Valve vexation: Boeing's Starliner grounded again
- Reference: 1715090406
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/05/07/boeing_starliner_delay/
- Source link:
It is the closest Boeing has come to launching a crew in the Starliner capsule. The countdown was approaching the two-hour mark before the scrub call came in as managers worried about "anomalous behavior by the pressure regulation valve in the liquid oxygen tank of the Centaur upper stage of the ULA Atlas V launch vehicle," [1]according to Boeing.
United Launch Alliance, responsible for the Atlas V that will launch Boeing's Starliner, said: "Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the flight and pad crew, we scrubbed the Crew Flight Test (CFT) launch attempt today due to an observation on a liquid oxygen self-regulating solenoid relief valve on the Centaur upper stage.
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"The team needs additional time to complete a full assessment, so we are targeting the next launch attempt no earlier than Friday, May 10."
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The crew, consisting of Space Shuttle and International Space Station (ISS) veterans Sunita "Suni" Williams and Barry "Butch" Wilmore, had boarded the spacecraft before the scrub was called. This launch was set to be the 100th flight of the Atlas V rocket, and notably the first carrying humans.
The mission is the first crewed test flight of Boeing's Starliner to the ISS and comes several years after SpaceX first performed the feat with its Crew Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX's first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon occurred in 2020.
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It has taken nearly ten years for Boeing to reach this point. In 2014, it was awarded $4.2 billion and SpaceX $2.6 billion as NASA sought to reduce its reliance on Russia and launch its astronauts from US soil on American spacecraft. The goal was to end dependency on Russia by 2017.
At the time, the US space agency said: "NASA's expert team of engineers and spaceflight specialists is facilitating and certifying the development work of industry partners to ensure new spacecraft are safe and reliable."
[6]NASA reschedules Boeing's first crewed Starliner flight for mid-April 2024
[7]Boeing abandons plans for crewed Starliner flight in 2023
[8]This ain't Boeing very well: Starliner's first crewed flight canceled yet again
[9]Boeing's first-ever crewed mission in Starliner ISS spacecraft delayed to late July
The words ring hollow after Boeing's many setbacks in its attempt to send a crew to the ISS. The first test launch – without a crew – ended in near catastrophe thanks to [10]multiple issues , including timer problems.
NASA [11]acknowledged that maybe it should have paid closer attention to Boeing as a raft of quality and testing issues came to light.
Starliner finally made it to the ISS in 2022 in another uncrewed test dubbed [12]Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2) . However, the mission was not without incidents or delays, thanks partly to valves in the Calamity Capsule failing pre-flight checks.
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The latest scrub comes on the heels of [14]yet more delays , including worries over parachute linkage points and the flammability of tape.
One day, Boeing's Starliner will carry a crew to the ISS, and we can retire the nickname "Calamity Capsule." Just not today. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://starlinerupdates.com/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZjpQGo6HzKoFdNEa13GEowAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZjpQGo6HzKoFdNEa13GEowAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZjpQGo6HzKoFdNEa13GEowAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZjpQGo6HzKoFdNEa13GEowAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/13/nasa_boeing_starlinker/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/08/boeing_abandons_plans_for_crewed/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/02/boeing_starliner_crewed_flight_delay/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/30/boeing_crewed_mission_testing_delay/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/20/boeing_starliner_failure/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/08/nasa_boeing_starliner/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/20/boeing_starliner/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZjpQGo6HzKoFdNEa13GEowAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/02/boeing_starliner_crewed_flight_delay/
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Have the crew done a runner or just demanded danger money?
Boeing a brand name you could 100% trust to do the right thing ...
Right up until its merger with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. When it started to bump up its own stock price, by buying its own sock with each years profit (To maximize the share options for management). Up until that merger, safety came first, anyone could flag any problems if they saw them. After that merger, I'll let you guess how people who reported potential problems were seen by the company.
Ironic
With all the issues that Boeing has had with the Starliner, it's ironic that it's the ultra-reliable Atlas 5 that let the side down this time.
Although "reliable" relates to actual launch failures, not scrubs, I guess. I can't find any reliable stats, but an NSF article from a few years back mentions a 42% scrub rate for the Atlas 5, however that was based on an analysis of recent launches at the time, and may not be generally representative.
The ground is the best place for anything Boeing
And no, I don't mean after a crash.
There's no coming back after the door blowing out of that Alaskan Airlines flight. That alone is enough to make people realise they are a disgrace and shouldn't even be allowed to operate as a business anymore. Made so much worse by other totally preventable crashes beforehand.
I'm sure a lot of the engineers are decent people. But they are a shit show of a company and the world does not need any more of their disasters waiting to happen.
Re: The ground is the best place for anything Boeing
> I'm sure a lot of the engineers are decent people.
It is not the engineers who are at fault, engineering and quality control teams have no on-site access to key decision-makers.
Boeing management has moved (Seattle in Washington state->Chicago in 2001->Arlington, Virginia, to be close to the Pentagon in 2022) far far away from production (Seattle in Washington state and South Carolina), so that they can focus on the big picture (mostly maximizing stock price).
How are Boeing getting to launch a crewed capsule at this point? I don't recall any tests of a crew-escape system or any of the other stuff that you'd expect before they put people on board. Given the capsule's history of faults before and during previous test flights, it really needs many more test launches before expecting a crew to risk their lives.
Lucky
Well at least they didn't lose a door in mid-flight this time...