This morning, NASA astronauts and Boeing Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams conducted a live video press conference from the International Space Station (ISS). They acknowledged the challenges the Starliner faced with disabled reaction control system (RCS) jets and degraded thrust from the propulsion engines. With no clear schedule for their return, they expressed confidence in the test process and the engineering prowess of their ground team.
Both praised the Starliner for its docking capability with the degraded controls and the earthbound team currently working to troubleshoot the problems from the White Sands, New Mexico, test facility. Wilmore described initial operational checks after launch as going “unbelievably well,” with the automatic controls operating with “truly amazing precision.”
Williams emphasized the bright side of the extended stay at the ISS, including the opportunity to borrow crew members to try out the additional seating capacity and environmental control systems in the Starliner spacecraft. “We are comfortable with more people,” she said. She also noted the chance to practice for the use of the Starliner as a “safe haven,” should the ISS develop problems. Williams reiterated that “this is a test flight. We expected to find things, and we did.”
Major television network and print journalists’ questions focused on the astronauts’ confidence in the capability of the Starliner to get them home, given its challenges with helium leaks and disabled RCS jets. One even described the Starliner as “snakebit.” Wilmore reiterated his confidence with the ground team, describing them as “friends” and reminding journalists, “We trust them. This is a world of test. It’s the nature of what we do. We’re staying here to collect the data we need.”
True pro’s expecting a smooth ride back and ready for a few hiccups.
Of course they will express “confidence,” but if there are more reliable systems available …?
They’d be singing a different tune if they didn’t know there were SpaceX Dragons already coming and going like Greyhound buses.
That hair is just not a good look!
Einstein didn’t have a good hair look either. Look at what she’s done in her life, and such a pleasant personality.
Hair does that in zero-G.
True, but it does seem like NASA could have approved a schrunchie for her to use up there. Maybe she is wearing it like that for the cameras to show they are actually in weightless conditions?
I thought they were talking about Butch’s butch.
If safety is Boeing’s major concern, why not bring the Starliner back empty and let Wilmore and Williams get a ride from SpaceX. That way Boeing can prove the safety of Starliner without any risk. Unless Boeing is worried about losing face but I’m afraid that ship has already sailed.
Lets hope they get test flight pay for their time up there — I know at onetime it was double normal flight duty pay…
Incredible to think that they can read and watch anything on the internet now — not too long ago the one or two smuggled books and magazines would fall apart from being read over and over again.
Reminds me of the English saying ‘Well he would say that wouldn’t he?’ which would be way out of context here.
They are test pilots, they’ll do their best, spending time learning more about controls and systems on their craft and grilling the supposed experts who got them into this predicament.
This crew has obviously been coached to emphasis that this is a test flight and test environment.
I have performed many test flights over 4 decades with outcomes exprcted to confirm correct operations of all systems operating correctly on initial launch.
You DO NOT take off with an attitude of “ what the heck. Let’s see what hsppens.”
This craft was not ready. The DEI crap and politics are running rift in this program.
Let these good people off the PC hook.
Send the crew home on something safe!
Hambone
FLY NAVY !
From a slide ruler in the 50s to this.
Something somewhere there is something wrong.
All I can say is I’m happy for them that they feel so confident. I felt confident in the two airplanes I built. But the test flights always gave me the jitters. This is what test flights are all about; finding the bugs, finding the limits of the aircraft or spacecraft in this case. And yes, knowing they can call an Uber to get home probably makes them feel a whole lot better.
What he really wants to say is “god help me, I’m stuck in space with Medusa’s sister!”
This is all a media “ata boy”, it’ll be fine. what could possibly go wrong. It reminds me of Challenger, when the most experts were saying no-go, but the NASA attitude was the show must go on. Hopefully, SpaceX will come to their rescue. Then see what happens when an empty starliner does on reentry, assuming it doesn’t hit the atmosphere and becoming a skipping rock on a pond, and Starliner skips off and becomes gone forever into deep space.
That isn’t a thing from low earth orbit. It isn’t the same as screaming in from the Moon or further out. At worst it would drift off and remain in LEO for a few years before de-orbiting as all LEO satellites without station keeping fuel do.
SpaceX has suffered a rare failure after a Falcon 9 upper stage malfunction left a batch of Starlink satellites in a lower-than-planned orbit.…
The mission was to launch 20 Starlink satellites, including 13 with Direct to Cell capabilities. The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 1935 Pacific time on July 11 (0235 UTC July 12) seemed to go well, with the first stage of the Falcon 9 making a successful landing on a drone ship.
However, something appeared to be amiss with the upper stage. Onlookers including this reporter saw an unusual build-up of what appeared to be ice around the Merlin engine during the first burn of the stage. A scheduled restart of the engine to raise the perigee before the deployment of the Starlink satellites “resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown,” according to SpaceX boss Elon Musk. “RUD” stands for Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
Neither SpaceX nor Musk have commented on the ice seen around the engine.
SpaceX later confirmed that the second burn was not completed as planned, and the Starlink satellites were deployed into a lower-than-intended orbit. This lower orbit means the satellites will soon make a destructive reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Musk posted on social media that attempts were being made to have the satellites run their ion thrusters “at the equivalent of warp 9” in an effort to raise their orbits faster than the atmosphere pulls them down.
He wrote: “Unlike a Star Trek episode, this will probably not work, but it’s worth a shot.”
This is the first inflight failure of a Falcon 9 launch since 2015’s CRS-7 cargo mission to the ISS, which failed a few minutes into flight. The company also lost a Falcon 9 and the AMOS-6 payload in a pad explosion in 2016. Still, aside from that and the occasional incident on landing, the vehicle has otherwise been extraordinarily reliable.
The implications of the failure are not immediately apparent. SpaceX has several launches scheduled for July, including more Starlink satellites and the Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon mission, which is set to feature the first commercial spacewalk.
NASA also depends on SpaceX to send crew to the ISS from US soil. The next launch is planned for August. ®
It’s unclear what is being learned during this extended ground-based testing & evaluation exercise, but I can’t imagine anyone riding the capsule back down now unless the engineering side can virtually assure management that reentry will be successful.
Absent that level of confidence, they have only a few choices to make, all unenviable. Probably the best path would be to loudly claim the high ground of concern for safety over all else, gracefully accede to having the competition rescue the two, then cross fingers and send the capsule back on automatic.
Presumably just thinking through all possibilities, probably a good idea.
Doing what they didn’t before launch? 😉
Given their recent (5 year) history of operational and design failures, and the existence of a clearly superior engineering and operating model (SpaceX) it makes no sense from any perspective I can conjure to use Boeing company products in this capacity at this point in their evolution. The existence of SpaceX and political disdain for Elon are the only apparent motivators for a Boing-led space mission.
If it’s Boeing, it ain’t going….
After nearly 50 years as an Aerospace Engineer, I am saddened to see the general deterioration of the quality of aircraft and space craft. I attribute this to Aerospace Companies being run by accountants and lawyers. Most of the good creative sound designs were generated when Engineers had a say in the designs (last century) and Program Management was a part of the team not leading the team.
That’s pretty much my response as well. Waaay back in the Apollo missions, they had pretty well worked out the attitude control and guidance systems for space capsules. I don’t remember any big issues with helium leaks or guidance glitches in any of the Apollo missions, even Apollo 13. Why is the Starliner, basically a larger Apollo capsule, having so many problems with systems we worked out a half-century ago? The idea of sending the ship home empty and catching a SpaceX uber for the astronauts seems like a prudent approach. Hopefully Boeing’s and NASA’s egos don’t get in the way like with both Columbia and Challenger.
I did a search on thrusters here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_control_system. It’s incredible to think they have been in use for nearly as long as our space program and NASA, yet Boeing has problems as if this was their first rodeo. I didn’t watch the news briefing but sure sounds like Boeing is going the way of lipstick on a pig. This from an airline Boeing driver till 17 years ago.
Are they both showing the Hawaiian Good Luck sign?
It is an ominous sign that they have turned to a redefinition of “test flight” as means to downplay the gravity of the situation. Test flights exist to test performance, reliability and safety, not to find out if a crew can survive a conglomerate of systems, procedures and decisions cobbled together to meet some objective unrelated to the operation of the aircraft. What was their stated mission at life off ? Who knows. However, I am even more concerned with risk management. When your initial mission fails, you must immediately acknowledge and egress to a a point of indisputable safety to reevaluate options. (Thank You Sr. DI Staff SGT Macius, PI). Instead they’re playing word games. Those folks should be home, debriefed and with a report to present to the tax payers by now. Never forget the Kursk.
Now degraded thrust? That’s new, and in addition to the inoperable stabilization thrusters. Are they coming up with a different reason to return the astronauts on SpaceX? Can’t admit the thrusters problem is the real issue?
SpaceX is doing no better :
SpaceX has suffered a rare failure after a Falcon 9 upper stage malfunction left a batch of Starlink satellites in a lower-than-planned orbit.…
The mission was to launch 20 Starlink satellites, including 13 with Direct to Cell capabilities. The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 1935 Pacific time on July 11 (0235 UTC July 12) seemed to go well, with the first stage of the Falcon 9 making a successful landing on a drone ship.
However, something appeared to be amiss with the upper stage. Onlookers including this reporter saw an unusual build-up of what appeared to be ice around the Merlin engine during the first burn of the stage. A scheduled restart of the engine to raise the perigee before the deployment of the Starlink satellites “resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown,” according to SpaceX boss Elon Musk. “RUD” stands for Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.
Neither SpaceX nor Musk have commented on the ice seen around the engine.
SpaceX later confirmed that the second burn was not completed as planned, and the Starlink satellites were deployed into a lower-than-intended orbit. This lower orbit means the satellites will soon make a destructive reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Musk posted on social media that attempts were being made to have the satellites run their ion thrusters “at the equivalent of warp 9” in an effort to raise their orbits faster than the atmosphere pulls them down.
He wrote: “Unlike a Star Trek episode, this will probably not work, but it’s worth a shot.”
This is the first inflight failure of a Falcon 9 launch since 2015’s CRS-7 cargo mission to the ISS, which failed a few minutes into flight. The company also lost a Falcon 9 and the AMOS-6 payload in a pad explosion in 2016. Still, aside from that and the occasional incident on landing, the vehicle has otherwise been extraordinarily reliable.
The implications of the failure are not immediately apparent. SpaceX has several launches scheduled for July, including more Starlink satellites and the Polaris Dawn Crew Dragon mission, which is set to feature the first commercial spacewalk.
NASA also depends on SpaceX to send crew to the ISS from US soil. The next launch is planned for August. ®
White guys whipping slide rules have been generating smoking holes since the very beginnings of flight. I am sure many of us can recite the mishaps and catastrophes that have occurred in aerospace even since the end of WWII. This is not really any different. I think we’re getting a bit tired of seeing the DEI MAGA dog whistle being blown every time something like this occurs. Let’s stick to facts and data.