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#220
by
Olaf
on 07 Apr, 2020 15:11
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#221
by
ThatOldJanxSpirit
on 25 Apr, 2020 10:14
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#222
by
paul2k19
on 31 May, 2020 12:33
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#223
by
Mammutti
on 11 Jun, 2020 13:12
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Starliner Crew Training Goes Virtual
Advanced software pairs with new headset to bring 3D simulations anywhere
Physical simulators the size of spacecraft flight decks have long been the gold standard for astronauts practicing the demanding techniques and quick decisions involved with spaceflight.
That is changing with a wearable virtual reality (VR) system that will allow astronauts to train in their offices or even aboard the International Space Station.
The system is a combination of Boeing-tailored laptops and hand controllers plus an advanced headset by Varjo, a Finland-based VR and mixed-reality supplier. The headset’s high resolution allows an astronaut to operate just as they would in the spacecraft they are training for, with no need for a dedicated location or support staff.
The team developing the training system for Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner is on a path to eventually allow the system to be plugged into the overall training network. That means flight controllers in Mission Control and other training crew members – with their own headsets or in the physical simulator – will be able to practice with the headset-wearing astronauts.
“This one feels like you’re there. You really get the presence of being in the environment,” said Connie Miller of Boeing Houston, who coordinated the system development.
Boeing Australia’s Leighton Carr and Jake Opperman built VR elements of the headset software so that it could work with Boeing’s existing training software. The resulting system is a breakthrough for reproducing the intricate demands of spaceflight, especially in high-speed situations such as launch and entry.
Boeing’s Jim May, who works daily with the training software and system architecture, said the VR system had to be able to give astronauts the same look and feel they would have at the controls in order to train for normal mission situations and for scenarios when muscle memory and quick decisions are vital to success.
“The ability to connect and jointly train astronauts from various countries, agencies, and private partnerships will be especially important as human spaceflight becomes more commercialized and accessible to everyone,” May said.
http://www.boeing.com/features/2020/06/starliner-crew-training-goes-virtual.page
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#224
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 19 Jun, 2020 20:32
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https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1274076286667849729Boeing moves John Mulholland, who was head of the Starliner program when it recently suffered problems, to oversee the ISS program, according to an email sent to employees today by Jim Chilton, the company's head of space and launch.
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1274077031169511432Boeing announces management changes in its space division:
• Mark Mulqueen, ISS program manager, is retiring, effective July 2;
• John Mulholland, Starliner program manager, will become ISS program manager June 26;
• John Vollmer takes over as Starliner manager June 26.
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#225
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 24 Jun, 2020 18:34
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https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1275856630891065344 Stitch: Boeing is targeting launch of its second orbital flight test of Starliner "at the end of this year."
Boeing "made a lot of changes to the vehicle for the second OFT flight and updating the software is really the pacing item and the testing that's required for that."
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#226
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 29 Jun, 2020 19:05
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https://twitter.com/boeingspace/status/1277678030413053953 Our #Starliner parachutes and team performed with flying colors during a recent test. They showed that even under dynamic abort conditions and a simulated failure - astronauts would be safe.
More: http://www.boeing.com/features/2020/06/starliner-parachutes-perform-under-pressure.page
Starliner Parachutes Perform Under Pressure
Boeing’s spacecraft completes another reliability test; shares data
June 29, 2020 in Space
Boeing put Starliner’s parachutes to the test again on June 21 as part of a supplemental reliability campaign designed to further validate the system’s capabilities under an adverse set of environmental factors.
Boeing is developing the Starliner spacecraft to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station in partnership with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
This latest balloon drop, conducted high above White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, demonstrates Starliner’s parachutes continue to perform well even under dynamic abort conditions and a simulated failure. Boeing and NASA jointly developed the conditions for this test as part of a comprehensive test campaign to demonstrate Starliner parachute performance across the range of deployment conditions.
Teams wanted to be sure that if an abort were to occur early into launch, certain parachutes in Starliner’s landing sequence would inflate correctly despite needing to deploy in significantly different flight conditions than those seen with normal landings.
“Parachutes like clean air flow,” said Jim Harder, Boeing’s flight conductor. “They inflate predictably under a wide range of conditions, but in certain ascent aborts, you are deploying these parachutes into more unsteady air where proper inflation becomes less predictable. We wanted to test the inflation characteristics at low dynamic pressure so we can be completely confident in the system we developed.”
This critical test phase began six seconds into the drop when small parachutes designed to lift away Starliner’s Forward Heat Shield deployed successfully. Ten seconds later, the vehicle’s two drogue parachutes followed suit, inflating perfectly despite the low dynamic pressure. But the Starliner boilerplate wasn’t out of the woods yet.
Test teams added a fault scenario to the test objectives by preventing one of Starliner’s three main parachutes from deploying altogether. At 98 seconds into flight, just two pilot chutes were fired resulting in only two of the three main parachutes deploying. Despite the higher loading, Starliner’s parachutes performed effectively, bringing the test article down to Earth safely and slowly about two-and-a-half minutes later.
The data extracted from this test will be utilized to improve the reliability of the Starliner parachute system ahead of crewed flights and be shared with NASA for their own vehicle use.
“Our parachute system is very similar to the design NASA uses to bring humans safely back from the Moon. Turns out, we can use some of their test data to model our mission scenarios, and they can use a lot of our data to model theirs,” said Starliner test manager Dan Niedermaier. “It really is all about the data. The more you have, the more accurate your models will be. This shared approach helps to keep both systems incredibly safe.”
During the summer, Boeing and NASA will continue to test Starliner’s parachute strength, building out even more reliability on a system that’s already shown to be consistently robust.
“Our parachutes have passed every test.” Niedermaier said. “We continue to push our system because we know what’s at stake. This demanding test program ensures Starliner can bring our astronauts home safe.”
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is a public-private partnership combining NASA’s experience with new technology and designs pioneered by private industry to make space travel safer and available for all. This test is one of many steps that advances NASA’s goals of returning human spaceflight launches to U.S. soil on commercially-built and operated American rockets and spacecraft, preparing for a human presence on the Moon, and ultimately sending astronauts to Mars.
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#227
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 06 Jul, 2020 19:41
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July 6, 2020
MEDIA ADVISORY M20-076
NASA Provides Update on Commercial Crew Program, Close Call Review of Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test
NASA will host a media teleconference at 2:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday, July 7, to discuss the outcome of its High Visibility Close Call review of the December 2019 uncrewed Orbital Flight Test of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
Participants in the briefing will be:
Kathy Lueders, associate administrator of NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate
Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
Audio of the teleconference will stream live online at:
https://www.nasa.gov/live
To participate in the teleconference, media must contact Joshua Finch at [email protected] by 2 p.m. Tuesday for the dial-in information.
Boeing was able to complete a number of test objectives during the December flight, but was unable to reach its planned orbit and dock to the International Space Station. An investigation team was established in March to develop recommendations that could be used to prevent similar scenarios from occurring in the future.
In March, NASA and Boeing completed a joint independent review of the anomalies experienced during the flight test. A summary of recommendations and the action plan already implemented will be available online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test was an uncrewed test of the company’s Starliner crew spacecraft as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. Learn more about commercial crew at:
https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial/crew/index.html
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https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-provides-update-on-commercial-crew-program-close-call-review-of-boeing-s-orbital
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#228
by
Mammutti
on 07 Jul, 2020 18:24
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#229
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 07 Jul, 2020 18:40
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https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1280570024395264001NASA is hosting a call regarding the results of its close call review of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft orbital flight test (OFT) in December. NASA human spaceflight director Kathy Lueders and Commercial Crew program manager Steve Stich will lead the call.
Thread:
twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1280572146130071556
Stich: In March we had 61 recommendations for Boeing with Starliner. Now about 80 recommendations total that NASA and Boeing are working to implement.
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1280572748583055361 Stich: Today we're turning the page from the investigation phase from OFT into hardware development. The pacing item right now for the next flight is getting the software updates in place.
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#230
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 07 Jul, 2020 18:42
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July 7, 2020
NASA and Boeing Complete Orbital Flight Test Reviews
NASA and Boeing have completed major reviews of the company’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test in December 2019 and are continuing with preparations to refly the test, designated Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
“NASA and Boeing have completed a tremendous amount of work reviewing the issues experienced during the uncrewed flight test of Starliner,” said Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator at NASA. “Ultimately, everything we’ve found will help us improve as we move forward in the development and testing of Starliner, and in our future work with commercial industry as a whole.”
The joint NASA-Boeing Independent Review team completed the final assessment into the intermittent space-to-ground communication issue detected during the first uncrewed Orbital Flight Test of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. The review team previously completed its investigation into the two other primary anomalies experienced during the test.
With the completion of the investigation’s third and final focus area, the review team identified a total of 80 recommendations that Boeing, in collaboration with NASA, is addressing, with action plans for each already well under way. Although the full list of recommendations is company sensitive and proprietary, the categories of the corrective and preventative actions are as follows:
Testing and Simulation: 21 recommendations including the need for greater hardware and software integration testing; performance of an end-to-end “run for record” test prior to each flight using the maximum amount of flight hardware available; reviewing subsystem behaviors and limitations; and addressing any identified simulation or emulation gaps.
Requirements: 10 recommendations including an assessment of all software requirements with multiple logic conditions to ensure test coverage.
Process and Operational Improvements: 35 recommendations including modifications to change board documentation; bolstering required participants in peer reviews and test data reviews; and increasing the involvement of subject matter experts in safety critical areas.
Software: 7 recommendations including updating the software code and associated artifacts to correct the Mission Elapsed Timer Epoch and Service Module disposal anomalies; and making the antenna selection algorithm more robust.
Knowledge Capture and Hardware Modification: 7 recommendations such as organizational changes to the safety reporting structure; amending the Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) approach; and the addition of an external Radio Frequency (RF) filter to reject out-of-band interference.
As a result of this work and Boeing’s separate analysis, the company proactively announced in April it would fly a second orbital test at no cost to the government to prove the Starliner system meets NASA’s requirements, including docking to the space station.
Boeing and NASA have asked the independent review team to remain engaged as a valuable and important partner in the Starliner’s path to crewed flight. Additionally, lessons learned from the Starliner’s first uncrewed flight test are being shared across the human spaceflight community to strengthen the industry as a whole.
“As vital as it is to understand the technical causes that resulted in the flight test not fulfilling all of its planned objectives, it’s equally as important to understand how those causes connect to organizational factors that could be contributors,” said Jurczyk. “That’s why NASA also decided to perform a high visibility close call review that looked at our combined teams.”
NASA has now also completed the high visibility close call investigation to specifically review the organizational factors within NASA and Boeing that could have contributed to the flight test anomalies. The close call investigation team, established in March, was tasked with developing recommendations that could be used to prevent similar close calls from occurring in the future.
The close call team built off the technical findings of the joint independent review team related to the software coding errors made during the development of the spacecraft. The team also received additional briefings, held subject matter expert discussions and conducted interviews across the organizations.
Based on the findings, the team developed the following recommendations for the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate to incorporate into future programs:
* Require that the systems engineering management plan delivered by each contractor contain specific requirements related to the contractor’s management approach.
* Ensure that NASA reviews and approves the contractor’s hazard verification test plans prior to test execution.
* Ensure NASA independent validation and verification (IV&V) teams provide insight to contractor IV&V agents.
* Implement an approach that ensures alternate standards are reviewed and approved prior to beginning development work.
* Develop a best practices document for use by future programs that implement the shared accountability model used in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
* Evaluate Boeing’s actions developed by the joint independent review team for applicability post-certification.
With the development of these recommendations, the high visibility close call investigation has concluded.
“I can’t stress enough how committed the Boeing team has been throughout this process,” said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA. “Boeing has worked collaboratively with NASA to perform these detailed assessments. To be clear, we have a lot more work ahead, but these significant steps help us move forward on the path toward resuming our flight tests.”
Boeing and NASA have not yet established a launch date for OFT-2.
Last Updated: July 7, 2020
Editor: Danielle Sempsrott
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-and-boeing-complete-orbital-flight-test-reviews
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#231
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 07 Jul, 2020 18:51
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#232
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 07 Jul, 2020 20:36
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https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1280576568247480320Lueders: We still plan to do an organizational safety assessment with Boeing like we did with SpaceX.
It has been delayed due to COVID-19, as the original plan required lots of in person interviews.
twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1280580214729261058
Stitch admits that NASA felt more comfortable with Boeing's traditional approach, so SpaceX may have had more oversight since they had a newer approach.
https://twitter.com/nextspaceflight/status/1280580494560649216 Lueders says that SpaceX's newer approach to software development is very robost, and they would like to see more elements of it at Boeing.
Edit to add:
https://twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/1280580812312895488 Lueders: SpX has robust way of doing this. After software is done, they go back and ask engineers if it's operating the way they expected. Strong systems engineering approach. To be sure owners of systems know how they operate. Was big learning experience for us. This was a gift
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#233
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 08 Jul, 2020 21:13
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#234
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 23 Jul, 2020 15:05
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#235
by
Rzeppa
on 24 Jul, 2020 19:44
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#236
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 30 Jul, 2020 07:57
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https://twitter.com/jimbridenstine/status/1288631950929010689Just a few miles away from where @NASAPersevere will leave Earth tomorrow, @BoeingSpace’s #Starliner team is busy getting ready for their next flight. Their dedicated engineers and technicians are working incredibly hard to make every future mission a success.
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#237
by
yg1968
on 21 Aug, 2020 18:07
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#238
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 24 Aug, 2020 16:31
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#239
by
FutureSpaceTourist
on 25 Aug, 2020 15:28
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https://twitter.com/jimbridenstine/status/1298279772116652035 NEWS: We assigned @Astro_Jeanette to NASA’s Boeing Starliner-1 mission, the first operational @BoeingSpace mission with @Astro_Josh and @Astro_Suni. Jeanette is a fantastic addition to the Starliner-1 team as we continue to #LaunchAmerica: nasa.gov/press-release/…
Aug. 25, 2020
RELEASE 20-082
NASA Astronaut Jeanette Epps Joins First Operational Boeing Crew Mission to Space Station
NASA has assigned astronaut Jeanette Epps to NASA’s Boeing Starliner-1 mission, the first operational crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on a mission to the International Space Station.
Epps will join NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada for a six-month expedition planned for a launch in 2021 to the orbiting space laboratory. The flight will follow NASA certification after a successful uncrewed Orbital Flight Test-2 and Crew Flight Test with astronauts.
The spaceflight will be the first for Epps, who earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1992 from LeMoyne College in her hometown of Syracuse, New York. She completed a master’s degree in science in 1994 and a doctorate in aerospace engineering in 2000, both from the University of Maryland, College Park.
While earning her doctorate, Epps was a NASA Graduate Student Researchers Project fellow, authoring several journal and conference articles on her research. After completing graduate school, she worked in a research laboratory for more than two years, co-authoring several patents, before the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) recruited her. She spent seven years as a CIA technical intelligence officer before her selection as a member of the 2009 astronaut class.
NASA assigned Williams and Cassada to the Starliner-1 mission in August 2018. The spaceflight will be the first for Cassada and third for Williams, who spent long-duration stays aboard the space station on Expeditions 14/15 and 32/33.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is working with the American aerospace industry as companies develop and operate a new generation of spacecraft and launch systems capable of carrying crews to low-Earth orbit and to the space station. Commercial transportation to and from the station will provide expanded utility, additional research time and broader opportunities for discovery on the orbital outpost.
For nearly 20 years, the station has served as a critical testbed for NASA to understand and overcome the challenges of long-duration spaceflight. As commercial companies focus on providing human transportation services to and from low-Earth orbit, NASA will concentrate its focus on building spacecraft and rockets for deep-space missions.
Follow Epps on social media at:
https://twitter.com/Astro_Jeanette
and
https://www.instagram.com/jeanette.epps/
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https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-astronaut-jeanette-epps-joins-first-operational-boeing-crew-mission-to-space/