-
#820
by
OTV Booster
on 13 Jul, 2024 23:16
-
I can see no reason to not take NASA at its word. Wilmore and Williams are NOT stranded as implied by so many uninformed posters. Starliner is NOT stuck at the ISS. The mission IS being extended specifically to give the experts as much time as possible to monitor the situation with the thrusters and the helium leaks on the Service Module with the aim of gathering as much data as possible in order to better understand the dynamics of the anomalies, seeing as the Service Module won't be recovered for study. Wilmore and Williams WILL return at the mission conclusion in their own spacecraft, Starliner. The spacecraft itself is functioning properly and is not seeing anything that might be a cause for concern. There is no need for a rescue mission. Some people here need to take a chill pill and just enjoy watching the professionals guide the mission.
I mostly agree but with some nuance.
The He leak is an engineering concern but not a safety concern. Unless it changes radically, and there's no reason to expect this, there appears to be plenty of margin.
The thruster heat/degradation problem is also an engineering concern but has potential to be a safety concern. It's most likely ok for deorbit but prudence calls for testing.
They're doing everything right. They'll do all the ground testing possible and I expect testing on the ship itself to verify or clarify what the ground testing shows before they'll decide on a return. What else can they do? Nothing I can think of.
It's not impossible that the ground testing will be inconclusive. They haven't yet been able to replicate the overheating. Or they might nail it. Then they might find accelerated degradation on a ship test or they may find things ok. AIUI, ship testing will eat into the He reserves and at the same time allow further characterization of the engineering concerns. He consumption may put a limit on ship testing.
The best case is everything checks out ok, and it is. The next to worst possible outcome is the ongoing morning line for the toilet. The worst possible case is that everything tests out ok and it isn't. That is low probability but it's there.
Not hand wringing. Analysis.
-
#821
by
sdsds
on 14 Jul, 2024 00:08
-
They're doing everything right.
They're doing everything quite well. Except maybe managing the social media crowd. The task of herding cats might not be one in which NASA or Boeing are highly skilled.
-
#822
by
OTV Booster
on 14 Jul, 2024 02:25
-
They're doing everything right.
They're doing everything quite well. Except maybe managing the social media crowd. The task of herding cats might not be one in which NASA or Boeing are highly skilled.
There's no way to control click bait. Their best tactic is to ignore them then bring em back safe n sound.
"Gonna take ya,
Gonna break ya,
Gonna forget ya better still"
-Tommy, The Who.
-
#823
by
pathfinder_01
on 14 Jul, 2024 23:13
-
They're doing everything right.
They're doing everything quite well. Except maybe managing the social media crowd. The task of herding cats might not be one in which NASA or Boeing are highly skilled.
There's no way to control click bait. Their best tactic is to ignore them then bring em back safe n sound.
There is a way to Control click bait. Don't send people into space on a spacecraft that has thruster problems and helium leaks esp. after it has had two unmanned test flight which both had some issues. If you need to test in space at the ISS with a crew that planned to have a short mission then what the politically and social incorrect word has happened here. Many new spacecraft have been sent into space without thruster problems on the 2nd and 3rd flight. What has happened to allow this problem to either not be discovered beforehand or corrected by the 3rd flight?
Space can be hard but this is getting ridiculous. Good luck and God send plenty of patience to Sunny and Butch but this was supposed to be a simple flight to finally certify the CST-100 not diagnose another problem and become a weeks long unplanned stay at the ISS.
-
#824
by
D_Dom
on 15 Jul, 2024 01:09
-
LOL, setting pathfinder to ignore
-
#825
by
meekGee
on 15 Jul, 2024 02:40
-
LOL, setting pathfinder to ignore
That won't solve the problem either.
People are taking off with crazy click-bait articles and youTubes, for sure, but it's not without basis. As PF said, this was supposed to be a milk run by now.
-
#826
by
Mr. Scott
on 15 Jul, 2024 04:37
-
LOL, setting pathfinder to ignore
That won't solve the problem either.
People are taking off with crazy click-bait articles and youTubes, for sure, but it's not without basis. As PF said, this was supposed to be a milk run by now.
This is how the show Gilligan’s Island started.
-
#827
by
OTV Booster
on 15 Jul, 2024 17:25
-
They're doing everything right.
They're doing everything quite well. Except maybe managing the social media crowd. The task of herding cats might not be one in which NASA or Boeing are highly skilled.
There's no way to control click bait. Their best tactic is to ignore them then bring em back safe n sound.
There is a way to Control click bait. Don't send people into space on a spacecraft that has thruster problems and helium leaks esp. after it has had two unmanned test flight which both had some issues. If you need to test in space at the ISS with a crew that planned to have a short mission then what the politically and social incorrect word has happened here. Many new spacecraft have been sent into space without thruster problems on the 2nd and 3rd flight. What has happened to allow this problem to either not be discovered beforehand or corrected by the 3rd flight?
Space can be hard but this is getting ridiculous. Good luck and God send plenty of patience to Sunny and Butch but this was supposed to be a simple flight to finally certify the CST-100 not diagnose another problem and become a weeks long unplanned stay at the ISS.
We can talk about what 'should be' and we can talk about 'what is'. AIUI we were discussing 'what is'.
I've got a whole raft of Boeing bashing pent up but nothing that would constructively add to this conversation.
-
#828
by
cpushack
on 16 Jul, 2024 06:36
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
-
#829
by
AmigaClone
on 16 Jul, 2024 08:57
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
Has there been any recent updates on when there will be a press conference giving the general public the status of when any decision will be made for Stayliner's CFT could return to Earth?
-
#830
by
ZachS09
on 16 Jul, 2024 12:09
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
Of course, it’s easy to get distracted. You get so immersed in this one topic until someone else gives you a reminder.
-
#831
by
Vettedrmr
on 16 Jul, 2024 12:51
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
Has there been any recent updates on when there will be a press conference giving the general public the status of when any decision will be made for Stayliner's CFT could return to Earth?
Well, in the last presser they hinted they could return Crew-8 before Crew-9 arrives and keep CST-100 on station (as it were) during the interim.
-
#832
by
DanClemmensen
on 16 Jul, 2024 13:05
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
Has there been any recent updates on when there will be a press conference giving the general public the status of when any decision will be made for Stayliner's CFT could return to Earth?
Well, in the last presser they hinted they could return Crew-8 before Crew-9 arrives and keep CST-100 on station (as it were) during the interim.
This was discussed only in the context of the lack of docking ports. The implication was that the Crew-9 would dock at most a few hours after Crew-8 undocks. Needed because Starliner is occupying the other port. The use of the Starliner crew to bridge until F9 returns to flight was never brought up, because F9 was not grounded at the time this comment was made.
-
#833
by
Vettedrmr
on 16 Jul, 2024 13:10
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
Has there been any recent updates on when there will be a press conference giving the general public the status of when any decision will be made for Stayliner's CFT could return to Earth?
Well, in the last presser they hinted they could return Crew-8 before Crew-9 arrives and keep CST-100 on station (as it were) during the interim.
This was discussed only in the context of the lack of docking ports. The implication was that the Crew-9 would dock at most a few hours after Crew-8 undocks. Needed because Starliner is occupying the other port. The use of the Starliner crew to bridge until F9 returns to flight was never brought up, because F9 was not grounded at the time this comment was made.
Agreed. However, I didn't hear anything about the duration between Crew 8 and 9 only being a couple of hours, just that rather than send Starliner home to free up the port, they would instead send Crew 8 home before Crew 9 arrives, which is not normal.
-
#834
by
DanClemmensen
on 16 Jul, 2024 13:23
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
Has there been any recent updates on when there will be a press conference giving the general public the status of when any decision will be made for Stayliner's CFT could return to Earth?
Well, in the last presser they hinted they could return Crew-8 before Crew-9 arrives and keep CST-100 on station (as it were) during the interim.
This was discussed only in the context of the lack of docking ports. The implication was that the Crew-9 would dock at most a few hours after Crew-8 undocks. Needed because Starliner is occupying the other port. The use of the Starliner crew to bridge until F9 returns to flight was never brought up, because F9 was not grounded at the time this comment was made.
Agreed. However, I didn't hear anything about the duration between Crew 8 and 9 only being a couple of hours, just that rather than send Starliner home to free up the port, they would instead send Crew 8 home before Crew 9 arrives, which is not normal.
The only other "indirect transfer" was from Crew-2 to Crew-3. It happened because Crew-2 ran out of time-on-station, while Crew-3 had multiple launch delays, which created the gap. At the time of the presser, there was no gap, and therefore no reason to delay crew-9 docking. If there is a long-enough F9 return-to-flight delay, such a gap would open. Crew-8 will reach 200 days-on-station on about 20 September. If this were to occur before Starliner undocks, then indeed the Starliner mission suddenly becomes a gap-filler in addition to its primary CFT mission and its current fault-characterization mission.
I guess the question becomes: would NASA ask Boeing to deliberately extend CFT to fill a gap caused by the F9 grounding?
-
#835
by
Asteroza
on 16 Jul, 2024 22:01
-
Can we get back to discussing THIS CST-100 CFT mission? Its easy to get distracted for sure.
Has there been any recent updates on when there will be a press conference giving the general public the status of when any decision will be made for Stayliner's CFT could return to Earth?
Well, in the last presser they hinted they could return Crew-8 before Crew-9 arrives and keep CST-100 on station (as it were) during the interim.
This was discussed only in the context of the lack of docking ports. The implication was that the Crew-9 would dock at most a few hours after Crew-8 undocks. Needed because Starliner is occupying the other port. The use of the Starliner crew to bridge until F9 returns to flight was never brought up, because F9 was not grounded at the time this comment was made.
Agreed. However, I didn't hear anything about the duration between Crew 8 and 9 only being a couple of hours, just that rather than send Starliner home to free up the port, they would instead send Crew 8 home before Crew 9 arrives, which is not normal.
The only other "indirect transfer" was from Crew-2 to Crew-3. It happened because Crew-2 ran out of time-on-station, while Crew-3 had multiple launch delays, which created the gap. At the time of the presser, there was no gap, and therefore no reason to delay crew-9 docking. If there is a long-enough F9 return-to-flight delay, such a gap would open. Crew-8 will reach 200 days-on-station on about 20 September. If this were to occur before Starliner undocks, then indeed the Starliner mission suddenly becomes a gap-filler in addition to its primary CFT mission and its current fault-characterization mission.
I guess the question becomes: would NASA ask Boeing to deliberately extend CFT to fill a gap caused by the F9 grounding?
That's still contingent on the 45 day battery decline limit on detection of a cell fault, correct? So far they haven't announced a cell fault yet triggering that countdown...
-
#836
by
sdsds
on 17 Jul, 2024 03:30
-
Ideas that might be totally off the table, but offered anyway:
- undocking and redocking the CFT Starliner
- conducting a flyaround before departure
- anything else that gets actual thruster in-use data before committing to de-orbit?
-
#837
by
Targeteer
on 17 Jul, 2024 18:20
-
Butch is in Starliner and it sounds like the ground is trying to recover the CO2 sensor I reported failed off scale high previously in the thread through the tried and true method of repeated power cycles....
-
#838
by
clongton
on 17 Jul, 2024 18:32
-
Butch is in Starliner and it sounds like the ground is trying to recover the CO2 sensor I reported failed off scale high previously in the thread through the tried and true method of repeated power cycles....
A CO2 sensor is a small device, taking up very little space and mass. It is unconscionable, to me, that there is only 1 on the spacecraft, when a backup would be so easy to install. It is a life support critical item. WHY is there only 1?
-
#839
by
OTV Booster
on 17 Jul, 2024 18:54
-
Butch is in Starliner and it sounds like the ground is trying to recover the CO2 sensor I reported failed off scale high previously in the thread through the tried and true method of repeated power cycles....
Have they tried a pedal extremity interface?