) will fly on 30 March. It seems based on history that VIF and pad turnaround is at least a month, so I think we can assume that Starliner-1 will not fly in April.

Starliner wont be launching anytime soon as its presently not cleared to fly to the ISS even without crew until the findings of the Type A Mishap Investigation are addressed.

[DanClemmensen]

ULA has announced that KA05 (Leo on Atlas) will fly on 30 March. It seems based on history that VIF and pad turnaround is at least a month, so I think we can assume that Starliner-1 will not fly in April.

Starliner wont be launching anytime soon as its presently not cleared to fly to the ISS even without crew until the findings of the Type A Mishap Investigation are addressed.

Certainly. The most pessimistic guess is that it will never fly again. I was looking at the most optimistic guess, which was still April in some people's minds. The KA05 announcement bumps that to May. Because we have no information from Boeing, it's hard to make an informed guess. My uninformed guess: NET July. We will be able to bump our optimistic lower bound every time ULA announces another Leo, which might happen every month for the next three months. We'll see.

[Star One]

I’m putting this here as I think it speaks to Boeing as a company. This is a UK government minister talking about the RAF Wedgetail program.

Pearce also described Boeing as a “troubled partner.” While acknowledging the company’s efforts to bring the aircraft into service, he said Boeing had faced “difficulties inside their own aircraft programs” that had resulted in increased scrutiny within its certification processes.
 
The program has also drawn criticism from former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who described the procurement of the aircraft and associated radar systems as one of the “worst examples of dishonesty” he had seen from the armed services.

https://aviationweek.com/defense/aircraft-propulsion/uk-wedgetail-program-troubled-configuration-differences?

[mn]

I’m putting this here as I think it speaks to Boeing as a company. This is a UK government minister talking about the RAF Wedgetail program.

Pearce also described Boeing as a “troubled partner.” While acknowledging the company’s efforts to bring the aircraft into service, he said Boeing had faced “difficulties inside their own aircraft programs” that had resulted in increased scrutiny within its certification processes.
 
The program has also drawn criticism from former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who described the procurement of the aircraft and associated radar systems as one of the “worst examples of dishonesty” he had seen from the armed services.

https://aviationweek.com/defense/aircraft-propulsion/uk-wedgetail-program-troubled-configuration-differences?

The UK program marks the first conversion of a “green” 737-700 into an E-7 in more than a decade, following the last conversion completed for the Republic of Korea Air Force by Korea Aerospace Industries. The UK aircraft are being modified by STS Aviation in Birmingham, England, which currently is the only E-7 conversion site in operation

So a 'green' 737 from Boeing is being converted to military use by a separate company unrelated to Boeing (STS Aviation in Birmingham, England), but somehow Boeing is being blamed for cost overruns and delays.

https://www.facebook.com/SpotterMagMalta/photos/boeing-is-currently-assembling-two-737-700-green-airframes-in-renton-which-will-/1388260776639155/

Boeing is currently assembling two 737-700 green airframes in Renton, which will be ferried to STS Aviation in Birmingham for conversion to E-7 configuration in 2026. This is because STS operates the only E-7 conversion facility worldwide, and is currently engaged in the UK's Wedgetail AEW.1 programme. This will allow the rapid production of prototypes while Boeing ramps up its own facilities at Boeing Field for eventual production E-7s for NATO and the USAF.

[John_Marshall]

Amazon LEO state that they are the customer for the next four back to back Atlas V missions at a roughly monthly launch cadence. Starliner-1 would be NET July at the earliest:

That being the case, if we assume that Crew-13 will last about eight months or a little over like Crew-12 is expected to, which would probably mean that its replacement would launch sometime in June 2027, would that eleven months or a year be enough time for Crew-13 to be replaced by Starliner, or is Crew-13 more likely to be replaced by Crew-14?

[DanClemmensen]

Amazon LEO state that they are the customer for the next four back to back Atlas V missions at a roughly monthly launch cadence. Starliner-1 would be NET July at the earliest:

That being the case, if we assume that Crew-13 will last about eight months or a little over like Crew-12 is expected to, which would probably mean that its replacement would launch sometime in June 2027, would that eleven months or a year be enough time for Crew-13 to be replaced by Starliner, or is Crew-13 more likely to be replaced by Crew-14?

We don't know how long the Starliner-1 "cargo" mission would be, so we may arbitrarily assume it is about a month, like a nominal Cargo Dragon mission. Presumably, NASA and Boeing will be especially diligent in evaluating Starliner-1, so maybe three months if there are no anomalies, and Starliner could be ready to fly as early as October 2026. If NASA is being extremely aggressive in their quest for CCP dissimilar redundancy, they could fly it to follow Crew-12, in place of Crew-13, In December 2026.

However, I think this is a fantasy, for several reasons, so Starliner-2 will follow an 8-month Crew-13  some time around September 2027. If Starliner-1 needs much more analysis and/or if Starliner-2 needs lengthy modifications, then it would fly after Crew-14. I think that whatever caused that much delay would basically cause Starliner to be cancelled.

We do not even know when ISS will be decommissioned. I've lost track of the various proposals. Congress wants to extend to 2032, nominal PoR is 2030, and there is apparently a move afoot to decomission in 2028.

[craiglv2]

Why did ULA (Boeing and Lockheed's) Artemis OMS and attitude control thrusters work so well, when Boeing's Starliner thrusters worked so poorly?

[DanClemmensen]

Why did ULA (Boeing and Lockheed's) Artemus OMS and attitude control thrusters work so well, when Boeing's Orion thrusters worked so poorly?

(I think you meant Boeing's Starliner)
Orion has no Boeing heritage at all. The capsule was designed by Lockheed Martin. Almost all of the thrusters used prior to the re-entry burns were in the European Service Module (ESM), not the capsule. ESM prime contractor is Airbus.

ULA is also not Boeing or Lockheed Martin even though it is a joint venture of the two. ULA's only new product is Vulcan. It inherits its conceptual architecture from Atlas, but its booster is mostly new. Its Centaur upper stage is the latest in a long line of Centaurs with a 60-year heritage flowing through Lockheed Martin, not Boeing.