22 ms·

NASA acknowledges it cannot quantify risk of Starliner propulsion issues

314 points by geerlingguy 2y ago

ndiddy 2y ago
If anyone here's familiar with how these decisions are made, I'm curious about why NASA says they need another week to choose their path forward. Given that we're already over two months into a week-long mission, what information don't they have that they would have in another week?
- alsodumb 2y ago
  They and their partners (Boeing) are running more tests as we speak - probably expecting more data that could answer some questions.
- icegreentea2 2y ago
  Well, they said they would do more modelling. Since they've definitely already done a pile of modelling, the remaining modelling is probably running down a list of alternate assumptions and approaches in whatever modelling system they've been using. Most likely they've already gone ahead modeled out all of their most likely and high confidence assumptions and approaches. Likely the modelling results haven't quite converged, leading them to be unsure. In parallel, my pet theory is that NASA has probably already made up its mind (astronauts are not going to return on Starliner), and have been dragging this out mostly to make it look like they aren't just going to throw their contractors under the bus (even if they deserve it). Boeing has declared cold feet over fixed cost contracts (in general, not just with NASA), and I think NASA wants to keep the rest of the contractor pool at least at ease that, okay maybe NASA might start being stingier with the money and contracts, but they aren't going just throw you under the bus when issues appear.
  - phkahler 2y ago
    Modeling is irrelevant when you don't know the cause of the failures or even have an idea. 5 thrusters failed and 4 came back and apparently they don't know why in either case.
    - krisoft 2y ago
      > or even have an idea. They have an idea. "Tests of a similar control jet on the ground suggested a Teflon seal in an internal valve could swell at higher temperatures, restricting the flow of propellant to the thruster." That is the idea they have and they are checking if it matches with the measured signals / explains the observations.
    - mauvehaus 2y ago
      If they know what is/was wrong, they can model what happens if the problem reoccurs even if they don't know why it occurred, disappeared, or might reoccur. But yeah, about the only thing more irritating than having a problem occur for reasons you don't understand is having it disappear for reasons you also don't understand.
    - numpad0 2y ago
      I think they're just being great manager-engineers just as they should be. The root-ish cause so far determined is Teflon seal soaking in rocket fuel and bulging, constricting flow. Downstream it is creating improper oxidizer/fuel ratio and excess heat at thrusters which is triggering alarm and automatic shutdown. These were all explained in plain and accessible English in NASA press conferences and I've watched it online. I'd been a space fan for long enough that I know "improper O/F ratio" usually goes under a picture of a fireball or an artist's impression file image. There were multiple spacecrafts that at least blew off engines that way. The JAXA SLIM mission just this January had it that way. The fact that NASA/Boeing Starliner team keep triggering it and getting away with it is probably technically magnificent. With that prior knowledge, one way I can interpret those corpospeak is "we aren't sure if we can continue to do that and not finally kill the engines, or worse yet, turn everything into a bomb with people inside or around". Many are instead receiving "we technically know such and such [unintelligible] but we aren't sure of anything and we have no idea". That's a great demonstration of public relations skills.
      - dotnet00 2y ago
        They're running with the theory of it being the teflon seals, but IIRC the problem is that it doesn't explain why the thrusters appeared to be operating relatively normally in a test at the station. The seal deformation should be permanent, in which case the thrusters shouldn't have recovered on their own, meaning that they might not have caught the real issue. That's what's making the risk difficult to quantify.
  - TMWNN 2y ago
    > In parallel, my pet theory is that NASA has probably already made up its mind (astronauts are not going to return on Starliner), and have been dragging this out mostly to make it look like they aren't just going to throw their contractors under the bus (even if they deserve it). The longer NASA pushes out a decision on what to do with Starliner, the more it becomes likely that people within the Biden administration don't want to go with the obvious choice of bringing home the crew on a Crew Dragon, because they don't want the resulting headlines shouting "Elon Musk rescues astronauts from space".
    - thefourthchime 2y ago
      I hadn’t thought of a political angle for this, but that does make sense. Announcing “Elon saves NASA” certainly helps the GOP more.
      - WillPostForFood 2y ago
        It clearly helps SpaceX, Musk mostly indirectly, and GOP not at all.
        booi 2y ago
        Elon is the maga crowd's newest talking head so it helps the GOP at least a little.
        Covzire 2y ago
        Why does this kind of partisan bickering only ever go one way on HN? Why does every decision have to be a careful calculus when one political party instead of another might get credit? Do people not realize how blatantly biased and partisan they sound?
        allenrb 2y ago
        Maybe because there’s a larger overlap between HN demographics and those of the Democratic Party versus those of the GOP? That’s beside the point, though. NASA is an agency of the United States Government. The idea that politics do not come into play is naive at best.
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    NASA is paying SpaceX something like $200 million per launch. They won’t want to do that unless they have to. And if they did they still need to figure out what to do with Starliner. If they pay SpaceX and then later manage to get Starliner to work then that’s a lot of money down the drain.
    - sitkack 2y ago
      Dead astronauts are way more expensive.
    - XorNot 2y ago
      The cost isn't the issue here: the problem is you still have to undock and dispose of the capsule without it running back into the station.
    - detaro 2y ago
      The current outlined plan does not require an extra SpaceX launch, so that argument doesn't make sense.
    - tonyhart7 2y ago
      200 millions usd for NASA is relatively small no ??? still a lot of money yes but for space exploration project ???? probably more than enough people (taxpayer) happy to pay that
  - 7952 2y ago
    At this point they are probably not going to succeed in certification. It is a damage limitation exercise. They can... 1. Return uncrewed and burn up. Nasa complemented for its caution. 2. Return uncrewed successfully. Nasa complemented for "excess of caution". 3. Return crewed successfully. Major concern remains over the craft. People continue to question the decision making for years. 4. Craft kills the crew. Either way you are not getting a certified spacecraft out of this. Of course there is a further possibility that the departing craft will cause risk or damage to the iss.
  - nonethewiser 2y ago
    What does this sort of modeling look like? I guess I kind of naively assumed there were people gathering information on the current state, collecting different ways to get the astronauts back with detailed cost/benefit, quantification of risk, etc. and then some executive was collecting this to make a decision. I mean I'm sure that's still happening to some degree but this process of modeling sounds a lot more formal.
- krisoft 2y ago
  I believe the article contains the answer to your question. It says "engineers will attempt to model the behavior of the valve with the bulging Teflon seal over the next week and its effects on thruster performance."
- TMWNN 2y ago
  >Given that we're already over two months into a week-long mission, what information don't they have that they would have in another week? As an Ars commenter observed <https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-acknowledges-it-cannot-quantify-risk-of-starliner-propulsion-issues/?comments=1&post=43073205 https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-acknowledges-it-c...>, it is possible that the real issue isn't whether Starliner is safe to return with humans. If that were the question two months of debate are, as you said, by itself enough to say "no". Return Wilmore and Williams on Crew Dragon. Done. The commenter posited that the real issue is that NASA does not trust Boeing's software to undock Starliner autonomously. We know that Wilmore had to take manual control on the way up because of the thruster issues. NASA may fear that if thrusters fail again, Starliner software may again not be able to handle them, and the spacecraft might ram ISS. Thus, the agency wants a human to be able to take over if necessary. *That* is the dilemma. This is something that I and others had mentioned over the past couple of weeks, but the Ars commenter is I think the first outside NASA to put it so starkly.
  - verzali 2y ago
    That comment confuses me slightly. NASA always has the ability to take over the controls of a spacecraft operating around the ISS, even remotely by command from the ISS itself. The software should certainly be able to handle this.
    - Animats 2y ago
      Apparently not.[1] Although better sources for this are needed. [1] https://simpleflying.com/boeing-starliner-undocking-software-issue-nasa-astronaut-return/ https://simpleflying.com/boeing-starliner-undocking-software...
      - TMWNN 2y ago
        Eric Berger—Ars Technica reporter who wrote the article SimpleFlying cited—initially reported that Starliner needs a software update that will take four weeks, and NASA (I believe Ken Bowersox) worded it in the penultimate media event as reverting back to the 2022 software, but we now understand from context that in this case that means reverting to the 2022 parameters; NASA was very specific about the software itself not having changed. The SLS[1] stans (as Berger described on Twitter) are now focusing on how parameter change != software update thus Berger was wrong all along. It'd be one thing if said changes took a day or two to do. But assuming that it is the four weeks Berger reported, that absolutely means that it is the same thing as "software needs replacing"/"functionality was removed". To the client, NASA in this case, it doesn't matter whether the weeks to implement a new feature is (one week of uploading parameters and three weeks to validate said parameters), or (3.5 weeks of uploading new software and 0.5 weeks of validating said new software). The end result is needing four weeks. [1] Space Launch System, intended to return the US to the moon. Cost: $24 billion and rising fast
- bigln 2y ago
  Well, unlike in web software, very real people could die if they screw up, and they aren't exactly pressed for time right now, so what's wrong with being careful?
- dotnet00 2y ago
  I think for part of your question (why do they specifically say a week), the length isn't all that meaningful. As in, if they want to more time to make a decision, they'll just announce another week's delay. They have weekly status update conferences, and just cancelling those conferences might be more of a PR risk than just keeping the conference and announcing that they're delaying making a decision.
- baggachipz 2y ago
  An additional week ensures they stay compliant with their rich tradition: a time estimate being off by an order of magnitude.
- TheCondor 2y ago
  They may still be chasing down some loose ends. While additional time allows for some more models and theories, I think it becomes exponentially less likely that it will alter the safe course of action. If the system is so complex that an extra week does yield some major new insights, that’s way too complex to use.
- omoikane 2y ago
  It's intriguing to me that they seem to be prioritizing information collection to determine whether Starliner is viable, as opposed to definitively announce a return via SpaceX and making preparations for that. It's like if I have a service outage, maybe I might spend a few minutes to collect debugging information, but my priority would be to bring the service back up via rollbacks or whatever to restore a previously known good state. Currently they are debugging Starliner with people stranded, but maybe they should prioritize on getting those people back home first. Or maybe everyone involved don't consider being stranded for months in space as a bad state.
0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. If you designed/built/influenced any part of the design and watching this play out publicly. Leaving astronauts stranded and potentially with a module stuck on the space station. Do you definitely start looking for a new job? Assume that ultimately nothing will change?
- charlie0 2y ago
  You certainly can't snitch, we saw what happened with that one guy who tried it.
  - skyfaller 2y ago
    Two Boeing whistleblowers: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblower-josh-dean-dead https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblow...
    - DoctorOetker 2y ago
      We should concede that its probably hard to do one's job properly, if one "has" to take on the second job of organizing a gangstalking crew or assassins. How can we fault them for improperly leading Boeing workforce with these extra tasks? /s
- phkahler 2y ago
  >> Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. I'm even more curious about the astronauts. Are they willing to risk it? Are they even part of the discussions? Are they saying "screw that thing, get me a dragon"? I haven't heard a single word about their take on it.
  - trebligdivad 2y ago
    If you listen to the teleconference, NASA was asked and it really seem to be more that they'll do what they're told; which seemed odd to me. And those conferences have not had either the astronauts or Boeing on; which IMHO is just weird. Having said that, I suspect the astronauts aren't actually that worried by that thruster issue. They managed to dock it OK (manually). It's more NASA getting comfortable that they understand the failure.
the_real_cher 2y ago
How is Boeing so consistently terrible nowadays? Theyre going to kill people at some point.
- phkahler 2y ago
  >> They already did with the 2 737 Max crashes.
- zie 2y ago
  They put business people in charge with the last merger, instead of people with technical backgrounds. As for killing people, they have already done that with the 737 Max.
  - the_real_cher 2y ago
    Insane. MBAs are a menace
    - Spartan-S63 2y ago
      A professional management class is a menace. Managers with experience in the domain they’re managing are key. Engineers-evolved-into-managers should lead engineering firms, etc. If you don’t understand what your underlying business is, you’re doomed to fail. Likewise, businesses should be predicated on selling products, not on boosting stock prices. There are at least two very wrong things: the Jack Welch-ification of companies, and professional MBAs.
      - booi 2y ago
        case in point, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su. Both I think are excellent run engineering tech firms that would be ruined by an MBA. See Intel as an example..
  - Yeul 2y ago
    They didn't have a choice. When Airbus developed into feasible competition Boeing suddenly had to start making money. The aviation industry wants cheap, fuel economic and reliable "air busses". A brilliant name indeed.
don-code 2y ago
I'm somewhat surprised that, after the SpaceX / Boring Company "rescue submarine" offer a few years ago, Elon Musk hasn't personally suggested (over X, of course) that SpaceX send up another Dragon inside of some compressed timeframe. I'm assuming there must be some other limitations at play - maybe one can't be readied that fast, or there's some other regulatory reason?
- creer 2y ago
  Isn't SpaceX already scheduled with the next vehicle there? With likely enough space on it and no rush on the space station? SpaceX is already next, already in the news as the safe solution.
- gpm 2y ago
  As the article mentions, but is discussed in more detail in another article [0], the alternative that is being considered (and that SpaceX was already paid $266,678 to study, though that contract was not necessarily awarded because of this situation where it might become necessary) is bringing them home on the dragon already up there. [0] https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/yes-nasa-really-could-bring-starliners-astronauts-back-on-crew-dragon/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/yes-nasa-really-could-...
  - nordsieck 2y ago
    > the alternative that is being considered (and that SpaceX was already paid $266,678 to study, though that contract was not necessarily awarded because of this situation where it might become necessary) is bringing them home on the dragon already up there. It's a little more nuanced than that. If NASA decides to bring the Astronauts home on a Crew Dragon, there will be a short window of time between when Starliner undocks and when the next Crew Dragon docks that there will be 6 International Astronauts on the ISS and only 4 seats. If an emergency happens during that time, NASA would jerry-rig some extra seats in the existing Crew Dragon and bring all 6 home that way. But that's a very short period of time - just a couple of weeks. The next Crew Dragon will only have 2 Astronauts aboard, and will contain suits for Butch and Sunny, so that all 4 of them can return normally on that vehicle at the end of the next rotation.
bottlepalm 2y ago
I'm more upset at NASA than Boeing over this for downplaying this issue for months while doing very serious things in the background like hot fire testing. Not transparent at all. You can easily see how public perception thought everything was fine all through July here: https://manifold.markets/Shihan/will-spacex-dragon-rescue-boeing-st https://manifold.markets/Shihan/will-spacex-dragon-rescue-bo... I'd love an investigation to see if the public perception matched NASA's perception. I would be money that it doesn't which means NASA has been hiding the truth from the public. How can anyone trust what NASA says after this?
- ggm 2y ago
  Is "hiding the truth" only a view if the truth is worse than the public think or could you imagine arguing that NASA "hid the truth" that its safer than the public thinks? Objectively I suspect the only hidden truths here are perceptions/knowlege that its worse than people think. Hiding you think its better is .. unlikely. Personally I don't ascribe a moral hazard dimension here. Probably, the NASA officials who had the power to state things, were not the ones conducting testing and their PR people were put on hold. I think its a malice/incompetence thing (Hanlon's razor)
- TMWNN 2y ago
  > I'm more upset at NASA than Boeing over this for downplaying this issue for months while doing very serious things in the background like hot fire testing. Not transparent at all. As late as July 28, NASA flight director Ed Van Cise explicitly denied that the Starliner crew was stuck or stranded <https://x.com/Carbon_Flight/status/1817754775196201035 https://x.com/Carbon_Flight/status/1817754775196201035>. Even if one quibbles about whether "stranded" applies in this situation (I believe that it does <https://np.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ekicol/not_stranded_in_space_how_nasa_lost_control_of/lgm9fcb/?context=3 https://np.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ekicol/not_stranded_...>), "stuck" definitely does.
- burnished 2y ago
  This reads as histrionics. You want an investigation into whether the general public felt the same panic people on the project do? No thanks, I'm alright with letting them get on with it and getting the full picture later.
lokar 2y ago
You can rarely quantify the risk of complex systems. You should instead attempt to bound the risk. This often helps guide your next steps: how can you improve the bounds?
- goku12 2y ago
  Quantification of reliability and risk of entire systems like spacecrafts is a real activity in aerospace engineering (probably in other safety critical fields too). They take the reliability figures of every single component based on experience, and use them to progressively calculate the reliability up to subsystem and full system levels. From this, they can assess the probabilistic risk involved. Granted that these figures are theoretical and probably varies from reality by a good margin. But these figures are still useful. For one, these figures are updated, recalculated and refined as more actual figures are obtained from components, packages, subsystems and system level tests. The final reliability and risk figures progressively approach the actual values as more tests, including flight tests are conducted. In addition, even preliminary figures help you identity potential risks and mitigate them with better engineering margins, redundancy, better test methodologies, etc. In other words, the quantification helps you contain the risks much better than any qualitative analysis. In this particular instance, NASA's statement is concerning because it would mean that they don't the reliability figures for many components and/or don't have the reliability assessments based on tests. [1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002964/downloads/20150002964.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002964/downloads/20...
mncharity 2y ago
FWIW, a nice comment[1] from forum.nasaspaceflight.com (no affiliation with NASA): > I'm retired now but did propulsion and systems engineering on the Transfer Orbit Stage (TOS) developed by Orbital Sciences and Lockheed Martin for NASA/MSFC in the 1990's. [...] I'll make a few comments on how/where things might have gone off the rails with the RCS thruster thermal problem. [1] https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2616370#msg2616370 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2...
- fransje26 2y ago
  From one of the twitter posts cited in the forum post: > Curious if the root is someone at Boeing accidentally not relaying vehicle updates to vendors, or if it was a conscious decision to avoid paying for change requests. Seeing how Boeing "incidents" have piled up in recent years, and reading how most (or perhaps all) of those issues were due to "cost saving" measures, I wouldn't put it past them to have made that decision consciously, lives be damned.
- gnfargbl 2y ago
  > Almost all problems occurred at interfaces between companies (prime vs. sub, customer vs. prime) or between different groups within the same company, where one group misunderstood what another group was doing, or at actual mechanical and electrical interfaces between components designed and built by different groups. This is obviously a well-known phenomenon in software engineering and I don't think anyone here is going to be be particularly surprised that it occurs in the aerospace setting. What is a little more surprising, to me at least, is that the systems people over there don't have procedures in place to minimise risks stemming from lack of communication. It isn't realistic for any sub-team to be fully familiar with the overall system but surely, for instance, if a team is working on component X which interfaces with components Y and Z, then it should be standard practice for the X team to spend at least some time with the Y and Z teams during development?
  - whoitwas 2y ago
    Yeah. Where are the integration tests? As a total outsider reading headlines, I would assume there's minimal testing framework and sparse QA.
tersers 2y ago
I don’t think they’re coming down until after election day. All the money and time devoted to this cannot result in any further failure. It’s an easy narrative for the GOP to spin with themselves as the only party that can beat China in the new space race over the failures the Biden/Harris administration, even if they’re only at arms length through NASA.
- DonHopkins 2y ago
  [flagged]
sitkack 2y ago
I don't think anyone should return on Starliner. Use Dragon, Starliner can be a test.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  It's an obvious conclusion at this point but there's a lot of pressure to decide otherwise because of the financial and political stakes. The core issue is that NASA and Boeing know this and don't want to sign off on this. But they also don't want to sign of on the failure of the mission just yet; having signed off on the launch already. So, they are a bit stuck here. Fortunately, running down the clock makes this a foregone conclusion. A lot of the components and systems on this thing have expiry dates. So, they are running down the clock. And of course the longer that lasts, the more potential for new problems there is. By simply running down the clock, they get to land the thing without passengers and without having to do so because of the original failure. So everybody saves face (somewhat). My guess is they'll try to land it normally without passengers to "validate" it at least worked as advertised. But without risking astronaut lives. And then dragon swoops in and it's business as usual and nobody died. The difference between Dragon and Starliner is that Nasa used Dragon for years without passengers so they knew the thing worked as advertised. And then the first launch with passengers was a non-event in terms of safety as it was just another launch for them. It's what SpaceX does: iterate lots until they can nail it every time. The issue with Starliner is that launching it is too expensive to do this. No reusable rocket means they need a new one every time. So, this is only the third launch they've attempted. And the previous unmanned launches had lots of delays and issues. Technically they've never had a flight without problems. They never had a lot of confidence building launches without passengers because the cost for that would have been astronomical. So, it's a big question mark in terms of safety. And all the constant incidents involving Boeing aren't instilling a lot of confidence. So, they are simply running down the clock until failure is a foregone conclusion. The pressure is on Boeing to guarantee safety to NASA. And there's no way that either of them is signing off on a manned return of this thing because they'd never hear the end of it if it goes wrong. Which is why we're getting all these euphemistic statements about hard to quantify risks to explain why they can't sign off.
  - 2y ago
weinzierl 2y ago
The trade-off here is: When does it become more embarrassing to bring them home in the competitor's vehicle than to extend the mission further. When in 1974 the 56 day planned mission on Skylab 4 was delayed by 24 days it was a major event. With the current debacle we are past 65 days of a planned 8 day mission. In a past world this would have been seen as a the shame with the fact in which vessel the crew returned, being a just a minor sidenote.
- steve1977 2y ago
  Today everything is noncommittal trial and error it seems… oh sorry, I think I’ve spelled “agile” wrong…
  - loudmax 2y ago
    A surplus of agility is the last of Boeing's problems.
    - steve1977 2y ago
      In my experience, agile methodologies do not have a a strong correlation to agility.
      - DiggyJohnson 2y ago
        Boeing (especially Boeing ITDA) did indeed have a run-in with Agile SAFE. It went predictably.
        HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
        Boeing's bean counter management seem more concerned about cost saving than quality. https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/article/22027840/boeings-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/article/22027840/b...
amelius 2y ago
Why don't they store a bunch of thrusters at the space station. Sounds like a tool you want to have handy when up there.
- bearjaws 2y ago
  In launches / outer space: The answer to any question "why didn't they have X" is always weight.
  - jdblair 2y ago
    thrusters are also likely not a "field replaceable unit" in current designs
    - bearjaws 2y ago
      That is a great point, I can't even imagine the headache to design for that capability.
      - amelius 2y ago
        But due to recent events we can all imagine the headache to not have that capability ;)
        perihelions 2y ago
        The spacecraft's already built with a (large) surplus of thrusters—the extra thrusters are all right there, pre-attached. It's because of that safety margin that NASA relaxed their requirements and launched with thrusters exhibiting high failure rates in testing. Redundancies don't help you if you have a safety culture that treats redundancies as consumables. The more one team widens a safety margin in one place, the more another leans on that safety margin, and relaxes their own.
- martyvis 2y ago
  I think you'll find that they have more thrusters on the spacecraft that they actually need - they can control attitude even if they lose one or more thrusters. So the possibility of the failure of them is already in the design.
andrewstuart 2y ago
Can it fly back unmanned?
- roelschroeven 2y ago
  Apparently, not in its current configuration. The previous, unmanned, mission could do that (obviously), but Boeing changed the configuration and now Starliner can only undock with people inside of it (as far as I understand it, it can do everything else unmanned). Boeing can change the configuration, and I guess they're in the process of doing so, but it takes four weeks to run all the tests on that configuration and make sure everything works as it should.
gangorgasm 2y ago
Do we more or less know how many days worth of supplies they have to keep both up there if needed?
- smilespray 2y ago
  I don't know the specific answer, but I would double-check we got the same number of astronauts back down as we sent up.
  - Bluestein 2y ago
    Totally on point.- PS. There was a nice movie released 1979 about that :)
- dotnet00 2y ago
  IIRC they usually keep an extra 3 months worth of supplies available at the station, to allow for delays to resupply missions. A resupply mission also arrived at the station recently, which would have had additional supplies for them. If they decide to go with the plan of sending a reduced crew in Crew-9, they'll probably add extra supplies to that too. So, supply wise there shouldn't be any concerns.
- nordsieck 2y ago
  > Do we more or less know how many days worth of supplies they have to keep both up there if needed? Not sure, but a Cygnus resupply mission (NG-21) launched on the 4th of August, so I'm sure they have plenty of supplies.
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  Supplies aren't an issue - they send up more every couple of months, and just did so a week or two ago. There is a slight inconvenience in that the ISS has 6 bedrooms and 7 astronauts, so now one of them will be sleeping on the couch for 8 months rather than 8 days.
  - gangorgasm 2y ago
farceSpherule 2y ago
Hopefully NASA hubris does not kill more people like it did during Challenger and Columbia.
mrcwinn 2y ago
Given alternatives, if the risk cannot be quantified, the risk is too high.
- nonethewiser 2y ago
  And what's the actual cost here? Some productivity loss in the ISS (2 less astronauts on the new rotation) and missed opportunity for Boeing to save some face by bringing them back? Boeing saving face is worth nothing. The productivity loss is something, but nothing in comparison to stranding (or worse) 2 astronauts. We should be re-framing this entire thing - what is the best case scenario? The stranded astronauts return safely as soon as possible. Do that however you can and be happy you don't actualize some far worse reality. That is the real path to Boeing saving some face.
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    As for productivity, right now they have an extra couple hands that are well experienced in ISS operations.
eagerpace 2y ago
The only risk returning the capsule unmanned is to their reputation. This is an easy decision.
- grecy 2y ago
  They are also worried that it can't actually return autonomously, that it might fail to un-dock properly or that it might crash into the ISS. They have a lot to weigh up.
xyst 2y ago
What’s wrong with just extending it to next year? Is ISS at capacity? Money/budget issues? NASA reputation?
- wmf 2y ago
  ISS is at capacity. There are only two docking ports IIRC.
- mdavidn 2y ago
  All docking ports at ISS are occupied, and the two additional astronauts need to eat. The crew will need supplies before next year.
humansareok1 2y ago
Why is NASA covering for Boeing? Jettison that shit and let it crash into the ocean as a burnt hunk as their infinite hemming and hawing indicates is apparently overwhelmingly likely to happen.
- cedws 2y ago
  Political reasons maybe. Both NASA and Boeing are effectively arms of government.
  - TheBlight 2y ago
    My suspicion is this is also why they won't let SpaceX rescue the crew prior to the election.
- macintux 2y ago
  Part of the problem is they don't know whether they can jettison Starliner. The software that's intended to undock without crew aboard was removed.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- stetrain 2y ago
  Can you guarantee that hitting the "undock and re-enter" button right now would result in Starliner safely leaving the ISS and then clearing its orbit? Even if that had an acceptable level of risk, that still leaves two extra crew on the ISS with no seats home in case of an emergency, and NASA's policy in recent years has been to always have emergency return capacity for every crew member onboard. I'm not saying there isn't a path forward that involves sending Starliner back empty, there are just a lot of considerations going into that decision right now.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- 2y ago
double0jimb0 2y ago
Didn’t read, you don’t have to based on headline. They still don’t know root cause(s). That’s real bad Frank.
00_hum 2y ago
its amazing how long the corruption festered before planes started falling out of the sky.
firesteelrain 2y ago
As a big SpaceX fan, I appreciate the innovation and success that SpaceX has brought to space exploration. However, it's crucial that we have multiple reliable launch and crew providers to ensure the safety and sustainability of space missions. While SpaceX has been a game-changer, relying solely on one provider is risky. The ongoing issues with Boeing's Starliner highlight the importance of diversity in our space program. We need to support and develop multiple providers to maintain a robust and secure presence in space.
- bgirard 2y ago
  > However, it's crucial that we have multiple reliable launch and crew providers to ensure the safety and sustainability of space missions. The keyword here is reliable and I would add the word competitive. Having an expensive, late, unreliable provider may in fact be a net negative. I think Starliner in it's current form isn't helping the industry. I hope they get their act together, or that we fund a reliable and competitive alternative to SpaceX.
  - firesteelrain 2y ago
    IMHO, Starliner is too big of an MVP
    - windexh8er 2y ago
      That's because Starliner isn't an MVP. It's a vehicle designed to transport humans. You don't send humans to space in an MVP.
      - firesteelrain 2y ago
        To be clear, you can have multiple and iterative MVPs
        dotancohen 2y ago
        Then at least one of them isn't M or at least one of them isn't V.
GMoromisato 2y ago
I wonder sometimes whether NASA should lean into the high risk of spaceflight instead of trying to minimize it. If they could get the public to pay attention, their budgets would go up. Highlighting the risk--without exaggerating--would be a good way to get people to care. People love (maybe even crave) drama. Astronauts accept an amazing amount of risk, even when using proven systems like Soyuz or Dragon. ISS is one unlucky micrometeoroid strike away from total catastrophe. And yet hundreds of astronaut candidates are jostling with each other (another great drama) to be next on the rocket. Even uncrewed missions are filled with drama. Imagine devoting 20 years of your scientific career on a probe to Mars and having it blow up on take-off or smash into the Martian surface--so close, and yet so utterly useless. I think NASA fears that highlighting risk leads to bad press. NASA doesn't want headlines like, "NASA ignores safety concerns--story at 11". But ironically, when NASA minimizes risk, they lower the threshold for how much risk the public will accept. The more they minimize risk, the less risk the public will let them take. I don't have any good suggestions, though. Highlighting risk inevitably invites the question of "why are we taking the risk at all?" And that's also a hard conversation.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  The ISS can tank micrometeorites just fine. They could put a hole straight through the ISS but the station is only pressurized to one atmosphere; the leak would be slow and easy to patch. It wouldn't even be the first time they had a leak..
  - GMoromisato 2y ago
    I assume that depends on the size of the micrometeoroid. Though I suppose any meteoroid large enough to destroy ISS would not be "micro". But maybe not.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Why doesn’t that trigger explosive decompression? Just because it’s so small?
    - 2y ago
resource_waste 2y ago
We've seen Elon's companies are more than okay with cutting corners as long as marketing optics look good. Not saying Boeing is any better, but the culture at his companies seems to be: "Fast dev and fake high quality. Hype it up."
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
  This article is about Starliner. Why are you bringing up Musk?
m3kw9 2y ago
It’s hard enough to get to space even after checking everything twice, now you need to do it on a damaged craft in reverse and you can’t check
bamboozled 2y ago
How did this thing get into space with people in it?

314 points by geerlingguy 2y ago

If anyone here's familiar with how these decisions are made, I'm curious about why NASA says they need another week to choose their path forward. Given that we're already over two months into a week-long mission, what information don't they have that they would have in another week?

alsodumb 2y ago
They and their partners (Boeing) are running more tests as we speak - probably expecting more data that could answer some questions.
icegreentea2 2y ago
Well, they said they would do more modelling. Since they've definitely already done a pile of modelling, the remaining modelling is probably running down a list of alternate assumptions and approaches in whatever modelling system they've been using. Most likely they've already gone ahead modeled out all of their most likely and high confidence assumptions and approaches. Likely the modelling results haven't quite converged, leading them to be unsure. In parallel, my pet theory is that NASA has probably already made up its mind (astronauts are not going to return on Starliner), and have been dragging this out mostly to make it look like they aren't just going to throw their contractors under the bus (even if they deserve it). Boeing has declared cold feet over fixed cost contracts (in general, not just with NASA), and I think NASA wants to keep the rest of the contractor pool at least at ease that, okay maybe NASA might start being stingier with the money and contracts, but they aren't going just throw you under the bus when issues appear.
- phkahler 2y ago
  Modeling is irrelevant when you don't know the cause of the failures or even have an idea. 5 thrusters failed and 4 came back and apparently they don't know why in either case.
  - krisoft 2y ago
    > or even have an idea. They have an idea. "Tests of a similar control jet on the ground suggested a Teflon seal in an internal valve could swell at higher temperatures, restricting the flow of propellant to the thruster." That is the idea they have and they are checking if it matches with the measured signals / explains the observations.
  - mauvehaus 2y ago
    If they know what is/was wrong, they can model what happens if the problem reoccurs even if they don't know why it occurred, disappeared, or might reoccur. But yeah, about the only thing more irritating than having a problem occur for reasons you don't understand is having it disappear for reasons you also don't understand.
  - numpad0 2y ago
    I think they're just being great manager-engineers just as they should be. The root-ish cause so far determined is Teflon seal soaking in rocket fuel and bulging, constricting flow. Downstream it is creating improper oxidizer/fuel ratio and excess heat at thrusters which is triggering alarm and automatic shutdown. These were all explained in plain and accessible English in NASA press conferences and I've watched it online. I'd been a space fan for long enough that I know "improper O/F ratio" usually goes under a picture of a fireball or an artist's impression file image. There were multiple spacecrafts that at least blew off engines that way. The JAXA SLIM mission just this January had it that way. The fact that NASA/Boeing Starliner team keep triggering it and getting away with it is probably technically magnificent. With that prior knowledge, one way I can interpret those corpospeak is "we aren't sure if we can continue to do that and not finally kill the engines, or worse yet, turn everything into a bomb with people inside or around". Many are instead receiving "we technically know such and such [unintelligible] but we aren't sure of anything and we have no idea". That's a great demonstration of public relations skills.
    - dotnet00 2y ago
      They're running with the theory of it being the teflon seals, but IIRC the problem is that it doesn't explain why the thrusters appeared to be operating relatively normally in a test at the station. The seal deformation should be permanent, in which case the thrusters shouldn't have recovered on their own, meaning that they might not have caught the real issue. That's what's making the risk difficult to quantify.
- TMWNN 2y ago
  > In parallel, my pet theory is that NASA has probably already made up its mind (astronauts are not going to return on Starliner), and have been dragging this out mostly to make it look like they aren't just going to throw their contractors under the bus (even if they deserve it). The longer NASA pushes out a decision on what to do with Starliner, the more it becomes likely that people within the Biden administration don't want to go with the obvious choice of bringing home the crew on a Crew Dragon, because they don't want the resulting headlines shouting "Elon Musk rescues astronauts from space".
  - thefourthchime 2y ago
    I hadn’t thought of a political angle for this, but that does make sense. Announcing “Elon saves NASA” certainly helps the GOP more.
    - WillPostForFood 2y ago
      It clearly helps SpaceX, Musk mostly indirectly, and GOP not at all.
      - booi 2y ago
        Elon is the maga crowd's newest talking head so it helps the GOP at least a little.
        Covzire 2y ago
        Why does this kind of partisan bickering only ever go one way on HN? Why does every decision have to be a careful calculus when one political party instead of another might get credit? Do people not realize how blatantly biased and partisan they sound?
        allenrb 2y ago
        Maybe because there’s a larger overlap between HN demographics and those of the Democratic Party versus those of the GOP? That’s beside the point, though. NASA is an agency of the United States Government. The idea that politics do not come into play is naive at best.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  NASA is paying SpaceX something like $200 million per launch. They won’t want to do that unless they have to. And if they did they still need to figure out what to do with Starliner. If they pay SpaceX and then later manage to get Starliner to work then that’s a lot of money down the drain.
  - sitkack 2y ago
    Dead astronauts are way more expensive.
  - XorNot 2y ago
    The cost isn't the issue here: the problem is you still have to undock and dispose of the capsule without it running back into the station.
  - detaro 2y ago
    The current outlined plan does not require an extra SpaceX launch, so that argument doesn't make sense.
  - tonyhart7 2y ago
    200 millions usd for NASA is relatively small no ??? still a lot of money yes but for space exploration project ???? probably more than enough people (taxpayer) happy to pay that
- 7952 2y ago
  At this point they are probably not going to succeed in certification. It is a damage limitation exercise. They can... 1. Return uncrewed and burn up. Nasa complemented for its caution. 2. Return uncrewed successfully. Nasa complemented for "excess of caution". 3. Return crewed successfully. Major concern remains over the craft. People continue to question the decision making for years. 4. Craft kills the crew. Either way you are not getting a certified spacecraft out of this. Of course there is a further possibility that the departing craft will cause risk or damage to the iss.
- nonethewiser 2y ago
  What does this sort of modeling look like? I guess I kind of naively assumed there were people gathering information on the current state, collecting different ways to get the astronauts back with detailed cost/benefit, quantification of risk, etc. and then some executive was collecting this to make a decision. I mean I'm sure that's still happening to some degree but this process of modeling sounds a lot more formal.
krisoft 2y ago
I believe the article contains the answer to your question. It says "engineers will attempt to model the behavior of the valve with the bulging Teflon seal over the next week and its effects on thruster performance."
TMWNN 2y ago
>Given that we're already over two months into a week-long mission, what information don't they have that they would have in another week? As an Ars commenter observed <https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-acknowledges-it-cannot-quantify-risk-of-starliner-propulsion-issues/?comments=1&post=43073205 https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/nasa-acknowledges-it-c...>, it is possible that the real issue isn't whether Starliner is safe to return with humans. If that were the question two months of debate are, as you said, by itself enough to say "no". Return Wilmore and Williams on Crew Dragon. Done. The commenter posited that the real issue is that NASA does not trust Boeing's software to undock Starliner autonomously. We know that Wilmore had to take manual control on the way up because of the thruster issues. NASA may fear that if thrusters fail again, Starliner software may again not be able to handle them, and the spacecraft might ram ISS. Thus, the agency wants a human to be able to take over if necessary. *That* is the dilemma. This is something that I and others had mentioned over the past couple of weeks, but the Ars commenter is I think the first outside NASA to put it so starkly.
- verzali 2y ago
  That comment confuses me slightly. NASA always has the ability to take over the controls of a spacecraft operating around the ISS, even remotely by command from the ISS itself. The software should certainly be able to handle this.
  - Animats 2y ago
    Apparently not.[1] Although better sources for this are needed. [1] https://simpleflying.com/boeing-starliner-undocking-software-issue-nasa-astronaut-return/ https://simpleflying.com/boeing-starliner-undocking-software...
    - TMWNN 2y ago
      Eric Berger—Ars Technica reporter who wrote the article SimpleFlying cited—initially reported that Starliner needs a software update that will take four weeks, and NASA (I believe Ken Bowersox) worded it in the penultimate media event as reverting back to the 2022 software, but we now understand from context that in this case that means reverting to the 2022 parameters; NASA was very specific about the software itself not having changed. The SLS[1] stans (as Berger described on Twitter) are now focusing on how parameter change != software update thus Berger was wrong all along. It'd be one thing if said changes took a day or two to do. But assuming that it is the four weeks Berger reported, that absolutely means that it is the same thing as "software needs replacing"/"functionality was removed". To the client, NASA in this case, it doesn't matter whether the weeks to implement a new feature is (one week of uploading parameters and three weeks to validate said parameters), or (3.5 weeks of uploading new software and 0.5 weeks of validating said new software). The end result is needing four weeks. [1] Space Launch System, intended to return the US to the moon. Cost: $24 billion and rising fast
bigln 2y ago
Well, unlike in web software, very real people could die if they screw up, and they aren't exactly pressed for time right now, so what's wrong with being careful?
dotnet00 2y ago
I think for part of your question (why do they specifically say a week), the length isn't all that meaningful. As in, if they want to more time to make a decision, they'll just announce another week's delay. They have weekly status update conferences, and just cancelling those conferences might be more of a PR risk than just keeping the conference and announcing that they're delaying making a decision.
baggachipz 2y ago
An additional week ensures they stay compliant with their rich tradition: a time estimate being off by an order of magnitude.
TheCondor 2y ago
They may still be chasing down some loose ends. While additional time allows for some more models and theories, I think it becomes exponentially less likely that it will alter the safe course of action. If the system is so complex that an extra week does yield some major new insights, that’s way too complex to use.
omoikane 2y ago
It's intriguing to me that they seem to be prioritizing information collection to determine whether Starliner is viable, as opposed to definitively announce a return via SpaceX and making preparations for that. It's like if I have a service outage, maybe I might spend a few minutes to collect debugging information, but my priority would be to bring the service back up via rollbacks or whatever to restore a previously known good state. Currently they are debugging Starliner with people stranded, but maybe they should prioritize on getting those people back home first. Or maybe everyone involved don't consider being stranded for months in space as a bad state.

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago

Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. If you designed/built/influenced any part of the design and watching this play out publicly. Leaving astronauts stranded and potentially with a module stuck on the space station. Do you definitely start looking for a new job? Assume that ultimately nothing will change?

charlie0 2y ago
You certainly can't snitch, we saw what happened with that one guy who tried it.
- skyfaller 2y ago
  Two Boeing whistleblowers: https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblower-josh-dean-dead https://www.npr.org/2024/05/02/1248693512/boeing-whistleblow...
  - DoctorOetker 2y ago
    We should concede that its probably hard to do one's job properly, if one "has" to take on the second job of organizing a gangstalking crew or assassins. How can we fault them for improperly leading Boeing workforce with these extra tasks? /s
phkahler 2y ago
>> Curious as to moral in the Boeing division right now. I'm even more curious about the astronauts. Are they willing to risk it? Are they even part of the discussions? Are they saying "screw that thing, get me a dragon"? I haven't heard a single word about their take on it.
- trebligdivad 2y ago
  If you listen to the teleconference, NASA was asked and it really seem to be more that they'll do what they're told; which seemed odd to me. And those conferences have not had either the astronauts or Boeing on; which IMHO is just weird. Having said that, I suspect the astronauts aren't actually that worried by that thruster issue. They managed to dock it OK (manually). It's more NASA getting comfortable that they understand the failure.

the_real_cher 2y ago

How is Boeing so consistently terrible nowadays? Theyre going to kill people at some point.

phkahler 2y ago
>> They already did with the 2 737 Max crashes.
zie 2y ago
They put business people in charge with the last merger, instead of people with technical backgrounds. As for killing people, they have already done that with the 737 Max.
- the_real_cher 2y ago
  Insane. MBAs are a menace
  - Spartan-S63 2y ago
    A professional management class is a menace. Managers with experience in the domain they’re managing are key. Engineers-evolved-into-managers should lead engineering firms, etc. If you don’t understand what your underlying business is, you’re doomed to fail. Likewise, businesses should be predicated on selling products, not on boosting stock prices. There are at least two very wrong things: the Jack Welch-ification of companies, and professional MBAs.
    - booi 2y ago
      case in point, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su. Both I think are excellent run engineering tech firms that would be ruined by an MBA. See Intel as an example..
- Yeul 2y ago
  They didn't have a choice. When Airbus developed into feasible competition Boeing suddenly had to start making money. The aviation industry wants cheap, fuel economic and reliable "air busses". A brilliant name indeed.

don-code 2y ago

I'm somewhat surprised that, after the SpaceX / Boring Company "rescue submarine" offer a few years ago, Elon Musk hasn't personally suggested (over X, of course) that SpaceX send up another Dragon inside of some compressed timeframe. I'm assuming there must be some other limitations at play - maybe one can't be readied that fast, or there's some other regulatory reason?

creer 2y ago
Isn't SpaceX already scheduled with the next vehicle there? With likely enough space on it and no rush on the space station? SpaceX is already next, already in the news as the safe solution.
gpm 2y ago
As the article mentions, but is discussed in more detail in another article [0], the alternative that is being considered (and that SpaceX was already paid $266,678 to study, though that contract was not necessarily awarded because of this situation where it might become necessary) is bringing them home on the dragon already up there. [0] https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/yes-nasa-really-could-bring-starliners-astronauts-back-on-crew-dragon/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/yes-nasa-really-could-...
- nordsieck 2y ago
  > the alternative that is being considered (and that SpaceX was already paid $266,678 to study, though that contract was not necessarily awarded because of this situation where it might become necessary) is bringing them home on the dragon already up there. It's a little more nuanced than that. If NASA decides to bring the Astronauts home on a Crew Dragon, there will be a short window of time between when Starliner undocks and when the next Crew Dragon docks that there will be 6 International Astronauts on the ISS and only 4 seats. If an emergency happens during that time, NASA would jerry-rig some extra seats in the existing Crew Dragon and bring all 6 home that way. But that's a very short period of time - just a couple of weeks. The next Crew Dragon will only have 2 Astronauts aboard, and will contain suits for Butch and Sunny, so that all 4 of them can return normally on that vehicle at the end of the next rotation.

bottlepalm 2y ago

I'm more upset at NASA than Boeing over this for downplaying this issue for months while doing very serious things in the background like hot fire testing. Not transparent at all. You can easily see how public perception thought everything was fine all through July here: https://manifold.markets/Shihan/will-spacex-dragon-rescue-boeing-st https://manifold.markets/Shihan/will-spacex-dragon-rescue-bo... I'd love an investigation to see if the public perception matched NASA's perception. I would be money that it doesn't which means NASA has been hiding the truth from the public. How can anyone trust what NASA says after this?

ggm 2y ago
Is "hiding the truth" only a view if the truth is worse than the public think or could you imagine arguing that NASA "hid the truth" that its safer than the public thinks? Objectively I suspect the only hidden truths here are perceptions/knowlege that its worse than people think. Hiding you think its better is .. unlikely. Personally I don't ascribe a moral hazard dimension here. Probably, the NASA officials who had the power to state things, were not the ones conducting testing and their PR people were put on hold. I think its a malice/incompetence thing (Hanlon's razor)
TMWNN 2y ago
> I'm more upset at NASA than Boeing over this for downplaying this issue for months while doing very serious things in the background like hot fire testing. Not transparent at all. As late as July 28, NASA flight director Ed Van Cise explicitly denied that the Starliner crew was stuck or stranded <https://x.com/Carbon_Flight/status/1817754775196201035 https://x.com/Carbon_Flight/status/1817754775196201035>. Even if one quibbles about whether "stranded" applies in this situation (I believe that it does <https://np.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ekicol/not_stranded_in_space_how_nasa_lost_control_of/lgm9fcb/?context=3 https://np.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1ekicol/not_stranded_...>), "stuck" definitely does.
burnished 2y ago
This reads as histrionics. You want an investigation into whether the general public felt the same panic people on the project do? No thanks, I'm alright with letting them get on with it and getting the full picture later.

lokar 2y ago

You can rarely quantify the risk of complex systems. You should instead attempt to bound the risk. This often helps guide your next steps: how can you improve the bounds?

goku12 2y ago
Quantification of reliability and risk of entire systems like spacecrafts is a real activity in aerospace engineering (probably in other safety critical fields too). They take the reliability figures of every single component based on experience, and use them to progressively calculate the reliability up to subsystem and full system levels. From this, they can assess the probabilistic risk involved. Granted that these figures are theoretical and probably varies from reality by a good margin. But these figures are still useful. For one, these figures are updated, recalculated and refined as more actual figures are obtained from components, packages, subsystems and system level tests. The final reliability and risk figures progressively approach the actual values as more tests, including flight tests are conducted. In addition, even preliminary figures help you identity potential risks and mitigate them with better engineering margins, redundancy, better test methodologies, etc. In other words, the quantification helps you contain the risks much better than any qualitative analysis. In this particular instance, NASA's statement is concerning because it would mean that they don't the reliability figures for many components and/or don't have the reliability assessments based on tests. [1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002964/downloads/20150002964.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20150002964/downloads/20...

mncharity 2y ago

FWIW, a nice comment[1] from forum.nasaspaceflight.com (no affiliation with NASA): > I'm retired now but did propulsion and systems engineering on the Transfer Orbit Stage (TOS) developed by Orbital Sciences and Lockheed Martin for NASA/MSFC in the 1990's. [...] I'll make a few comments on how/where things might have gone off the rails with the RCS thruster thermal problem. [1] https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2616370#msg2616370 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=60593.msg2...

fransje26 2y ago
From one of the twitter posts cited in the forum post: > Curious if the root is someone at Boeing accidentally not relaying vehicle updates to vendors, or if it was a conscious decision to avoid paying for change requests. Seeing how Boeing "incidents" have piled up in recent years, and reading how most (or perhaps all) of those issues were due to "cost saving" measures, I wouldn't put it past them to have made that decision consciously, lives be damned.
gnfargbl 2y ago
> Almost all problems occurred at interfaces between companies (prime vs. sub, customer vs. prime) or between different groups within the same company, where one group misunderstood what another group was doing, or at actual mechanical and electrical interfaces between components designed and built by different groups. This is obviously a well-known phenomenon in software engineering and I don't think anyone here is going to be be particularly surprised that it occurs in the aerospace setting. What is a little more surprising, to me at least, is that the systems people over there don't have procedures in place to minimise risks stemming from lack of communication. It isn't realistic for any sub-team to be fully familiar with the overall system but surely, for instance, if a team is working on component X which interfaces with components Y and Z, then it should be standard practice for the X team to spend at least some time with the Y and Z teams during development?
- whoitwas 2y ago
  Yeah. Where are the integration tests? As a total outsider reading headlines, I would assume there's minimal testing framework and sparse QA.

tersers 2y ago

I don’t think they’re coming down until after election day. All the money and time devoted to this cannot result in any further failure. It’s an easy narrative for the GOP to spin with themselves as the only party that can beat China in the new space race over the failures the Biden/Harris administration, even if they’re only at arms length through NASA.

DonHopkins 2y ago
[flagged]

sitkack 2y ago

I don't think anyone should return on Starliner. Use Dragon, Starliner can be a test.

jillesvangurp 2y ago
It's an obvious conclusion at this point but there's a lot of pressure to decide otherwise because of the financial and political stakes. The core issue is that NASA and Boeing know this and don't want to sign off on this. But they also don't want to sign of on the failure of the mission just yet; having signed off on the launch already. So, they are a bit stuck here. Fortunately, running down the clock makes this a foregone conclusion. A lot of the components and systems on this thing have expiry dates. So, they are running down the clock. And of course the longer that lasts, the more potential for new problems there is. By simply running down the clock, they get to land the thing without passengers and without having to do so because of the original failure. So everybody saves face (somewhat). My guess is they'll try to land it normally without passengers to "validate" it at least worked as advertised. But without risking astronaut lives. And then dragon swoops in and it's business as usual and nobody died. The difference between Dragon and Starliner is that Nasa used Dragon for years without passengers so they knew the thing worked as advertised. And then the first launch with passengers was a non-event in terms of safety as it was just another launch for them. It's what SpaceX does: iterate lots until they can nail it every time. The issue with Starliner is that launching it is too expensive to do this. No reusable rocket means they need a new one every time. So, this is only the third launch they've attempted. And the previous unmanned launches had lots of delays and issues. Technically they've never had a flight without problems. They never had a lot of confidence building launches without passengers because the cost for that would have been astronomical. So, it's a big question mark in terms of safety. And all the constant incidents involving Boeing aren't instilling a lot of confidence. So, they are simply running down the clock until failure is a foregone conclusion. The pressure is on Boeing to guarantee safety to NASA. And there's no way that either of them is signing off on a manned return of this thing because they'd never hear the end of it if it goes wrong. Which is why we're getting all these euphemistic statements about hard to quantify risks to explain why they can't sign off.
- 2y ago

weinzierl 2y ago

The trade-off here is: When does it become more embarrassing to bring them home in the competitor's vehicle than to extend the mission further. When in 1974 the 56 day planned mission on Skylab 4 was delayed by 24 days it was a major event. With the current debacle we are past 65 days of a planned 8 day mission. In a past world this would have been seen as a the shame with the fact in which vessel the crew returned, being a just a minor sidenote.

steve1977 2y ago
Today everything is noncommittal trial and error it seems… oh sorry, I think I’ve spelled “agile” wrong…
- loudmax 2y ago
  A surplus of agility is the last of Boeing's problems.
  - steve1977 2y ago
    In my experience, agile methodologies do not have a a strong correlation to agility.
    - DiggyJohnson 2y ago
      Boeing (especially Boeing ITDA) did indeed have a run-in with Agile SAFE. It went predictably.
      - HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
        Boeing's bean counter management seem more concerned about cost saving than quality. https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/article/22027840/boeings-737-max-software-outsourced-to-9-an-hour-engineers https://www.industryweek.com/supply-chain/article/22027840/b...

amelius 2y ago

Why don't they store a bunch of thrusters at the space station. Sounds like a tool you want to have handy when up there.

bearjaws 2y ago
In launches / outer space: The answer to any question "why didn't they have X" is always weight.
- jdblair 2y ago
  thrusters are also likely not a "field replaceable unit" in current designs
  - bearjaws 2y ago
    That is a great point, I can't even imagine the headache to design for that capability.
    - amelius 2y ago
      But due to recent events we can all imagine the headache to not have that capability ;)
      - perihelions 2y ago
        The spacecraft's already built with a (large) surplus of thrusters—the extra thrusters are all right there, pre-attached. It's because of that safety margin that NASA relaxed their requirements and launched with thrusters exhibiting high failure rates in testing. Redundancies don't help you if you have a safety culture that treats redundancies as consumables. The more one team widens a safety margin in one place, the more another leans on that safety margin, and relaxes their own.
martyvis 2y ago
I think you'll find that they have more thrusters on the spacecraft that they actually need - they can control attitude even if they lose one or more thrusters. So the possibility of the failure of them is already in the design.

andrewstuart 2y ago

Can it fly back unmanned?

roelschroeven 2y ago
Apparently, not in its current configuration. The previous, unmanned, mission could do that (obviously), but Boeing changed the configuration and now Starliner can only undock with people inside of it (as far as I understand it, it can do everything else unmanned). Boeing can change the configuration, and I guess they're in the process of doing so, but it takes four weeks to run all the tests on that configuration and make sure everything works as it should.

gangorgasm 2y ago

Do we more or less know how many days worth of supplies they have to keep both up there if needed?

smilespray 2y ago
I don't know the specific answer, but I would double-check we got the same number of astronauts back down as we sent up.
- Bluestein 2y ago
  Totally on point.- PS. There was a nice movie released 1979 about that :)
dotnet00 2y ago
IIRC they usually keep an extra 3 months worth of supplies available at the station, to allow for delays to resupply missions. A resupply mission also arrived at the station recently, which would have had additional supplies for them. If they decide to go with the plan of sending a reduced crew in Crew-9, they'll probably add extra supplies to that too. So, supply wise there shouldn't be any concerns.
nordsieck 2y ago
> Do we more or less know how many days worth of supplies they have to keep both up there if needed? Not sure, but a Cygnus resupply mission (NG-21) launched on the 4th of August, so I'm sure they have plenty of supplies.
HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
Supplies aren't an issue - they send up more every couple of months, and just did so a week or two ago. There is a slight inconvenience in that the ISS has 6 bedrooms and 7 astronauts, so now one of them will be sleeping on the couch for 8 months rather than 8 days.
- gangorgasm 2y ago

farceSpherule 2y ago

Hopefully NASA hubris does not kill more people like it did during Challenger and Columbia.

mrcwinn 2y ago

Given alternatives, if the risk cannot be quantified, the risk is too high.

nonethewiser 2y ago
And what's the actual cost here? Some productivity loss in the ISS (2 less astronauts on the new rotation) and missed opportunity for Boeing to save some face by bringing them back? Boeing saving face is worth nothing. The productivity loss is something, but nothing in comparison to stranding (or worse) 2 astronauts. We should be re-framing this entire thing - what is the best case scenario? The stranded astronauts return safely as soon as possible. Do that however you can and be happy you don't actualize some far worse reality. That is the real path to Boeing saving some face.
- rbanffy 2y ago
  As for productivity, right now they have an extra couple hands that are well experienced in ISS operations.

eagerpace 2y ago

The only risk returning the capsule unmanned is to their reputation. This is an easy decision.

grecy 2y ago
They are also worried that it can't actually return autonomously, that it might fail to un-dock properly or that it might crash into the ISS. They have a lot to weigh up.

xyst 2y ago

What’s wrong with just extending it to next year? Is ISS at capacity? Money/budget issues? NASA reputation?

wmf 2y ago
ISS is at capacity. There are only two docking ports IIRC.
mdavidn 2y ago
All docking ports at ISS are occupied, and the two additional astronauts need to eat. The crew will need supplies before next year.

humansareok1 2y ago

Why is NASA covering for Boeing? Jettison that shit and let it crash into the ocean as a burnt hunk as their infinite hemming and hawing indicates is apparently overwhelmingly likely to happen.

cedws 2y ago
Political reasons maybe. Both NASA and Boeing are effectively arms of government.
- TheBlight 2y ago
  My suspicion is this is also why they won't let SpaceX rescue the crew prior to the election.
macintux 2y ago
Part of the problem is they don't know whether they can jettison Starliner. The software that's intended to undock without crew aboard was removed.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
stetrain 2y ago
Can you guarantee that hitting the "undock and re-enter" button right now would result in Starliner safely leaving the ISS and then clearing its orbit? Even if that had an acceptable level of risk, that still leaves two extra crew on the ISS with no seats home in case of an emergency, and NASA's policy in recent years has been to always have emergency return capacity for every crew member onboard. I'm not saying there isn't a path forward that involves sending Starliner back empty, there are just a lot of considerations going into that decision right now.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
2y ago

double0jimb0 2y ago

Didn’t read, you don’t have to based on headline. They still don’t know root cause(s). That’s real bad Frank.

00_hum 2y ago

its amazing how long the corruption festered before planes started falling out of the sky.

firesteelrain 2y ago

As a big SpaceX fan, I appreciate the innovation and success that SpaceX has brought to space exploration. However, it's crucial that we have multiple reliable launch and crew providers to ensure the safety and sustainability of space missions. While SpaceX has been a game-changer, relying solely on one provider is risky. The ongoing issues with Boeing's Starliner highlight the importance of diversity in our space program. We need to support and develop multiple providers to maintain a robust and secure presence in space.

bgirard 2y ago
> However, it's crucial that we have multiple reliable launch and crew providers to ensure the safety and sustainability of space missions. The keyword here is reliable and I would add the word competitive. Having an expensive, late, unreliable provider may in fact be a net negative. I think Starliner in it's current form isn't helping the industry. I hope they get their act together, or that we fund a reliable and competitive alternative to SpaceX.
- firesteelrain 2y ago
  IMHO, Starliner is too big of an MVP
  - windexh8er 2y ago
    That's because Starliner isn't an MVP. It's a vehicle designed to transport humans. You don't send humans to space in an MVP.
    - firesteelrain 2y ago
      To be clear, you can have multiple and iterative MVPs
      - dotancohen 2y ago
        Then at least one of them isn't M or at least one of them isn't V.

GMoromisato 2y ago

I wonder sometimes whether NASA should lean into the high risk of spaceflight instead of trying to minimize it. If they could get the public to pay attention, their budgets would go up. Highlighting the risk--without exaggerating--would be a good way to get people to care. People love (maybe even crave) drama. Astronauts accept an amazing amount of risk, even when using proven systems like Soyuz or Dragon. ISS is one unlucky micrometeoroid strike away from total catastrophe. And yet hundreds of astronaut candidates are jostling with each other (another great drama) to be next on the rocket. Even uncrewed missions are filled with drama. Imagine devoting 20 years of your scientific career on a probe to Mars and having it blow up on take-off or smash into the Martian surface--so close, and yet so utterly useless. I think NASA fears that highlighting risk leads to bad press. NASA doesn't want headlines like, "NASA ignores safety concerns--story at 11". But ironically, when NASA minimizes risk, they lower the threshold for how much risk the public will accept. The more they minimize risk, the less risk the public will let them take. I don't have any good suggestions, though. Highlighting risk inevitably invites the question of "why are we taking the risk at all?" And that's also a hard conversation.

lupusreal 2y ago
The ISS can tank micrometeorites just fine. They could put a hole straight through the ISS but the station is only pressurized to one atmosphere; the leak would be slow and easy to patch. It wouldn't even be the first time they had a leak..
- GMoromisato 2y ago
  I assume that depends on the size of the micrometeoroid. Though I suppose any meteoroid large enough to destroy ISS would not be "micro". But maybe not.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  Why doesn’t that trigger explosive decompression? Just because it’s so small?
  - 2y ago

resource_waste 2y ago

We've seen Elon's companies are more than okay with cutting corners as long as marketing optics look good. Not saying Boeing is any better, but the culture at his companies seems to be: "Fast dev and fake high quality. Hype it up."

MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
This article is about Starliner. Why are you bringing up Musk?

m3kw9 2y ago

It’s hard enough to get to space even after checking everything twice, now you need to do it on a damaged craft in reverse and you can’t check

bamboozled 2y ago

How did this thing get into space with people in it?