NASA has decided to consider bringing Starliner down unmanned
Starliner docked to ISS.
It appears that upper management at NASA has decided to force the agency to consider bringing Starliner down unmanned and extending the ISS mission of the two Starliner astronauts to a nine month mission.
The situation is definitely complicated, and no change as yet as been made. The schedule of dockings to ISS has been reconfigured to make this option possible. It appears this is the present plan:
First, they need to upgrade the software on Starliner for an unmanned mission. Apparently the present software on board is not satisfactory for an unmanned docking, even though a different Starliner has already done an unmanned docking last year. For this mission, the software relied on the astronauts to take over manually should there be an issue during undocking. In the previous unmanned demo, the software would react and prevent a problem. For reasons that make no sense, the software on the manned mission did not have this capability. Reinstalling this software will give them the option to send the two astronauts down on Dragon and returning Starliner unmanned.
Second, the next Dragon manned mission has been delayed until late September to allow time for these software upgrades, as well as give NASA and Boeing more time to analyze the situation and decide if a manned return on Starliner is possible. If they decide to not use Starliner, the Dragon capsule would come up to ISS with only two astronauts, and the two Starliner astronauts would then join them on their six month mission, coming home in the spring. For the Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams this would mean their mission will now be 8-9 months long, far longer than the original one-two week mission.
As to why these options are now being considered, it appears to me that both Boeing and NASA engineers were willing to return the astronauts on Starliner, but have been ordered to consider these options by higher ups. It appears that the last hot-fire thruster tests on ISS left everyone with some uncertainties about the situation. Engineers are fairly certain that the reasons some thrusters did not fire as planned during docking was because teflon seals expanded because of heat to block fuel flow. The problem is that these seals showed no problem at all in the most recent test on ISS. That difference creates some uncertainty as to whether they have really identified the cause of the problem. Imagine having an intermittent problem your car mechanic cannot constently make happen.
Because the thrusters did work as intended, Boeing and NASA seemed ready to return Starliner manned. In the agency review last week it appears others at the top were less sanguine (including Bill Nelson, NASA’s administrator), and demanded these new options be considered. Based on this speculation, it is almost certain Starliner will come home empty.
Whether this will have significant consequences remains uncertain. During the press briefing today, NASA officials said the agency might still certify Starliner for operational manned missions even if the capsule comes home unmanned.
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Starliner docked to ISS.
It appears that upper management at NASA has decided to force the agency to consider bringing Starliner down unmanned and extending the ISS mission of the two Starliner astronauts to a nine month mission.
The situation is definitely complicated, and no change as yet as been made. The schedule of dockings to ISS has been reconfigured to make this option possible. It appears this is the present plan:
First, they need to upgrade the software on Starliner for an unmanned mission. Apparently the present software on board is not satisfactory for an unmanned docking, even though a different Starliner has already done an unmanned docking last year. For this mission, the software relied on the astronauts to take over manually should there be an issue during undocking. In the previous unmanned demo, the software would react and prevent a problem. For reasons that make no sense, the software on the manned mission did not have this capability. Reinstalling this software will give them the option to send the two astronauts down on Dragon and returning Starliner unmanned.
Second, the next Dragon manned mission has been delayed until late September to allow time for these software upgrades, as well as give NASA and Boeing more time to analyze the situation and decide if a manned return on Starliner is possible. If they decide to not use Starliner, the Dragon capsule would come up to ISS with only two astronauts, and the two Starliner astronauts would then join them on their six month mission, coming home in the spring. For the Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams this would mean their mission will now be 8-9 months long, far longer than the original one-two week mission.
As to why these options are now being considered, it appears to me that both Boeing and NASA engineers were willing to return the astronauts on Starliner, but have been ordered to consider these options by higher ups. It appears that the last hot-fire thruster tests on ISS left everyone with some uncertainties about the situation. Engineers are fairly certain that the reasons some thrusters did not fire as planned during docking was because teflon seals expanded because of heat to block fuel flow. The problem is that these seals showed no problem at all in the most recent test on ISS. That difference creates some uncertainty as to whether they have really identified the cause of the problem. Imagine having an intermittent problem your car mechanic cannot constently make happen.
Because the thrusters did work as intended, Boeing and NASA seemed ready to return Starliner manned. In the agency review last week it appears others at the top were less sanguine (including Bill Nelson, NASA’s administrator), and demanded these new options be considered. Based on this speculation, it is almost certain Starliner will come home empty.
Whether this will have significant consequences remains uncertain. During the press briefing today, NASA officials said the agency might still certify Starliner for operational manned missions even if the capsule comes home unmanned.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
While this looks really bad for Boeing and NASA I’m also glad that someone is saying better to be sure of things when it comes to peoples lives. It would be one thing if Dragon wasn’t coming up anyways or even a Russian Soyuz. If these weren’t there then risk might make sense but since there are options putting peoples lives first seems like the right call.
That is not to say never take risk but in the end people aren’t replaceable.
What Steve Stich said during the teleconference today appeared to confirm what Eric Berger reported the other day: A lot of spirited disagreement among NASA flight and propulsion engineers about whether Boeing’s tests had adequately characterized the physics of what was happening on Calypso’s thruster systems.
That seems to have forced this decision up the tree, so to speak. They claim no decision has been made yet, but everything seems to be set up as a kind of rebuttable presumption that Butch and Suni will come back to Earth on Crew-9’s Dragon rather than Starliner, unless Boeing engineers can pull a rabbit out of their hat in the next 7 days or so. Apparently, that is when the decision has to be made.
With 20-20 hindsight, when Starliner experienced thruster problems on approach to the ISS and had to revert to manual control, NASA should at that point have evaluated the option to wave off and considering re-entering.
Instead, the first flight’s failure to reach the ISS seems to have focused everyone on the need to dock by any means possible, and not on the eventual need to un-dock!
Hindsight is indeed 20-20!!
Please correct me, but I understood Crew Dragon was designed to have a capacity of 7. 1. Why wasn’t Cygnus sent up with 2 extra Dragan couches and suits to bring them back with Crew 8 or 2. Lauch Crew 9 with 4 members and 2 extra couches and suits. I thought Dragon was designed to have this extra capacity for this very reason. Also why not just keep the extra couches permanently stored on the station as a contingency in case of a Soyuz or Starliner failure.
Richard Haley: At least one reporter asked your very question in today’s briefing, and the NASA officials explained that they had considered this option but rejected it for many reasons that made sense as they explained it but have vanished from my memory now.
I listened to the meeting and felt like it was the same question over and over again from the reporters. No representative from Boeing at the meeting was kind of an insult.
I was surprised by the Teflon contracting in the thrusters statement. It shows the lack of oversight/QC on Boeing’s part, but what about the subcontractor Aerojet? This was not caught during functional testing or acceptance testing?
Great–even spacecraft have hardening of the arteries.
X-37 seemed to have no such problems
Is there a transcript or replay anywhere?
My money’s on an unmanned return that goes relatively smoothly, and a very politically driven certification. I predict Boeing gets many flights at a significant premium over SpaceX’s cost, maybe back to cost plus. Somebody’s got to pay for the billion plus loss, Boeing is far too big to fail.
John: Go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLNeIx7AwVE
I also forget to include this link in the post above. Now added.
@Richard Haley – the springs that bounce the seats on landing to reduce impact to the astronauts need room to move. Apparently with some change they made after one of the flights changed the range/angle so that there is no longer room to fit in a second row of seats and their springs.
Shouldn’t the results of the unmanned test flight be tossed out if there’s a completely different set of software for the manned flight? I can’t imagine releasing a different version than what was tested, and my software doesn’t involve re-entry.
Scott Manley’s take on the situation:
https://youtu.be/YKbDApzT1iw
12:30
All future Boeing flights should require the presence of the Boeing CEO!
Thanks for link Jeff!
Are there any reasonable alternatives to Starliner for the Commercial Crew Program? Seems it has been 13 years. https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/commercial-space/commercial-crew-program/commercial-crew-program-essentials/
Sunk costs to be ignored of course
I do not see why the Dragon needs a spring cushion system for the seats. The Russians do not use one and they crash into the hard earth instead of water. And I know water acts like a solid but its not exactly as hard as earth.
From my memory of the first dragon passenger mock ups it looked like the lower 4 seats were 6 inched or so off of the floor and the upper three seats could have been pushed up higher. A few inches at least.
Instead of just springs and bumpers to soften the landing they could use adjustable dampeners to limit and soften both bound and rebound.
They could also remove the upper three seats and replace them with just the lower 4 seats and move the screens down. Two people up to space and 4 down.
Its for one flight and should be considered at least.
During the briefing (which you should all listen to), NASA officials noted that SpaceX has developed foam cushions that can be used in an emergency.
In no way should certification be issued for Starliner, even if it comes down safely. This is a fiasco.
NASA should stop any further payments on this, and ask Sierra how much they need to accelerate Dream Chaser, cargo , and then start human rating it.
Mr. Z,
My read on this is that it’s pretty much NASA management and engineers now favoring an unmanned Starliner return and a SpaceX “rescue” scenario for Butch and Sunni while the Boeing management and engineers are still holding out for a crewed return of Starliner.
Richard M,
I think you are correct that Stich, and NASA more generally, have pretty much decided on an unmanned Starliner return followed by one of the several possible SpaceX “rescue” scenarios. If this was warfare, we’d call it battlespace preparation – NASA dropping strong hints as to what play it intends to call next week – assuming Boeing fails to pull the requisite rabbit out of the hat. Given the context of the discussion, though, perhaps the better analogy would be that NASA has begun “engine chill” so as not to have the decision, when announced, produce too much shock.
Dick Eagleson: I agree with you on this. My sense was that it was NASA leaning towards Dragon instead of Starliner. However, I also think that push was helped from higher-ups in the political swamp. For example, the White House does NOT want a Starliner failure causing the death of two astronauts now, only a short time before the election. It was for this reason I predict an empty Starliner return, no matter what Boeing comes up with.
They need to send a Tesla Optimus up on cargo Dragon, put it in Starliner and have it push the “undock” button, but not invoke any thrusters.
Then have the cargo Dragon dock with Starliner and push it away from the ISS.
At that point they could safely try the thrusters.