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Boeing Starliner's first crewed ISS flight delayed due to technical issues:
Boeing's Starliner was supposed to fly its first crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 21st, but a couple of technical issues has kept the company from pushing through with its plan. Together with NASA, the aerospace corporation has announced that it's delaying the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft's Crew Flight Test date yet again to address the risks presented by two new problems Boeing engineers have detected.
The first issue lies with the spacecraft's parachute system. Boeing designed the Starliner capsule to float back down to Earth with the help of three parachutes. According to The New York Times, the company discovered that parts of the lines connecting the system to the capsule don't have the ability to tolerate the spacecraft's load in case only two of the three parachutes are deployed correctly. Since the capsule will be carrying human passengers back to our planet, the company has to look at every aspect of its spacecraft to ensure their safety as much as possible. Boeing expects to do another parachute testing before it schedules another launch attempt.
In addition to its parachute problem, Boeing is also reassessing the use of a certain tape adhesive to wrap hundreds of feet of wiring. Apparently, the tape could be flammable, so engineers are looking to use another kind of wrapping for areas of the spacecraft with the greatest fire risk.
The Crew Flight Test is the last hurdle the company has to overcome to regularly start ferrying astronauts to the ISS. NASA chose Boeing as one of its commercial crew partners along with SpaceX, but it has fallen behind its peer over the years. The Starliner has completed uncrewed flights in the past as part of the tests it has to go through for crewed missions. But SpaceX already has 10 crewed flights under its belt, with the first one taking place way back in 2020. In addition to taking astronauts to the ISS and bringing human spaceflight back to American soil since the last space shuttle launch in 2011, SpaceX has also flown civilians to space.
[...] "Crew safety remains the highest priority for NASA and its industry providers, and emerging issues are not uncommon in human spaceflight especially during development. If you look back two months ago at the work we had ahead of us, it's almost all complete. The combined team is resilient and resolute in their goal of flying crew on Starliner as soon as it is safe to do so. If a schedule adjustment needs to be made in the future, then we will certainly do that as we have done before. We will only fly when we are ready."
(Score: 4, Touché) by Fnord666 on Saturday June 03, @02:19PM (8 children)
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday June 03, @05:00PM (2 children)
For parachute systems, I think "fall = fail"
(Score: 4, Funny) by canopic jug on Saturday June 03, @05:32PM (1 child)
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Sunday June 04, @03:32PM
Boeing's Starliner the 737 MAX of spacecraft.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 4, Funny) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 03, @05:59PM (2 children)
There has never been a controlled double-blind test of whether parachutes actually reduce the death rate of people falling out of airplanes.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rich on Sunday June 04, @12:09AM (1 child)
Well, there has been an investigation of the topic using a scientifically rigorous procedure, just not sure if they included the "blind" part: https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 [bmj.com]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 04, @11:47PM
The article itself says that the study was not blinded.
And yes, I've seen this result before.
They couldn't recruit test subjects unless the airplane was parked on the ground during the trials.
-- hendrik
(Score: 3, Insightful) by corey on Saturday June 03, @11:00PM (1 child)
“the company discovered that parts of the lines connecting the system to the capsule don't have the ability to tolerate the spacecraft's load in case only two of the three parachutes are deployed correctly.”
Sounds like they just did an FMEA and one of the items (failure modes) was ‘only two parachute deploy’, then an oh shit moment ensued. I’m amazed it took them until now to actually have done this.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Sunday June 04, @03:53AM
Yeah, how was this not caught before now?? Even from the start of the design phase I would have expected a 2-out-of-3 would have been a hard requirement. That part isn't rocket science!