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#260
by
DaveS
on 06 Jun, 2024 01:11
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As a former Boeing employee who worked in the Missiles and Space division decades ago, there are few bigger (quiet) cheerleaders for them in this mission than me, but these additional on-orbit helium leaks are exceedingly concerning to me. I can’t help but think there must be some systemic issue here, some commonality in components (same valve or seal designs, same vendor for parts, etc), or some design or build process issue involved. I honestly don’t know how they don’t abort the flight, get the crew safely on the ground and the hardware in a clean room to figure out what’s going on.
The GHe leaks are in the SM, not the CM so no chance of getting any of the leaky hardware back.
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#261
by
sdsds
on 06 Jun, 2024 01:14
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[...] I honestly don’t know how they don’t abort the flight, get the crew safely on the ground and the hardware in a clean room to figure out what’s going on.
Maybe there are cases where from a crew safety perspective abort-to-ISS is better than abort-to-surface? Under-performance on a de-orbit burn seems like a particularly sketchy scenario.
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#262
by
rsnellenberger
on 06 Jun, 2024 01:19
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As a former Boeing employee who worked in the Missiles and Space division decades ago, there are few bigger (quiet) cheerleaders for them in this mission than me, but these additional on-orbit helium leaks are exceedingly concerning to me. I can’t help but think there must be some systemic issue here, some commonality in components (same valve or seal designs, same vendor for parts, etc), or some design or build process issue involved. I honestly don’t know how they don’t abort the flight, get the crew safely on the ground and the hardware in a clean room to figure out what’s going on.
The GHe leaks are in the SM, not the CM so no chance of getting any of the leaky hardware back.
Do we have any idea what the mission rules are with regards to leaks in the He system?
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#263
by
yg1968
on 06 Jun, 2024 01:40
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#264
by
yg1968
on 06 Jun, 2024 01:54
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#265
by
Robert_the_Doll
on 06 Jun, 2024 01:55
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#266
by
deltaV
on 06 Jun, 2024 01:56
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Tory teasing this is probably the most accurate orbital insertion they've ever done.
Boo, ULA bragging about accuracy without quantifying it, again.
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#267
by
Targeteer
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:01
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#268
by
mn
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:11
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https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1798517747682525284
Brandon Burroughs is rapidly becoming a Boeing apologist/PR honk
It does say "Boeing's Brandon Burroughs", so it seems he works for Boeing, good enough reason to being a Boeing apologist.
But I don't get the mention of "Helium is not toxic or combustible" as if that's the problem, like who cares if we lose helium and perhaps lose ability to maneuver, but we're safe...
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#269
by
Formica
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:22
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It does say "Boeing's Brandon Burroughs", so it seems he works for Boeing, good enough reason to being a Boeing apologist.
But I don't get the mention of "Helium is not toxic or combustible" as if that's the problem, like who cares if we lose helium and perhaps lose ability to maneuver, but we're safe...
He's a reporter for the Washington Post; I don't think we're his target audience. It makes sense to me that a national news organization would explain something like that to a readership that doesn't follow space and science news the way we do.
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#270
by
meekGee
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:28
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https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1798517747682525284
Brandon Burroughs is rapidly becoming a Boeing apologist/PR honk
It does say "Boeing's Brandon Burroughs", so it seems he works for Boeing, good enough reason to being a Boeing apologist.
But I don't get the mention of "Helium is not toxic or combustible" as if that's the problem, like who cares if we lose helium and perhaps lose ability to maneuver, but we're safe...
You don't want people thinking that it'll lose buoyancy and fall from the sky, do you.
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#271
by
meekGee
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:33
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#272
by
Robert_the_Doll
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:42
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Link for tomorrow's rendezvous and docking live feed:
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#273
by
JohnLloydJones
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:44
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Helium is notoriously prone to leaking -- the atoms are so tiny. What they are reporting is a leakage that exceeds whatever they have set as a "nominal" value. This is a short duration flight, so they only need to have sufficient remaining pressure for the descent. They will have to get busy and get down to the root cause before they fly a normal (long duration) flight to be able to ensure the craft still has the necessary capacity to do re-entry. Maybe there are other valves that can be used to shut off the leakage while the craft is berthed at ISS?
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#274
by
novo2044
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:52
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Helium is notoriously prone to leaking -- the atoms are so tiny. What they are reporting is a leakage that exceeds whatever they have set as a "nominal" value. This is a short duration flight, so they only need to have sufficient remaining pressure for the descent. They will have to get busy and get down to the root cause before they fly a normal (long duration) flight to be able to ensure the craft still has the necessary capacity to do re-entry. Maybe there are other valves that can be used to shut off the leakage while the craft is berthed at ISS?
Hell you can rent a helium sniffer to detect subtle leaks. It all depends on the leak rate and if there's any chance a little leak could become a big one either spontaneously, or when the thrusters start firing. It's only staying for a week fortunately
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#275
by
meekGee
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:53
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Helium is notoriously prone to leaking -- the atoms are so tiny. What they are reporting is a leakage that exceeds whatever they have set as a "nominal" value. This is a short duration flight, so they only need to have sufficient remaining pressure for the descent. They will have to get busy and get down to the root cause before they fly a normal (long duration) flight to be able to ensure the craft still has the necessary capacity to do re-entry. Maybe there are other valves that can be used to shut off the leakage while the craft is berthed at ISS?
Helium leaks are difficult to eliminate in the sense that if you have a leak detector outside your apparatus, it'll sniff .some helium in the environment, but here they're seeing the helium leak because pressure is falling in some tanks and that's not the inevitable type of leak.
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#276
by
kdhilliard
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:55
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Is the He in question here only used to pressurize MMH & MON-3 propellant tanks, or is it also used as a motive force to operate individual thruster valves?
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#277
by
yg1968
on 06 Jun, 2024 02:56
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#278
by
abaddon
on 06 Jun, 2024 03:16
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I don’t have the exact quotes, but I recall NASA expressing confidence that the helium leak was not believed to be a common failure mode I.e. the issue was believed to be with the specific individual thruster. That seems unlikely likely at this point, which opens up a whole can of worms. Hope this is the extent of it and the capsule and crew complete the mission successfully.
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#279
by
SoftwareDude
on 06 Jun, 2024 03:26
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I don’t have the exact quotes, but I recall NASA expressing confidence that the helium leak was not believed to be a common failure mode I.e. the issue was believed to be with the specific individual thruster. That seems unlikely likely at this point, which opens up a whole can of worms. Hope this is the extent of it and the capsule and crew complete the mission successfully.
Well, if Suni and Butch start talking in high-pitched little voices, we'll know what's going on.