Atlas V N22 - Starliner OFT (uncrewed) - 20 Dec 2019 (11:36 UTC) - DISCUSSION

[edkyle99]

This one is hard to categorize.  The boost phase of this launch (the Atlas 5 part) was successful, but CST-100 failed to do its insertion burn at the expected time.  The burn was subsequently commanded manually from the ground after a delay, but it was really a burn to a contingency orbit, not the originally planned orbit. 

So, is this a "launch failure" for the Atlas 5/CST-100 combo?  Or, is this a successful launch with subsequent on-orbit spacecraft issues?

 - Ed Kyle

Unless some new information arises I'd say the latter. Atlas V delivered the payload where it was supposed to go.

Atlas 5 was on the mark.  How close was the achieved Starliner post-OIB orbit to the plan?  It seems close on apogee/perigee, but by then ground control was aiming for a different mission plan regardless.  Isn't the real issue that prevented ISS docking excessive RCS propellant burn (not OMAC burn) due to the MET mis-clock?  Should I even count this as an orbital launch for Atlas 5, since Atlas 5 was suborbital?  Isn't it really a 3.5 stage Atlas 5/Starliner launch system?  Am I asking a lot of questions?

 - Ed Kyle

[TrevorMonty]

Its not like Boeing is new to orbital vehicles, X37 has been fly successfuly for years.

Mission won't be total loss they still get to test most important part, reentry and landing.

[Ike17055]

And again, the references to who gets there “first,” misstate the goals, and perpetuate this childish rivalry by some whereas one providers fans take glee in the others failures or setbacks. These two providers are part of the same goal: restore American access to orbit — and redundancy is a vital part of that; there is no winner take all, and was never intended to be. These comments about how Boeings money should be given to SpaceX, etc are just foolishness. There will be a redundant capability regardless of who is first or second. These forums often seem to reflect an infantile infatuation that is more appropriate for picking winners for a fantasy football league than for building and assuring reliability to America’s orbital access capability.

[woods170]

I don't think we know for certain yet.  The problem is being blamed on an incorrect mission elapsed timer.  If Atlas forgot to say "We've lifted off", or sent it at the wrong time, then it could be an Atlas fault, despite the correct orbit.  If instead the error is on the Starliner end, then the Atlas is in the clear.

Given that most missions of any type would need some indication of elapsed time, and this problem does not seem to be reported before, I'd suspect Atlas was not the problem.  But until the root cause is established, we can't say that for sure.

Atlas doesn't provide a MET.  The spacecraft should have a break wire its T-0 umbilical for liftoff.

Unfortunately, you are wrong.

The Atlas 5 EDS not only provides Starliner with an abort signal (when needed) but it continuously provides Starliner with information such as health and status data of the EDS itself. Atlas V EDS also continuously provides Starliner with information about items such as trajectory, position, attitude (to be displayed on the Crew Displays), Mission Elapsed Time (to provide support for Starliner actions such as jettisoning the nose cap) as well as information about the health of several Atlas subsystems.

This has been described in several publically available documents on the Atlas V EDS.
Heck, there is even a YouTube video available where one ULA engineer even explicitly mentions that Atlas V EDS provides MET info to Starliner for Starliner timing-sensitive operations.

Just a few examples:
https://www.ulalaunch.com/docs/default-source/human-rating/commercial-crew-launch-emergency-detection-system-the-key-technology-for-human-rating-eelv.pdf

https://www.ulalaunch.com/explore/blog-detail/blog/2019/06/13/atlas-v-starliner-emergency-detection-system

And there are several more which I'm sure you will be able to find via Google.

[clongton]

It's difficult to fathom all the hysteria about Starliner not docking with ISS.
To be clear there is literally no reason for it to dock with anything because (1) the mission objective was to shakedown the spacecraft, not visit the ISS and (2) the only reason ISS was identified as a destination is because it is available. It was someplace to go other than empty space. There was literally no need for a shakedown flight to go to the ISS for this mission at all. None whatsoever. It accomplishes nothing. It could just as easily have been accomplished with absolutely no ISS visit on the schedule at all. The purpose of this mission was not to dock with the ISS. It was to check out the spacecraft in space and validate its onboard systems for autonomous operation in space. It shouldn't be necessary to remind everyone that with the sole exception of Crew Dragon's first flight last March no human spacecraft (Vostok, Mercury, Gemini, Voskhod, Soyuz, Apollo, Shuttle and Buran) have EVER docked with anything on their maiden shakedown flight. None of them. A shakedown flight is just that; a flight. You go up, fly around and put the spacecraft thru its paces and come home. End of mission. ISS just affords the opportunity for the astronauts to get out of their seats and move around a little more comfortably for a while. But there were no astronauts on this flight to think about. There is no reason for a first shakedown flight of any spacecraft to go anywhere other than empty space in LEO. Provided that spacecraft systems check out on this shakedown flight, EDL occurs nominally and the root cause of the out of sync mission clock is identified and addressed, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why crew cannot fly on the next Atlas/Starliner mission.

[GpsGseEng]

Complex feelings about this:
The nine year old still living inside since 1969 and Apollo - "Oh come on hurry up we should be at Jupiter by now" - "Rats. no docking ".
The engineer for many years who was inspired to become one by Apollo - "Oh good. The skirt worked and the Atlas flew ok as far as we know".
The taxpayer - "Oh good. The skirt worked and we don't have any messes to clean up" - "Do we have to buy Boeing another rocket to finish testing docking now?"
The nine year old's mom probably would have said - "Poor astronauts may have to wait longer to go up now!"
 

[dlapine]

Stich: No hard requirement on an ISS docking before crewed flight. More of a good to have.

I can't believe I just read that. Are they seriously thinking they're going to send the thing to dock without having ever tested it? Boeing favoritism shows no bounds.

Stich would have said the exact same thing if this was Dragon, because it is true.  And, again, it has been tested. 

Please do not go making things up just to stir the proverbial pot.

The point is there was a malfunction that led the docking to be cancelled. A decision will have to be made if the reason for the malfunction is understandable and fixable to allowed a crewed flight on the next Starliner mission.

From an interview with the NASA Lead flight directors interview with the NASA OFT Lead flight directors 3 days ago.

"How will NASA measure whether this mission was successful?

Jones: This mission is truly a dry run of the Crewed Flight Test and we are going to approach it from that mindset. We are going to make sure that we check out Starliner’s various systems, successful docking/undocking with station, and successful reentry and landing to trust that we can put an astronaut on board."

Statements at the pressor from the Director would seem to indicate that NASA standards for test flight performance from Boeing would seem to be somewhat more flexible than for the other commercial providers.

If this statement of success metrics is the public line before a test flight, it should probably stay the same after the launch, whatever the actual test results were.

[dlapine]

It's difficult to fathom all the hysteria about Starliner not docking with ISS.
To be clear there is literally no reason for it to dock with anything because (1) the mission objective was to shakedown the spacecraft (2) the only reason ISS was identified as a destination is because it is available. It was someplace to go other than empty space. There was literally no need for a shakedown flight to go to the ISS for this mission at all. None whatsoever. It accomplishes nothing. It could just as easily been accomplished with absolutely no ISS visit on the schedule at all. The purpose of this mission was not to dock with the ISS. It was to check out the spacecraft in space and validate its onboard systems for autonomous operation in space. It shouldn't be necessary to remind everyone that with the sole exception of Crew Dragon's first flight last March no human spacecraft (Vostok, Mercury, Gemini, Voskhod, Soyuz, Apollo, Shuttle and Bruan) have EVER docked with anything on their maiden shakedown flight. None of them. A shakedown flight is just that; a flight. You go up, fly around and put the spacecraft thru its paces and come home. End of mission. ISS just affords the opportunity for the astronauts to get out of their seats and move around a little more comfortably for a while. But there were no astronauts on this flight to think about. There is no reason for a first shakedown flight of any spacecraft to go anywhere other than empty space in LEO. Provided that spacecraft systems check out on this shakedown flight, EDL occurs nominally and the root cause of the out of sync mission clock is identified and addressed, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever why crew cannot fly on the next Atlas/Starliner mission.

NASA flight leads have reported an expectation that docking with ISS was a primary objective, needed or not.

[Comga]

Stich: No hard requirement on an ISS docking before crewed flight. More of a good to have.

I can't believe I just read that. Are they seriously thinking they're going to send the thing to dock without having ever tested it? Boeing favoritism shows no bounds.

Stich would have said the exact same thing if this was Dragon, because it is true.  And, again, it has been tested. 

Please do not go making things up just to stir the proverbial pot.

No he wouldn't have. Dragon would not have been allowed to dock with crew on board without ever having tested it's docking and rendezvous software. I think people on this forum know this well.

Please don't try to dismiss my post as "stirring the pot" when there's legitimate safety issues here.

Spot on
And remember that CFT is a partial operational mission, with an added NASA astronaut, extended duration, and ISS training for the crew. Another anomaly could impact the continuous operation of the ISS. Going straight from an unsuccessful test flight to an operational flight seems like it would add significant risk.

And if the flight goal “was to check out the spacecraft in space and validate its onboard autonomy“ then it failed.

[BeamRider]

(Non-aerospace) IT guy here, trying to improve my understanding of the issue. Explanations I have read basically say "vehicle thought it was in OI burn, was not, so consumed excess attitude control fuel trying to maintain attitude consistent with OI". This is all attributed to MET problem.

BUT if the MET was the sole failure, why did one part of the system (attitude control) behave as if in OI burn, but another part of the system behave as if not - in other words, why did the orbital maneuvering engines not fire?

Not trying to prove some great insight here, just feel like there is something I don't understand. If the MET controls the timing of everything systemwide, it would seem the OI burn AND attitude system behavior should have BOTH occurred, if just at the wrong time.

[Verio Fryar]

If the next flight is crewed, it will have to prove the ISS proximity maneuvers (hold, retreat, dock, ...) with people inside the spacecraft. NASA will have to decide if the risk to the crew is acceptable.

[Lee Jay]

(Non-aerospace) IT guy here, trying to improve my understanding of the issue. Explanations I have read basically say "vehicle thought it was in OI burn, was not, so consumed excess attitude control fuel trying to maintain attitude consistent with OI". This is all attributed to MET problem.

BUT if the MET was the sole failure, why did one part of the system (attitude control) behave as if in OI burn, but another part of the system behave as if not - in other words, why did the orbital maneuvering engines not fire?

Not trying to prove some great insight here, just feel like there is something I don't understand. If the MET controls the timing of everything systemwide, it would seem the OI burn AND attitude system behavior should have BOTH occurred, if just at the wrong time.

They probably don't understand it fully either (yet).  But they will before they go flying again.

[Kansan52]

Maybe I'm naive, but shouldn't they be required to do an uncrewed docking test since the OFT will not be able to accomplish this? That way the would be able to reduce the risk to the astronauts docking with an untried docking procedure.

It seems, to this lay person, Go Fever at its worse. We failed to do the docking test but everything will go OK next time. That seems dangerous to me looking in from the outside. None of the knowledge gained from the orbital test will make up for an actual docking.

[Comga]

If the next flight is crewed, it will have to prove the ISS proximity maneuvers (hold, retreat, dock, ...) with people inside the spacecraft. NASA will have to decide if the risk to the crew is acceptable.

It will have to do those testes with or without a crew.
Dragon 2 on DM-1 did them, IIRC.
Didn’t they also validate the ability of the ISS crew to abort the approach, or was that only for the cargo missions?

NASA always decides if the risk is acceptable for the crew but there is no indication that any such test increases risk to them.

[Hog]

Stich: No hard requirement on an ISS docking before crewed flight. More of a good to have.

I can't believe I just read that. Are they seriously thinking they're going to send the thing to dock without having ever tested it? Boeing favoritism shows no bounds.

Not really. ISS docking was not a hard requirement for SpaceX's DM-1 either.

the science of space rendezvous and docking. Demonstrated during the Gemini 8 and the Agena Target Vehicle (ATV).  I've seen it typed that NASA and the United States has done well and retained expanded upon these skills over the years. 

During Apollo, there was the multiple configuration changes involving rendezvous and docking on the way to the Moon and later docking with Soyuz and Skylab.  Then along comes STS and rendezvous and station keeping abilities of the new Orbiter Vehicles are so good that projects such as Manned Maneuvering Unit MMU weren't really needed. 

Shuttle introduced another element, the ability to grapple and stow (berth) objects/crafts from orbit and then control its position/orientation for work or return to Earth. STS transferred all of these skills to ISS, and again they were expanded upon. SSRMS(CANADrm-2 thats used on ISS now), DEXTRE etc.  Heck even the 50 foot long OBSS was stowed up on ISS just in case that extra 50ft on top of the Space Station Remote Manipulator SSRMSs reach.  Apparently the OBSS is now called the Enhanced ISS Boom Assembly(EIBS).   Now these 2 new Commercial Crew vehicles will take the lessons learned and again expand and improve into the next era.

Exciting times we are in.

attachments
1)Canadarm-2 on ISS
2)MMU  STS-41B Feb 03 1984 Bruce McCandless
3)MMU on display
4) OBSS/EIBS
5) OBSS/EIBS grappled in different grapple position(middle)



edit, brutal sentence structure. Wow.

[JoeFromRIUSA]

This one is hard to categorize.  The boost phase of this launch (the Atlas 5 part) was successful, but CST-100 failed to do its insertion burn at the expected time.  The burn was subsequently commanded manually from the ground after a delay, but it was really a burn to a contingency orbit, not the originally planned orbit. 

So, is this a "launch failure" for the Atlas 5/CST-100 combo?  Or, is this a successful launch with subsequent on-orbit spacecraft issues?

 - Ed Kyle

Unless some new information arises I'd say the latter. Atlas V delivered the payload where it was supposed to go.

Atlas 5 was on the mark.  How close was the achieved Starliner post-OIB orbit to the plan?  It seems close on apogee/perigee, but by then ground control was aiming for a different mission plan regardless.  Isn't the real issue that prevented ISS docking excessive RCS propellant burn (not OMAC burn) due to the MET mis-clock?  Should I even count this as an orbital launch for Atlas 5, since Atlas 5 was suborbital?  Isn't it really a 3.5 stage Atlas 5/Starliner launch system?  Am I asking a lot of questions?

 - Ed Kyle

With all due respects Ed, for you are a launch vehicle maven, you're overthinking this.

[Lee Jay]

Maybe I'm naive, but shouldn't they be required to do an uncrewed docking test since the OFT will not be able to accomplish this? That way the would be able to reduce the risk to the astronauts docking with an untried docking procedure.

It seems, to this lay person, Go Fever at its worse. We failed to do the docking test but everything will go OK next time. That seems dangerous to me looking in from the outside. None of the knowledge gained from the orbital test will make up for an actual docking.

The reason this is okay is because the astronauts can take over and do a manual docking if things go badly with the automatic docking.  This has happened with the Russian vehicles before as well.

[GWR64]

... It shouldn't be necessary to remind everyone that with the sole exception of Crew Dragon's first flight last March no human spacecraft (Vostok, Mercury, Gemini, Voskhod, Soyuz, Apollo, Shuttle and Buran) have EVER docked with anything on their maiden shakedown flight. None of them. ...

ATV did it

[ccdengr]

BUT if the MET was the sole failure, why did one part of the system (attitude control) behave as if in OI burn, but another part of the system behave as if not

Different modules responding differently to the same input.  I haven't seen a description of the problem that wasn't dumbed down and easily misinterpreted, but I could imagine that if ACS was simply in a mode with tighter deadbands than idle coasting, fuel consumption would go up.

Also, the burn could have been inhibited by some other input that ACS wasn't looking at.

[ChrisWilson68]

... It shouldn't be necessary to remind everyone that with the sole exception of Crew Dragon's first flight last March no human spacecraft (Vostok, Mercury, Gemini, Voskhod, Soyuz, Apollo, Shuttle and Buran) have EVER docked with anything on their maiden shakedown flight. None of them. ...

ATV did it

ATV is not a human spacecraft.