Polskie Forum Astronautyczne

Artykuły o tematyce astronautycznej => Artykuły astronautyczne => Wątek zaczęty przez: Orionid w Listopad 04, 2019, 23:50

Tytuł: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Listopad 04, 2019, 23:50
Tytuł zmieniony z [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
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Boeing Folds SLS, CST-100 Space Capsule into New Division
Jeff Foust February 18, 2015 [SN]

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Boeing's commercial crew capsule CST-100. Credit: Boeing

WASHINGTON — Boeing Defense, Space and Security announced Feb. 11 that it is consolidating several of its aerospace development programs, including the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and CST-100 commercial crew vehicle, into a new organization intended to improve management of those efforts.
https://spacenews.com/boeing-folds-sls-cst-100-space-capsule-into-new-division/

Curtiss-Wright To Complete CST-100 Avionics System
Warren Ferster April 8, 2015 [SN]
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CST-100 cockpit
Boeing's Chris Ferguson inside a CST-100 cockpit simulator. Credit: NASA/Bill Stafford
WASHINGTON — Curtiss-Wright Defense Solutions will finish developing and deliver a key flight data handling system for Boeing’s CST-100 commercial astronaut taxi under a contract modification announced by the Ashburn, Virginia, company March 31.

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Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital Flight Test
By Mike Killian, on November 4th, 2019

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This morning, Boeing conducted the first major flight test of their new CST-100 Starliner crew capsule, flying off a launch stand at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for a pad abort test to demonstrate and prove it can safely escape an exploding rocket to save its crew.


Source: https://www.americaspace.com/2019/11/04/starliner-clears-pad-abort-test-as-ula-rolls-out-rocket-for-dec-17-orbital-flight-test/

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It was their first flight test under a $4.2 billion contract for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and will provide Boeing and NASA with loads of data to help evaluate and verify the performance of Starliner’s abort system, before NASA will certify it and board astronauts for missions to and from the International Space Station beginning next year.[/size]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiOhR-PhvUw

Watch Starliner conduct its pad abort test, a major milestone on the path to earning certification from NASA to begin launching astronauts next year.

For the test, Starliner’s four launch abort engines (LAE) ignited with a combined 160,000 pounds of thrust to send the vehicle and its test dummy rider skyward. Five seconds later the abort engines shut off as planned, as control thrusters took over steering for the next five seconds, as Starliner pitched around and rotated into position for landing as it neared its peak altitude of 4,500 feet.

However, as the landing sequence played out only two of three main parachutes deployed. And while that may seem like cause for concern to armchair expert enthusiasts and the general public, it isn’t, because the system was designed to land fine fine under two parachutes anyway.


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Only two of three parachutes deployed in Boeing’s Pad Abort Test of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft over the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The system is designed to land just fine in the event of losing a parachute, and both NASA and Boeing consider the test a success, paving the way to an uncrewed Orbital Flight Test as soon as Dec 17 from Cape Canaveral. Photo: NASA / Boeing

“We did have a deployment anomaly, not a parachute failure,” explained Boeing after the flight test. “It’s too early to determine why all three main parachutes did not deploy, however, having two of three deploy successfully is acceptable for the test parameters and crew safety. At this time we don’t expect any impact to our scheduled Dec. 17 Orbital Flight Test. Going forward we will do everything needed to ensure safe orbital flights with crew.”

“Two opening successfully is acceptable for the test perimeters and crew safety,” says NASA. It was the first time the full sequence was demonstrated as on-flight hardware.


(https://www.americaspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/49012666998_75f517ec08_o.jpg)
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner landed gently under two parachutes and airbags in the New Mexico desert in the company’s Pad Abort Test for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program on Nov 4, 2019. Photo: NASA / Boeing

“Tests like this one are crucial to help us make sure the systems are as safe as possible,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager. “We are thrilled with the preliminary results, and now we have the job of really digging into the data and analyzing whether everything worked as we expected.”

“Emergency scenario testing is very complex, and today our team validated that the spacecraft will keep our crew safe in the unlikely event of an abort,” said John Mulholland, Vice President and Program Manager, Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program. “Our teams across the program have made remarkable progress to get us to this point, and we are fully focused on the next challenge—Starliner’s uncrewed flight to demonstrate Boeing’s capability to safely fly crew to and from the space station.”


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ULA hoisting the Atlas V rocket upright at their Vertical Integration Facility at Launch Complex 41, kicking off the launch campaign for Boeing’s uncrewed Starliner Orbital Flight Test as soon as Dec 17. Photo: ULA

Meanwhile, 2000 miles away in Florida United Launch Alliance (ULA) is busy getting Starliner’s first rocket ride to space ready for that Dec 17 target launch. Overnight, the Atlas V rocket was moved from a holding bay at ULA’s Atlas Spaceflight Operation Center (ASOC) and hauled horizontally by semi-truck nearly four miles to Launch Complex 41’s Vertical Integration Facility (VIF). Two cranes grappled both ends of the 107-foot-long rocket, lifting and rotating it upright, then hoisting it into the 30-story-tall assembly building and placed on its Mobile Launch Platform (MLP).

With the booster now at its launch site, ULA teams will now attach two solid rocket boosters to the rocket (brought in 1 by 1), before hoisting the Centaur upper stage to attach atop the rocket.


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The Orbital Flight Test Starliner getting ready for propellant loading ahead of rollout to the Atlas-V launch site for its upcoming Orbital Flight Test. Photo: Boeing

At the same time, the Starliner for December’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test is undergoing propellant loading, and will be transported to the VIF at LC-41 to meet its rocket in the next couple weeks.

Following that, ULA will roll out the fully-assembled, 172-foot-tall rocket with Starliner to the nearby launch pad to conduct an Integrated Day-of-Launch Test (IDOLT), also known as a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), where launch teams fuel the rocket stages and go through the launch countdown same as launch day, without actually igniting the engines.
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Tytuł: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Listopad 04, 2019, 23:51
Boeing performs Starliner pad abort test
by Jeff Foust — November 4, 2019 Updated 11:40 a.m. Eastern with Boeing statement.

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/starliner-padabortliftoff-879x485.jpg)
A Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft lifts off from a pad at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in a test of the spacecraft's abort system. Credit: NASA TV

WASHINGTON — NASA and Boeing said a pad abort test of the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle Nov. 4 was a success despite the failure of one of the capsule’s three parachutes to properly deploy.

The Starliner lifted off from a test stand at Launch Complex 32 at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at approximately 9:15 a.m. Eastern time. The spacecraft’s launch abort engines fired for five seconds, and a separate set of orbital maneuvering thrusters for 10 seconds, accelerating the spacecraft to more than 1,000 kilometers per hour to simulate escaping a malfunctioning rocket on the launch pad.

Source: https://spacenews.com/boeing-performs-starliner-pad-abort-test/

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The capsule soared to a planned peak altitude of about 1,350 meters before jettisoning its service module and heat shield, then deploying its parachutes. The capsule, cushioned by airbags, landed about 90 seconds after liftoff.

“The initial indication here is that we’ve had a successful test,” Boeing spokesperson Jessica Landa said during a NASA TV broadcast of the test.

“We are thrilled with the preliminary results, and now we have the job of really digging into the data and analyzing whether everything worked as we expected,” Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said in a statement about the test.

However, NASA and Boeing acknowledged one glitch with the test: only two of the three main parachutes deployed as the capsule descended. The third parachute may have been torn off, or not deployed at all, based on shaky video of the test.

NASA and Boeing said Starliner is designed to land safely if one main chute malfunctions. “We saw two out of three parachutes, and that is a stable condition,” NASA spokesperson Dan Huot said during the broadcast. The agency confirmed in a later statement that “two [parachutes] opening successfully is acceptable for the test parameters and crew safety.”

The pad abort test was a major milestone in development of Starliner. The next is an uncrewed orbital flight, called the Orbital Flight Test, where a Starliner will launch on an Atlas 5 to the International Space Station. That launch is scheduled for Dec. 17, although an investigation into the failed parachute could delay that mission.

“We did have a deployment anomaly, not a parachute failure,” Boeing said in a post-launch statement. “It’s too early to determine why all three main parachutes did not deploy, however, having two of three deploy successfully is acceptable for the test parameters and crew safety.” The company added that, at the present time, it doesn’t expect the issue to delay the Orbital Flight Test.

A crewed flight test, carrying NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann and Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson, will follow some time in 2020. The three attended the pad abort test and were satisfied with what they saw. “It worked pretty much the way I had always envisioned,” Ferguson said shortly after the test.

“We hope we never need to use this system, but in case we ever have any trouble aboard the beautiful Atlas 5 on the launch pad, we know after today’s test that we’ll be able to get off safely,” said Fincke.

SpaceX, which conducted a pad abort test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft in May 2015, is preparing for an in-flight abort test in December. On that test, a Crew Dragon spacecraft will fire its SuperDraco thrusters to escape a Falcon 9 nearly 90 seconds after liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center, around the time of maximum dynamic pressure on the spacecraft. SpaceX is scheduled to perform a static fire of those thrusters as soon as Nov. 6 in preparation for that flight.

Boeing will not perform its own in-flight abort test, concluding that data from the pad abort, along with modeling of flight conditions, will be sufficient, an approach NASA approved.[/size]
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Listopad 08, 2019, 00:52
Missing pin blamed for Boeing pad abort parachute anomaly
by Jeff Foust — November 7, 2019 [SN]

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The Boeing CST-100 Starliner descends under two parachutes near the end of its pad abort test Nov. 4. The company said a misplaced pin kept the third parachute from properly deploying. Credit: Boeing

WASHINGTON — Boeing said Nov. 7 that a misplaced pin prevented a parachute from deploying during a pad abort test of its CST-100 Starliner vehicle three days earlier, the only flaw in a key test of that commercial crew vehicle.

In a call with reporters, John Mulholland, vice president and program manager for commercial crew at Boeing, said an investigation after the Nov. 4 test at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico led the company to conclude that a “lack of secure connection” between a pilot parachute and the main parachute prevented that main parachute, one of three, from deploying.

The pilot parachute is designed to deploy first, and pull out the main parachute. However, Mulholland said that hardware inspections and photographs taken during “closeout” of the vehicle prior to the test showed that a pin that links the pilot and main parachutes was not inserted properly.

“It’s very difficult, when you’re connecting that, to verify visually that it’s secured properly,” he said, in part because that portion of the parachute system is enclosed in a “protective sheath” intended to limit abrasion but which also makes it difficult to visually confirm the pin is in place. “In this particular case that pin wasn’t through the loop, but it wasn’t discovered in initial visual inspections because of that protective sheath.”

Mulholland said Boeing is modifying assembly procedures through what he called “fairly easy steps,” such as pull tests, to ensure those pins are properly installed. Technicians have already confirmed that the same parachute linkages are properly installed on the three parachutes on the Starliner that will launch in December on an orbital flight test to the International Space Station.

“As normal, when we identify a sensitivity in one area, we expand it out to other areas that could have the same potential issue,” he added, for a total of 18 linkages throughout the parachute system. All but three have been checked and confirmed as of the briefing, he said.

NASA’s commercial crew program manager said the incident didn’t raise any specific quality control issues with Boeing. “This is just another place where we’ll be working with Boeing going forward and put together joint action plans for us to address any concerns,” said Kathy Lueders. “It’s part of our normal process to work through this.”

The test, Mulholland said, also provided an unplanned, but successful, verification of the ability of Starliner to safely land under two parachutes, something that had been tested during earlier qualification of the parachute system. “It’s a demonstration and understanding of the robustness of our design,” he said.

The parachute issue was the only problem found with the pad abort test so far. Initial analysis of the data from the brief test showed that key elements of the system, including the abort motors and separation of the service module and heat shield, were as expected.

“The spacecraft performance and test team performance was outstanding,” he said. “The vehicle trajectory it flew was right on top of pre-test predictions.”

Mulholland said technicians planned to continue analysis of the test using data from flight recorders on the spacecraft recovered after the test, as well as an anthropomorphic test dummy inside the capsule. “We’ll spend a week and a half and pour through” that data, he said. “Nothing abnormal is expected based on the data review of the downlinked data we’ve seen so far.”

Nothing in that review, they said, suggested cause for delaying the Orbital Flight Test of Starliner, scheduled for launch no earlier than Dec. 17 from Cape Canaveral. United Launch Alliance started the stacking process earlier in the week for the Atlas 5 that will launch that spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight to the ISS.


Source: https://spacenews.com/missing-pin-blamed-for-boeing-pad-abort-parachute-anomaly/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Grudzień 20, 2019, 20:11
Starliner anomaly to prevent ISS docking
by Jeff Foust — December 20, 2019 [SN]

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NASA has ruled out sending Starliner to the International Space Station after a timer problem caused the spacecraft to expend too much propellant shortly after reaching space. Credit: Boeing

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will not dock with the International Space Station after suffering a problem that caused the spacecraft to use too much propellant when entering orbit.

At a briefing here three hours after Starliner lifted off on an uncrewed test flight Dec. 20 (https://spacenews.com/starliner-suffers-off-nominal-orbital-insertion-after-launch/) called the Orbital Flight Test (OFT), NASA and Boeing officials said a problem with a timer on the spacecraft that tracks what’s known as Mission Elapsed Time meant that the spacecraft’s internal time was off, disrupting an orbital insertion burn 31 minutes after liftoff to place the spacecraft into orbit.

“It appears as though the mission elapsed timing system had an error, and that anomaly resulted in the vehicle believing that the time was different than it actually was,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said.

That caused reaction control thrusters on the spacecraft to fire to maintain a precise alignment at the wrong time, using up propellant. “When that prop got burnt, it looked like we weren’t going to be able to go ahead and rendezvous with the International Space Station,” Bridenstine said. He confirmed later in the briefing that a Starliner docking with the ISS had been ruled out.

Flight controllers recognized that the problem was taking place and tried to send commands to take over the spacecraft, said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch. The problem, though, may have been exacerbated by a handover from one Tracking and Data Relay Satellite to another, creating a gap in communications around the time controllers were trying to correct the problem.

Controllers were able to later execute an orbital insertion burn and put the spacecraft into a stable orbit. The spacecraft was, at the time of the briefing, in an orbit of 216 by 186 kilometers. Steve Stich, deputy manager of the commercial crew program, said two additional maneuvers are scheduled for later Dec. 20 to refine that orbit.

That orbit will allow Starliner to perform a landing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico Dec. 22, about 48 hours after launch. NASA and Boeing officials said they were still studying the state of the spacecraft and determining what test objectives they could carry out before deciding whether to land on Dec. 22 or stay in orbit for a longer mission.

The root cause of the timer problem is not yet known. “We don’t know if it started that way, or if some event caused it to be that way,” Chilton said, adding his team’s “most important job” is to diagnose the problem and to make sure it won’t reoccur in other phases of the mission, such as reentry and landing.

The problem doesn’t appear to be linked to the launch of the spacecraft itself. Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of United Launch Alliance, said they had a “nominal flight” of the Atlas 5 that launched Starliner, including the first use of a dual-engine Centaur upper stage on that rocket. “We achieve those separation parameters and, in fact, literally hit a bullseye,” at the time of spacecraft separation.

Bridenstine declined to speculate whether Boeing would need to fly another uncrewed test flight, this time docking with the ISS, before flying crew. “I think it’s too early to make that assessment,” he said, citing the lack of knowledge on the root cause of the timer problem. Neither Chilton nor Stich said they immediately knew what fraction of the OFT mission objectives won’t be achieved.

However, Bridenstine would not rule out going directly to a crewed flight after this mission despite the problems encountered. “That’s something we’ve got to look at,” he said.

It’s possible, he and others added, that had astronauts been on board the spacecraft, they could have been able to take manual control when the problem arose and preserved the opportunity to dock with the station. “In some cases, having a crew on board gives you some better, different, enhanced capability to responding to some failures,” said Stich.

The two NASA astronauts currently training for that Starliner crewed test flight agreed. “Starliner has a robust manual capability,” said Mike Fincke. “We like to think that, had we been on board, we could have given the flight control team more options on what to do in this situation.”

“Had we been on board, there could have been actions that we could have taken,” said Nicole Mann. “We are looking forward to flying on Starliner. We don’t have any safety concerns.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-anomaly-to-prevent-iss-docking/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Grudzień 20, 2019, 23:56
Boeing crew capsule falters after launch from Cape Canaveral
December 20, 2019 Stephen Clark [SFN]

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United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket lifts off at 6:36 a.m. EST (1136 GMT) Friday with Boeing’s Starliner capsule. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule flew into the wrong orbit soon after lifting off from Cape Canaveral on an unpiloted demonstration flight Friday morning, burning too much fuel and precluding the new commercial spaceship from docking with the International Space Station.

Mission managers say the capsule will target an early landing in New Mexico Sunday, bringing Boeing’s Starliner Orbital Flight Test to a premature conclusion.

The human-rated space taxi, developed through a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA, was supposed to link up with the space station Saturday on a shakedown mission before U.S. astronauts are cleared to fly on the next Starliner mission in 2020.

But the Starliner could not complete an automated orbit insertion maneuver a half-hour after launch from Cape Canaveral due to a timing error on the spacecraft, NASA and Boeing officials said. A brief interruption in communication with the capsule through NASA’s network of tracking and data relay satellites derailed an attempt by mission control to override Starliner’s autopilot and command the burn from the ground.

The ship’s failure to dock with the space station will leave some of the mission’s critical objectives unaccomplished, dealing a setback to NASA’s goal to resume launching astronauts from U.S. soil for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

“We did have obviously some challenges today,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in a post-launch press conference at the Kennedy Space Center. “When the spacecraft separated from the launch vehicle, we did not get the orbital insertion burn that we were hoping for.”

The Starliner later performed a maneuver to reach a stable, but unplanned orbit that will allow the capsule to safely circle the Earth until the ship’s next available landing opportunity Sunday at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

After some initial consideration of keeping the Starliner in orbit beyond Sunday to perform additional tests, officials decided Friday afternoon to proceed with the landing Sunday at White Sands, according to Bridenstine.

Two launch opportunities are possible Sunday in New Mexican desert, one at around 8 a.m. EST (6 a.m. MST; 1300 GMT), and another at 3:50 p.m. EST (1:50 p.m. MST; 2050 GMT). As of mid-afternoon Friday, officials had not decided which landing opportunity to choose.

The Starliner timer malfunction occurred within the first hour of a planned eight-day mission, minutes after an otherwise successful launch aboard an Atlas 5 rocket.

NASA has contracts with Boeing and SpaceX to transport crews between Earth and the space station. Since 2011, the U.S. space agency has purchased seats from Russia for astronauts to travel to the space station, spending more than $80 million per round-trip ticket in recent agreements with Russia’s space agency.

New commercial crew ships developed by Boeing and SpaceX are intended to end U.S. reliance on Russian Soyuz capsules for human transportation to the station. NASA signed contracts with Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 — valued at $4.2 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively — to begin flying crews into space before the end of 2017.

That schedule has been delayed more than two years. SpaceX accomplished a successful Crew Dragon test flight to the station in March, but the capsule was destroyed in an explosion during a ground test of its abort engines in April.

After introducing a fix to the cause the explosion, SpaceX is gearing up for a high-altitude launch abort test in January, and says it can be ready to fly astronauts to station soon after that.

Bridenstine said Friday it was too early to know whether the Starliner malfunction — and its inability to reach the space station — will affect NASA’s plans to fly astronauts on the next Starliner mission.

“I think it’s too early to make that assessment,” Bridenstine said.


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NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine addresses reporters Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA TV/Spaceflight Now

John Mulholland, Boeing’s Starliner program manager, identified the rendezvous with the International Space Station and the verification of the Starliner’s docking system performance among the Orbital Flight Test mission objectives during a pre-launch press conference Tuesday.

But Steve Stich, deputy manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said Friday a successful docking on the unpiloted test flight is not a prerequisite for proceeding with a crewed mission.

“Both Boeing and SpaceX proposed a mission to do an uncrewed test flight that demonstrated a docking,” Stich said. “I would not say that it’s a requirement. It’s something that is nice to have, but I wouldn’t say it’s a requirement for crewed flight.”

“We still will get to do a deorbit and entry and check out those critical pieces of the mission,” Stich said. “If you think about the critical parts of the mission for the crew, it’s launch and landing. So we’ll collect that data and we’ll understand the root cause of this problem, and then we’ll have to go see what’s the next step relative to the next mission.”

The Starliner spacecraft, with an instrumented test dummy nicknamed “Rosie” strapped in the cockpit, lifted off at 6:36:43 a.m. EST (1136:43 GMT) Friday on top of a modified United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

Upgrades to the Atlas 5, such as a dual-engine Centaur upper stage and an added aerodynamic skirt for improved stability, appeared to function as designed as the 172-foot-tall (52.4-meter) launcher arced northeast from Cape Canaveral in a spectacular dawn ascent to deliver the Starliner spacecraft on a trajectory toward the space station.

The Atlas aimed to deploy the Starliner spacecraft just shy of the velocity required to enter a stable orbit. And the rocket’s Centaur upper stage did just that, delivering the capsule on the proper suborbital trajectory and releasing Starliner to fly on its own roughly 15 minutes after liftoff.

Engineers designed the unusual Atlas 5 launch profile to limit g-forces on future Starliner astronaut crews during an abort in the event of a rocket failure.


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Artist’s illustration of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Boeing

A 40-second burn by four of the Starliner’s orbital maneuvering and attitude control engines was planned around 31 minutes into the mission. The maneuver was programmed to raise the low point, or perigee, of the Starliner’s orbit above the atmosphere, preventing the capsule from plunging back to Earth before completing a single 90-minute lap around the planet.

But a mission clock on-board the spacecraft apparently had a wrong setting, leading the ship to mistakenly believe it was operating in a different phase of its mission.

“Once the vehicle thought it was at a different time in the mission — being autonomous, a lot of this runs on a timer — it began to do burns and attitude control,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing’s space and launch division.

According to Bridenstine, the spacecraft consumed more propellant than anticipated as it errantly fired its control thrusters. A joint team of NASA and Boeing flight controllers in Houston noticed the problem and tried to intervene, but the Starliner did not receive their manual commands to perform the orbit insertion burn in time.

“By the time we were able to get signals up to actually command it to do the orbital insertion burn, it was a bit too late,” Bridenstine said.

Mission managers said a brief break in the satellite communication link between mission control and the Starliner spacecraft appeared to have prevented the ground commands from reaching the capsule.

In the end, Chilton said flight controllers commanded the spacecraft to maneuver into an unplanned orbit to preserve the opportunity to land the capsule as soon as Sunday morning at Boeing’s primary landing site at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico.

“The orbit we’re in today, the reason we picked it and put it there, is that allows us to return to White Sands in 48 hours,” Chilton said. “Without knowing exactly what was going on, the team quite rightly said, ‘Let me put the spacecraft in an orbit that I know I can control and get home, and give the engineering team time to thoroughly figure out whats going on.'”

Chilton said ground teams have stabilized the spacecraft after the misguided orbit insertion maneuver.

“The flight control team put the spacecraft in a safe orbit,” he said. “We’re flying tail to the sun, making sure we maximize charging (through the solar panels). All systems are good.”

The mission timer has reset, so engineers do not expect any additional problems stemming from the clock system malfunction.

Flight controllers were expected to assess later Friday what they can do to salvage some of the Starliner’s mission objectives. A pair of orbit-raising burns were planned Friday afternoon to better align for a landing opportunity at White Sands Sunday.

“We’re doing a propellant inventory management,” Chilton said. “It appears we have about 75 percent of the flight test propellant available, and the team will go figure out what subset of our overall test objectives can be achieved with the propellant remaining, while preserving a safe return to White Sands.”

In addition to the deorbit, re-entry and landing, mission planners will perform some propulsive demonstrations in orbit to exercise the spacecraft’s thrusters. Chilton said Boeing teams could test the spacecraft’s “far field,” or long distance, navigation capability and conduct checkouts of the Starliner’s optical rendezvous sensors.

There was also a chance the Starliner crew capsule could approach the vicinity of the space station for testing, officials said Friday. But that idea was apparently scrapped Friday as managers elected to proceed with a landing in New Mexico Sunday.


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Artist’s illustration of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft descending to landing with its airbags inflated. Credit: Boeing

“We learned a lot today about the vehicle and the spacecraft,” Stich said. “This vehicle was set up to fly today the exact trajectory we’ll fly with crew on-board.”

Bridenstine suggested that if astronauts were flying on the Starliner capsule, they could have responded and taken manual control to perform the orbit insertion burn.

Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson, a former NASA space shuttle commander, will be joined by NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann on the first Starliner mission with humans on-board. Fincke and Mann joined Bridenstine and other top space officials for a press conference after Friday’s launch.

“This anomaly has to do with automation,” Bridenstine said. “Nicole and Mike are trained specifically to deal with the situation that happened today, where the automation wasn’t working according to plan. If we had crew in there, No. 1, they would have been safe … And, in fact, had they been there, we may be docking with the International Space Station tomorrow.”

“We train extensively for this type of contingency, and had we been on-board, there could have been actions that we could have taken,” said Mann, a Marine Corps fighter pilot-turned-astronaut.

Stich, a former NASA space shuttle flight director, said engineers will analyze what went wrong between the time the Starliner spacecraft separated from the Atlas 5 rocket and the programmed time of the orbital insertion burn less than 20 minutes later.

“In that critical timeframe, clearly we missed something with this timer,” Stich said. “We didn’t see it in any of the simulations … It’s in this timeframe, where the automation hands over from the launch vehicle to the spacecraft, that clearly the timer mixed up. So we’ll have to go figure out what happened, and then go solve the problem.”

Officials were not sure Friday whether the timing issue was caused by an inherent problem on the spacecraft, such as a design flaw, or something that happened on the capsule in flight.


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/oft_profile.jpg)
This frame from an animation of the Atlas 5’s launch profile with the Starliner spacecraft shows a rendering of the crew capsule separating from the Centaur upper stage. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Stich said engineers will also verify the timing issue, while resolved for now, will not crop up again during the crucial return phase of Starliner’s mission.

“The spacecraft has recovered well, and is doing well,” he said. “So we’ll work this over the next couple of days. When we look ahead, we’ll work with the Boeing team to make sure we’re safe for entry.

“We understand we had a problem with this timing with this very important insertion maneuver,” Stich said. “We’ll have to look forward and look at the deorbit burn and entry just to make sure there’s no hidden problems there. So we’ll look at the software and do some runs in the simulator … to make sure that’s all safe.”

The Starliner spacecraft is designed to return to a touchdown on land, unlike previous U.S. crew capsules, which landed at sea. Parachutes and airbags will help cushion the craft’s landing.

The Starliner setback is another black mark on a troubled year for Boeing. The company’s 737 MAX passenger jet has been grounded worldwide since March after two fatal crashes in five months, both blamed on faulty software in the plane’s flight control system.

Chilton, a veteran engineer and Boeing program manager, said the Starliner team is disappointed in the outcome of Friday’s mission.

“These are passionate people who are committing a big chunk of their lives to put Americans back in space from our soil, so it’s disappointing for us,” Chilton said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to diagnose it, figure out what’s the right thing to do going forward — what kind of next flight test we fly — and keep going.”


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/12/20/boeing-crew-capsule-falters-after-launch-from-cape-canaveral/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Grudzień 22, 2019, 19:40
Starliner lands in New Mexico
by Jeff Foust — December 22, 2019 [SN]
Updated 12:15 p.m. Eastern with comments from post-landing press conference.

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/starliner-landing2.jpg)
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner, descending under parachutes, releases its base heat shield shortly before landing at White Sands, New Mexico. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

WASHINGTON — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft landed safely in New Mexico in the early morning hours Dec. 22, wrapping up an uncrewed test flight cut short by a timer glitch.

Starliner landed at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico at 7:58 a.m. Eastern, 35 minutes after performing a deorbit burn using its thrusters. The spacecraft “hit the bullseye” at the landing site, Boeing and NASA reported on a NASA TV broadcast of the landing.

The spacecraft’s reentry and landing appeared to go as planned, including the deployment of the spacecraft’s drogue and main parachutes. During a pad abort test at White Sands in November, one of three main parachutes failed to deploy because it was not properly rigged, but Boeing said they had identified the problem and ensured that the parachute on this spacecraft was properly set up.

“The landing looked exactly like we had in the simulations,” Boeing engineer Jim May said during the NASA TV broadcast. “A nice, soft landing.”

The landing brought an early end to a mission that had been scheduled to last more than a week. Original plans called for the Starliner to dock with the International Space Station Dec. 21 and remain there until shortly after midnight Eastern Dec. 28, undocking and landing at White Sands several hours later.


(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/starliner-landing.jpg)
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner after a successful landing at White Sands, New Mexico. Credit: NASA

Those plans changed, though, when the spacecraft encountered a problem with its mission elapsed timer shortly after it separated from the Centaur upper stage of the Atlas 5 that launched it. The timer was not properly set, causing it to fire its attitude control thrusters at the wrong time and consuming too much propellant to permit an approach to the station.

Despite the lack of an ISS approach and docking, NASA and Boeing officials played up the mission’s other accomplishments in a briefing two hours after the landing. “A lot of things went right,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. With the successful landing, “a whole lot more things did go right, went very, very well.”

“Return is something you can’t really test. You’ve got to put your heat shield on go through the heat regime,” Jim Chilton, senior vice president for Boeing’s space and launch division, said at that briefing. “Today, it couldn’t really have gone any better.”

He emphasized the on-target landing at White Sands and the good condition of the spacecraft after touchdown. “From an overall perspective, we are just as pleased as we could be with the design.”

Chilton estimated that the mission has achieved in the “low 60%” of overall flight test objectives so far based on available data. Once all the data from the spacecraft is retrieved and analyzed, he said that success rate could reach 85–90%.

Questions, though, continue to swirl about the problem with the mission elapsed timer. Chilton said in a Dec. 21 that Starliner initializes that timer prior to launch using data from the Atlas 5 (https://spacenews.com/starliner-mission-to-end-with-sunday-landing/), but that the spacecraft apparently “reached in and grabbed the wrong coefficient” prior to launch. He said in the Dec. 22 briefing that the timer was off by 11 hours.

Boeing and NASA tried to downplay the timer issue, noting the success of other aspects of the mission, including the critical launch and landing phases. “We had a little issue with the timer in the beginning, which caused to go into a different path in the mission,” said Steve Stich, deputy manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, during the post-landing briefing. “Sometimes, when you head down these different paths, you learn more.”

“We have a solid understanding of the challenge that we had, and why it occurred,” Bridenstine added. “It is not something that is going to prevent us from moving forward quickly. We can still move forward quickly. We can get it fixed.”

Earlier in the briefing, though, Bridenstine suggested that the timer problem might prompt a more thorough review of the overall flight software on Starliner. “That gives us reason to think we need to go back and look at a lot of different things,” he said.

Neither the agency nor the company, though, would rule out going ahead directly to the Crew Flight Test mission, with three astronauts on board, despite not meeting all of the objectives of this Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission.

“We need to take a little bit of time to look through all the data and see how the vehicle performed in all phases,” Stich said. “To me, there’s good data out there that suggests that, once we go through it, maybe it’s acceptable to go, as the next step, the Crew Flight Test.”

During the briefing, reporters noted that Boeing’s Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract with NASA (https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/nnk14ma75c-attachment-j-03-pws.pdf) does appear to require that the uncrewed flight test dock with the ISS. “The OFT shall include a [commercial crew transportation system] that validates end-to-end connectivity, [launch vehicle] and CST-100 integration, launch and flight operations, automated rendezvous and proximity operations, and docking with the ISS, assuming ISS approval,” it states.

NASA suggested that provision could be amended. “There’s also a difference between what is a NASA requirement and what is a contractual requirement for this particular flight test,” Bridenstine said. “The NASA requirement might not be the same as the contractual requirement for this particular flight test.”

If NASA does go ahead and fly the Crew Flight Test mission next, the Starliner that just landed, formally known as spacecraft 3, will be refurbished for the first operational, or post-certification, mission. One of the astronauts who will fly that mission, Suni Williams, said in a NASA TV interview after the landing that the spacecraft would be renamed “Calypso” in honor of the ship used by famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.

“In a little homage to other explorers and the ships that they rode on, I think we’re going to call it Calypso,” she said. “There’s so much to discover in the ocean and there’s so much to discover in space, it just seemed like a natural marriage.”

At the post-landing briefing, both Bridenstine and Chilton seemed a little surprised by the name. “This is commercial crew, so it’s probably going to be up to our commercial partners to name the capsules,” Bridenstine said. “I would imagine that if NASA weighed in and we wanted to name it something, Boeing would probably follow suit, but we haven’t done that in this case.”

“It’s hard to resist the allure of the commander of your first revenue service flight picking her name, so I’m sure we’ll be chatting with Suni,” Chilton said. “Cool name, by the way.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-lands-in-new-mexico/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Grudzień 28, 2019, 01:45
Boeing’s Starliner capsule lands after missing rendezvous with space station
December 22, 2019 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/49258250868_d3ffed72fd_k.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen after landing Sunday at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

An unpiloted demonstration flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule ended prematurely Sunday with a smooth airbag-cushioned predawn landing in New Mexico after a timing glitch prevented it from docking with the International Space Station, leaving some test objectives incomplete as NASA begins analyzing data to determine if astronauts should fly on the next Starliner mission.

Concluding its first trip into space, the reusable Starliner capsule touched down at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 7:58 a.m. EST (5:58 a.m. MST; 1258 GMT) Sunday. Three red, white and blue parachutes slowed the ship’s descent, and six airbags inflated to soften the spacecraft’s landing on the desert floor, marking the first time a U.S. human-rated capsule has returned from orbit to touch down on solid ground.

Boeing recovery forces quickly approached the spaceship, ensured it was safe and stable, installed a protective environmental enclosure and opened the capsule’s hatch about an hour after landing, practicing procedures they will perform to help astronauts disembark on future missions.

The Starliner’s landing Sunday appeared to go almost perfectly, hitting a “bullseye” in the landing zone in New Mexico after an inauspicious start to the test flight Friday.

“The vessel looks great,” said Jim Chilton, vice president of Boeing’s space and launch division. “The ground crews, they’re telling us there’s hardly any charring, (it’s) perfectly level on the airbags,  and that bodes very well for reusability.”

The capsule started its flight with an 11-hour error in its mission elapsed timer setting, triggering a cascading series of problems that led to the Starliner burning too much fuel to reach the space station and deliver cargo.

Nevertheless, NASA and Boeing officials presented a positive message after Sunday’s landing, suggesting the Starliner program could move forward after a partially successful test flight. Depending on the outcome of a comprehensive data review, NASA could clear astronauts to fly on the next Starliner mission as originally intended, officials said.

“If you went straight down the checklist, I think we’d be in the low 60 percent (range) right now (of mission objectives accomplished),” Chilton said Sunday. “Inside the capsule, we have a series of data recorders, and the data on those recorders is not sent back home through telemetry — things like temperature sensors on the hull and strain gauges to see bending and what kind of shock did you see.”

Boeing’s engineers will not get the results of some of the measurements until the spacecraft is transported back to the Starliner factory and refurbishment facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. That is expected to take up to two weeks.

“If I was going to infer how that data was going to come out — from cabin temperatures and how pristine the vehicle looks — I’d say we’re probably about in the 85 to 90 percent range of our (accomplished) test objectives,” Chilton said.

Chilton added the data review is not expected to be complete until “well into January.”


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/49258609652_80c8596dbe_k.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft descends under three red, white and blue main parachutes toward landing at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

With the Starliner spacecraft safely back on Earth, NASA and Boeing managers will review the mission results and determine whether the capsule performed well enough to permit Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson and NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann to fly on the next Starliner mission in 2020.

“In terms of looking ahead to the Crew Flight Test, I think we have to take a little bit of time to look through all the data and see how the vehicle performed in all phases — orbit, entry and ascent — and we’ll go look at that and we’ll look the objectives we did not get, which were the rendezvous, approach and docking,” said Steve Stich, deputy manager of NASA’s commercial crew program. “And we’ll have to sit down and talk about what we do for the Crew Flight Test.

“To me, there’s good data out there that once we go through it, maybe it’s acceptable to go to the next step and do the Crew Flight Test,” Stich said.

Another option available to NASA is to redo the Starliner’s unpiloted test flight, a decision that would likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars and delay the program by months, if not longer.

Through a series of agreements and contracts since 2010, NASA is paying Boeing at least $4.8 billion to develop, demonstrate and fly the Starliner spacecraft for NASA astronauts traveling to the space station. SpaceX has received a similar set of contracts from NASA valued at $3.1 billion for the company’s Crew Dragon capsule, giving the U.S. space agency two independent ways of ferrying crews to and from the space station and ending NASA’s reliance on Russia for astronaut transportation.

But the multibillion-dollar government contracts are for commercial services, and Boeing and SpaceX retain ownership of the spacecraft, oversee flight operations and control access to proprietary data.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Sunday that he is optimistic the agency’s commercial crew program can “move forward” with the Starliner program despite the spacecraft’s failure to dock with the space station on the unpiloted Orbital Flight Test.

“Yes, there are elements of this that are missing, but there are a whole lot of elements that were completed in a positive and meaningful way,” he said. “Given what we know today, we know that we are going to move forward. We know that we’ve got a lot of learning in front of us. We’ve got enough information and data to keep moving forward in a positive way.”

The mission elapsed timer issue that cut short Starliner’s planned eight-day mission started before the spacecraft lifted off Friday from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, according to Chilton.

“Our spacecraft needs to reach down into the Atlas 5 and figure out what time it is, where the Atlas 5 is in its mission profile, and then we set the clock based on that,” Chilton said in a press conference Saturday. “Somehow we reached in there and grabbed the wrong (number). This doesn’t look like an Atlas problem. This looks like we reached in and grabbed the wrong coefficient.”

“As a result of starting the clock at the wrong time, the spacecraft upon reaching space, she thought she was later in the mission, and, being autonomous, started to behave that way,” Chilton said. “And so it wasn’t in the orbit we expected without the burn and it wasn’t in the attitude expected and was, in fact, adjusting that attitude.”

The frenetic thruster firings began almost as soon as the Starliner separated from the Atlas 5 rocket’s Centaur upper stage, which intentionally flew on a flattened, suborbital trajectory designed to reduce g-force loads on astronaut crews during a launch abort scenario.

The timing error prevented the Starliner from accomplishing its targeted orbit insertion maneuver. Mission control uplinked commands for the spacecraft to perform a series of burns with its smaller thrusters to reach a stable, but unplanned orbit, but the ship was no longer in a position to reach the space station.

The continual burns caused the thrusters to get hot, and in one case, a set of thrusters depleted its propellant supply. Despite intermittent messages suggesting some of the Starliner’s 28 service module control jets were unavailable, ground controllers were able to recover and reactivate all but one of the thrusters before re-entry, officials said.


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/EMaSoPUX0AEQHuA.jpeg)
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Boeing Vice President Jim Chilton, and NASA deputy commercial crew program manager Steve Stich discuss the results of the Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test Sunday in a news briefing at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Credit: NASA

“The mission elapsed timing error did absolutely result in a number of follow-on challenges,” Bridenstine said Saturday. “The spacecraft thought it was in a position it was not in, so it was trying to get in the right position. So the engines were firing, the reaction control was trying to put the spacecraft in the right position.

“And that resulted in some of these engines exceeding their limitations, both from a temperature perspective and from a duty cycle (perspective),” Bridenstine said. “The engines are only supposed to run a certain number of times in a certain amount of time, and those were exceeded. Had the mission elapsed timing been correct, none of that would have happened.”

Stich said Sunday that the toughest part of the Starliner test flight was the spacecraft’s return to Earth Sunday.

“The No. 1 flight test objective was a successful de-orbit, re-entry and landing, and we did that today,” Stich said. “The vehicle flew phenomenally during entry. All the maneuvers were just exactly as planned.”

After giving up on test flight’s planned rendezvous with the space station, mission managers focused on conducting as many demonstrations of the Starliner spacecraft as possible during an abbreviated two-day solo flight in low Earth orbit.

The spacecraft extended its docking mechanism Saturday to check the mechanical system that will link future Starliner vehicles with the space station. The ship’s stellar navigation cameras were also checked out in orbit for the first time, and the solar panel power generation system worked better than expected, according to Boeing.

The temperature and other parameters inside the Starliner’s pressurized cabin also looked OK, officials said.

But some of the Starliner’s planned maneuvers around the space station, culminating in an autonomous docking, remained unproven after the spacecraft’s first Orbital Flight Test.

And some holiday presents for the space station’s crew carried on the Starliner spacecraft went undelivered. NASA said the astronauts will get the gifts after they land on Russian Soyuz spaceships next year.

Chilton said Sunday the “big pieces” of the test flight, such as its launch and landing, have been successfully demonstrated. While a successful docking with the space station was listed before the launch as a mission objective, officials said all of the test flight’s goals were not weighted equally.

“We got a brand new human-rated Atlas 5 … flying a different trajectory, different aero-shape,” Chilton said. “You can only test that at scale. That went terrific.”


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/WS_OFT_Launch-3286.jpeg)
The Starliner spacecraft launched Friday from Cape Canaveral on a modified, human-rated variant of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now

“The spacecraft got a little bit of a surprising start,” Chilton said. “The the team immediately took care of that and circularized the orbit and were able to show that his spacecraft controls attitude (and) does all the things she’s supposed to do, keeps people safe. The cabin temperature, pressures, and all that were terrific.

“Return is something that you can’t really test (on the ground),” Chilton said. “You’ve got to put your heat shield on and go through the heat regime. Today, it couldn’t really have gone any better. We got down, got guidance lock and touched down in the center of the bullseye.”

Flying some 155 miles (250 kilometers) over the South Pacific Ocean, the Starliner fired four braking rockets for 55 seconds at 7:23 a.m. EST (1223 GMT) Sunday to drop out of orbit and fall back into the atmosphere, committing Starliner to its descent toward White Sands.

Moments later the Starliner’s service and crew modules separated.

The service module — hosting the ship’s abort engines, solar panels, radiators and other no-longer-needed systems — headed for a destructive re-entry over the Pacific Ocean. Protected by an ablative heat shield, thermal tiles and blankets, the crew module used its 12 control thrusters to help guide it toward White Sands on an approach over Mexico from the southwest.

Starliner encountered the first discernible traces of the atmosphere at 7:41 a.m. EST (1241 GMT). Temperatures outside the capsule were expected to reach up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius).

The capsule triggered its parachute deployment sequence at an altitude of around 30,000 feet (9 kilometers).

The Starliner first jettisoned its upper heat shield and deployed a pair of drogue parachutes. Then mortars fired and pilot chutes pulled three main parachutes from their containers around 8,000 feet (2,400 meters). Less than a minute later, the capsule released its bottom heat shield, allowing airbags to inflate at around 3,000 feet (900 meters).

The ship was designed to touch down at a speed of about 19 mph (28 feet per second), and an instrumented dummy nicknamed “Rosie the Rocketeer” strapped into the Starliner cockpit was designed to register forces and loads at landing, and in other phases of the flight.

The Starliner’s landing Sunday marked the second time an orbiting crew-capable space vehicle has returned to Earth at White Sands. The shuttle Columbia returned to Earth and touched down on an unpaved landing strip at White Sands Space Harbor in March 1982 to conclude NASA’s third space shuttle mission.

Boeing plans to reuse the Starliner capsule on the program’s second piloted mission to the space station, commanded by veteran NASA astronaut Suni Williams. A separate spacecraft is being readied for Boeing’s Crew Flight Test, the first Starliner mission with astronauts on-board.

In remarks after Sunday’s landing, Williams named the capsule “Calypso” in an ode to the research vessel of French ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau.

With the post-flight Starliner data review set to get underway, Stich remained confident Sunday that astronauts will launch into orbit from U.S. soil next year for the first time since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011.

As a program, we’ve had a tremendous year,” Stich said. “We’ve flown two orbital test flights in preparation for the crewed missions next year. We’ve flown a pad abort test in November with Boeing to test that system, and we have all the data from these two orbit test flights to set us up for crewed missions.”

SpaceX completed a successful unpiloted demonstration of its Crew Dragon spacecraft in March, when the ship accomplished an automated docking with the space station and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean off the U.S. East Coast.

But SpaceX encountered trouble in April, when the same spacecraft that completed the round-trip flight to the space station was destroyed in an explosion during a ground test-firing of its launch escape engines.

SpaceX says it has fixed the faulty valve problem that caused the explosion, and the company completed the abort engine hotfire test in November, setting the stage for an in-flight abort test in January. For the in-flight abort demonstration, SpaceX will mount the Crew Dragon — without passengers — to a Falcon 9 rocket and launch it into the stratosphere, then trigger an abort in the upper atmosphere to prove the capsule’s ability to get astronauts away from a failing booster.


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/12/22/boeings-starliner-capsule-safely-lands-after-missing-rendezvous-with-space-station/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Grudzień 28, 2019, 01:45
Boeing’s first commercial crew capsule christened ‘Calypso’
December 22, 2019 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/49258457308_20bcbec31a_k.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, named “Calypso,” seen after landing Sunday at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Fresh from its inaugural test flight in space, Boeing’s first reusable Starliner crew capsule has been named “Calypso” by NASA astronaut Suni Williams, who will command the same vehicle on its next trip into orbit.

The Starliner spacecraft landed at 7:58 a.m. EST (5:58 a.m. MST; 1258 GMT) Sunday to complete an abbreviated two-day Orbital Flight Test.

The mission was cut short after an on-board timing error prevented the spacecraft from performing a planned orbit insertion burn soon after launch Friday. Mission controllers uplinked commands for the Starliner to enter a safe, but unplanned orbit, leaving the capsule unable to reach the International Space Station as intended.

Read our earlier story for details on the timing error, and its implications for plans to fly astronauts on the next Starliner mission.

Boeing has produced two reusable human-rated spaceships for flights to the space station under a $4.2 billion contract with NASA. The space agency has signed a similar $2.6 billion contract with SpaceX in 2014 for development of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, on which astronauts will fly new vehicles on each mission.

The Starliner vehicle that landed Sunday in New Mexico, designated Spacecraft 3, is slated to fly again on Boeing’s second crewed mission. NASA has assigned astronauts Suni Williams and Josh Cassada that Starliner mission, the first regular crew rotation flight to the space station.

Williams and Cassada will be joined by two other crew members from NASA’s international partners. Their mission will follow the Crew Flight Test that will use Spacecraft 2, which is in final assembly at Boeing’s Starliner factor at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Each of the space-rated Starliner vehicles is designed for 10 missions.

Spacecraft 1 was built for Boeing’s pad abort test and is not intended to fly in space.

Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson, a former NASA space shuttle commander, will launch on the Crew Flight Test to the space station with NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann.

Ferguson, Fincke, Mann and Williams were in New Mexico Sunday for the Starliner landing.

In an interview on NASA TV’s landing broadcast, Williams said she has named the Starliner vehicle that returned Sunday “Calypso” in an ode to the research vessel used by French explorer Jacques Cousteau.

“I love the ocean,” said Williams, a retired U.S. Navy captain and a veteran of two previous space station expeditions. “There’s so much to discover in the ocean, and there’s so much to discover in space. It just seemed like a natural marriage.”


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NASA astronaut Suni Williams. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Boeing owns the Starliner crew capsules, and a senior company official said Sunday he liked the name Calypso.

“(It’s) hard to resist the allure of the commander of your first revenue service flight picking her (spacecraft) name,” said Jim Chilton, vice president of Boeing’s space and launch division.

“Cool name, by the way, on a personal note,” he added. “It evokes Jacques Cousteau and exploration.”

In Greek mythology, Calypso is the daughter of Atlas. On the program’s early missions, all Starliner spacecraft will lift off on top of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rockets.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine also endorsed the name choice.

“Calypso it is!” Bridenstine tweeted Sunday.


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/12/22/boeings-first-crew-capsule-christened-calypso/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Grudzień 30, 2019, 15:50
Starliner in good shape after shortened test flight
by Jeff Foust — December 29, 2019 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/49258457308_20bcbec31a_k-879x485.jpg)
The CST-100 Starliner spacecraft shortly after its Dec. 22 landing at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Boeing said Dec. 28 that the spacecraft was in good condition after its abbreviated orbital test flight. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

SANTA FE, N.M. — The Boeing CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle that flew an abbreviated test flight this month appears to be in good condition as an investigation into the timer problem that shortened the flight continues.

In a Dec. 28 update (https://starlinerupdates.com/starliner-data-collected-ahead-of-spacecraft-move/), Boeing said technicians are continuing processing of the Starliner vehicle that landed Dec. 22 at White Sands Missile Range after a two-day uncrewed test flight. The spacecraft, christened “Calypso” by NASA astronaut Sunita Williams after landing, will be transported back to Boeing’s facilities at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the first of the year.

Since that landing, workers have retrieved videos from onboard cameras and other data stored on the spacecraft during the flight. Boeing said it anticipated releasing videos from those onboard cameras in the next week.

Boeing emphasized the good condition of the spacecraft, which showed “little scorching” from reentry and used only a fraction of its onboard propellant reserved for reentry, which the company said confirmed aerodynamic models of the spacecraft. The interior of the Starliner cabin appeared the same after landing as it did before its Dec. 20 launch from Cape Canaveral, the company noted, evidence that “the Starliner’s fully operational life support system functioned as intended and the layout of the interior is well-suited to support crew members in the future.”

The statement, though, provided no updates on the timer problem that turned what was originally an eight-day mission into a two-day one without a planned docking at the International Space Station. The spacecraft’s mission elapsed timer, which is set by communicating with its Atlas 5 rocket prior to liftoff, was off by 11 hours. That caused the spacecraft to think it was on the wrong phase of its mission after separation from the rocket’s upper stage, triggering thruster firings that used excessive amounts of fuel until ground controllers could take over and turn off the thrusters.

Why the timer was off, particularly by such a large amount, any why it wasn’t detected prior to launch is not known. “If I knew, it wouldn’t have happened,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president for Boeing’s space and launch division, at a Dec. 21 briefing. “We are surprised. A very large body of integrated tests, approved by NASA, didn’t surface this.”

After landing, NASA leadership stated that the problem, once understood and corrected, would not necessarily prevent Boeing from proceeding with a crewed test flight. “It is not something that is going to prevent us from moving forward quickly,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said at a post-landing briefing Dec. 22. “We can still move forward quickly. We can get it fixed.” He also suggested, though, that the timer problem might lead to a more thorough review of the Starliner’s overall flight software or other systems.

One returned to Florida, the Starliner named Calypso will be refurbished for Boeing’s first post-certification, or operational, mission to the ISS. That mission will carry Williams and fellow NASA astronaut Josh Cassada along with two astronauts yet to be assigned from other ISS partners.


Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-in-good-shape-after-shortened-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Styczeń 09, 2020, 00:06
Joint NASA-Boeing team to investigate Starliner test flight anomaly
by Jeff Foust — January 7, 2020 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/starliner-landingonairbags.jpg)
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft after its Dec. 22 landing that ended a truncated uncrewed test flight. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

HONOLULU — NASA and Boeing will cooperate on an investigation into a timer anomaly that cut short December’s uncrewed test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft as NASA weighs whether to require another such test flight.

In a Jan. 7 statement, NASA said the agency and Boeing were establishing a “joint, independent investigation team” to determine the primary cause of the timer problem the Starliner suffered immediately after its Dec. 20 launch on what was to be an eight-day mission to the International Space Station.

Boeing later said that the mission elapsed timer on the spacecraft was off by 11 hours, causing the spacecraft to think it was in the wrong phase of its mission immediately after separation from the upper stage of the Atlas 5 that launched it. The spacecraft fired its thrusters in reaction to the incorrect time, and by the time spacecraft controllers on the ground were able to take control, the spacecraft had expended too much propellant to allow it to dock with the station. The spacecraft instead landed safely at White Sands, New Mexico, Dec. 22.

The joint investigation, NASA said in the statement, will seek the root cause of the timer anomaly and also investigate any other software issues, and recommend corrective actions to implement prior to Starliner carrying people. NASA said it estimates the team will take two months to complete its work.

At the same time that investigation is underway, NASA will separately examine if a second uncrewed test flight will be needed before it allows astronauts to fly on the spacecraft. “NASA’s approach will be to determine if NASA and Boeing received enough data to validate the system’s overall performance, including launch, on-orbit operations, guidance, navigation and control, docking/undocking to the space station, reentry and landing,” the agency said in its statement, a process expected to take several weeks.

That uncrewed test flight, known as the Orbital Flight Test, did not approach or dock with the station. “Although data from the uncrewed test is important for certification, it may not be the only way that Boeing is able to demonstrate its system’s full capabilities,” NASA stated.

The Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract that NASA awarded to Boeing did require an uncrewed test flight that included a docking. However, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine suggested at a post-landing briefing Dec. 22 that NASA might not hold Boeing to that requirement.

“There’s also a difference between what is a NASA requirement and what is a contractual requirement for this particular flight test,” Bridenstine said then. “The NASA requirement might not be the same as the contractual requirement for this particular flight test.”

“Although docking was planned, it may not have to be accomplished prior to the crew demonstration,” NASA said in the new statement. “Boeing would need NASA’s approval to proceed with a flight test with astronauts onboard.”

Neither NASA nor Boeing have released additional information about the timer anomaly since the mission. Boeing officials said during the mission that the timer is set on Starliner prior to launch by using data from the Atlas 5, but that the spacecraft have accessed the wrong data.

In a Dec. 28 update, Boeing said that the spacecraft itself was in good condition after the abbreviated flight, performing as expected or better while in orbit and during reentry and landing. Boeing announced Jan. 3 that the spacecraft was on its way back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for additional post-flight analysis and refurbishment for a future crewed test flight. That cross-country shipment was scheduled to last 10 days.


Source: https://spacenews.com/joint-nasa-boeing-team-to-investigate-starliner-test-flight-anomaly/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Luty 09, 2020, 18:51
Boeing takes $410 million charge to cover potential additional commercial crew test flight
by Jeff Foust — January 30, 2020 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/starliner-orbit-879x485.jpg)
Boeing said the $410 million charge it took to its fourth quarter earnings will cover an additional uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft, if NASA decides it is needed. Credit: Boeing

WASHINGTON — Boeing is taking a $410 million charge to its earnings to cover a potential additional uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner, although company officials say there’s no decision yet about whether such a flight is necessary.

The company said in its fourth quarter earnings release Jan. 29 that it was taking the charge “primarily to provision for an additional uncrewed mission for the Commercial Crew program, performance and mix.” It noted that NASA was still reviewing data from the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission in December that was cut short, without a docking at the International Space Station, by a timer problem.

“NASA is in the process of reviewing the data from our December 2019 mission,” Greg Smith, chief financial officer at Boeing, said in an earnings call. “NASA’s approval is required to proceed with a flight test with astronauts on board. Given this obligation, we are provisioned for another uncrewed mission.” Neither he nor Boeing’s new chief executive, David Calhoun, elaborated on that during the call, which was devoted primarily to issues related to the company’s 737 MAX airliner.

Boeing officials, speaking at the 23rd Annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference here Jan. 29, did not directly address that charge, but played up the aspects of the test flight that went well while noting the investigation into the root cause of the timer problem was ongoing.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work internally looking at the results and we found that the vehicle actually performed exceptionally when you look at all the other activities that it did,” said Peter McGrath, global sales and marketing director for space exploration at Boeing Defense and Space. “Right now we’re working with NASA, with an independent team, to look at root cause and corrective actions we need to do for the next mission.”

“The mission didn’t go as planned because we made a mistake,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president for space and launch at Boeing Defense and Space. The timer issue, he said, caused the spacecraft to think it was in a different phase of the mission immediately after separation from its Atlas 5 launch vehicle.

Other aspects of the spacecraft, he said, performed well. That included, he said, the spacecraft’s thrusters, a topic of particular scrutiny since they were stressed during the mission. “We had a great propulsion test. It was in advertent. We didn’t plan to fire those thrusters as many times in a row early in first flight as we did,” he said. “The good news is they worked like a charm.”

Some of the thrusters did have to be turned off because they heated up, Chilton said. Those thrusters were turned back on “incrementally,” he said, with the exception of one thruster that did not turn back on. “We feel pretty good about our propulsion system.”

He added that a few things “surprised” them, such as initial communications problems once Starliner was in orbit, which may be simply the attitude the spacecraft was in. He said an initial set of data reviews from the mission should be completed by the end of this week. “We’re really not seeing any big showstoppers, although we do see things we think we’ll change,” he said.

In an interview after his remarks, Chilton said the decision to take the $410 million charge was a precautionary one. “We’re ready for anything,” he said. “NASA is going to decide what we should do next, but they could decide to refly an OFT, and if that’s what they want to do, we’re ready for it.”

There is no formal timeline for a decision on whether to fly another uncrewed Starliner, although Chilton said that he expected it to come by the end of February.


Source: https://spacenews.com/boeing-takes-410-million-charge-to-cover-potential-additional-commercial-crew-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Luty 09, 2020, 18:53
NASA safety panel calls for reviews after second Starliner software problem
by Jeff Foust — February 6, 2020
Updated 7:35 p.mm. Eastern with Boeing comments.

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/starliner-orbit-879x485.jpg)
A NASA safety panel said Feb. 6 a second software problem during the Starliner's uncrewed test flight in December, had it not been caught in ground testing, could have led to a "catastrophic" failure. Credit: Boeing

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — A NASA safety panel is recommending a review of Boeing’s software verification processes after revealing there was a second software problem during a CST-100 Starliner test flight that could have led to a “catastrophic” failure.

That new software problem, not previously discussed by NASA or Boeing, was discussed during a Feb. 6 meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel that examined the December uncrewed test flight of Starliner that was cut short by a timer error.

That anomaly was discovered during ground testing while the spacecraft was in orbit, panel member Paul Hill said. “While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected, it would have led to erroneous thruster firings and uncontrolled motion during [service module] separation for deorbit, with the potential for a catastrophic spacecraft failure,” he said.

The exact cause of the failure remains under investigation by Boeing and NASA, who are also still examining the timer failure previously reported. Those problems, Hill said, suggested broader issues with how Boeing develops and tests the software used by the spacecraft.

“The panel has a larger concern with the rigor of Boeing’s verification processes,” he said. The panel called for reviews of Boeing’s flight software integration and testing processes. “Further, with confidence at risk for a spacecraft that is intended to carry humans in space, the panel recommends an even broader Boeing assessment of, and corrective actions in, Boeing’s [systems engineering and integration] processes and verification testing.”

The panel added that all those investigations and reviews be completed as “required input for a formal NASA review to determine flight readiness for either another uncrewed flight test or proceeding directly to a crewed test flight.”

In a statement late Feb. 6, Boeing said it accepted the “suggestions” from the panel as well as recommendations from a separate NASA-Boeing independent review team (IRT) investigating the issues with the December Starliner flight. Neither NASA nor Boeing has released any summary of that independent team’s work prior to the statement.

In the statement, Boeing described the new software problem as “a valve mapping software issue, which was diagnosed and fixed in flight.” According to the company, “That error in the software would have resulted in an incorrect thruster separation and disposal burn. What would have resulted from that is unclear.”

Boeing added that the independent review team also identified what it believes to be the root cause of the timer problem and offered corrective actions and recommendations, but did not disclose that cause. The team is also making “significant progress” on resolving communications dropouts that exacerbated problems early in the test flight.

Boeing said Jan. 30 that, while no decision had been made yet about performing a second uncrewed test flight, it was taking a $410 million charge against its earnings in part to cover the costs of a second uncrewed flight. In a Jan. 30 interview, Jim Chilton, senior vice president for space and launch at Boeing Defense and Space, said he expected a decision on flying a second test flight to come by the end of February.

Patricia Sanders, chair of the panel, noted that NASA has decided to proceed with an “organizational safety assessment” with Boeing. NASA announced in 2018 it would conduct such reviews of both Boeing and SpaceX, the other commercial crew company, after SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk was seen briefly smoking marijuana during a podcast. NASA, while completing the SpaceX review, deferred the Boeing one, reportedly because of cost issues.

“The review of SpaceX proved to be valuable to both NASA and the company, so it’s a prudent step to execute the same process with the other provider,” she said.

Boeing acknowledged that review in its statement. “Our next task is to build a plan that incorporates IRT recommendations, NASA’s Organizational Safety Assessment (OSA) and any other oversight NASA chooses after considering IRT findings,” Boeing said. “Once NASA approves that plan, we will be able to better estimate timelines for the completion of all tasks. It remains too soon to speculate about next flight dates.”

At the panel meeting, Sanders painted a more optimistic view of SpaceX’s commercial crew work during the meeting. She said SpaceX still has to resolve a number of technical issues, such as the interaction of titanium with nitrogen tetroxide, which was blamed for the explosion of a Crew Dragon spacecraft during preparations for a static fire test of its abort engines in April 2019. But, she added, “the end appears to be in sight” for that work.

“The panel’s assessment of the status of SpaceX is that NASA is at a point where there is not a question of whether they will be flying crew in the near term, but when, and under what risk conditions,” she said.


Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-safety-panel-calls-for-reviews-after-second-starliner-software-problem/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Luty 09, 2020, 18:54
Starliner investigation finds numerous problems in Boeing software development process
by Jeff Foust — February 7, 2020 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/starliner-landingonairbags.jpg)
Boeing corrected a software flaw that could have caused the Starliner's service module to run into the crew capsule just a few hours before Starliner landed in New Mexico. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

WASHINGTON — Boeing will reverify all the software on its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft after an ongoing investigation found “numerous” problems in the original development process that allowed at least two major problems to escape detection.

In a call with reporters Feb. 7, NASA and Boeing officials said they had made no decisions about whether a second uncrewed test flight, or Orbital Flight Test (OFT) of the spacecraft will be needed, but that there were significant issues with the spacecraft, in particular how its software was developed, that need to be corrected.

“We do think that the OFT flight had a lot of anomalies,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine during the call.

Of particular concern is the software on Starliner. One issue, found immediately after separating from its upper stage, was a timer offset that prevented the spacecraft from firing its thrusters as planned to reach orbit. While the spacecraft was able to reach orbit, it consumed more fuel than planned, ruling out a planned International Space Station docking and ending the mission just two days after launch.

John Mulholland, vice president and program manager for the Starliner program at Boeing, said the Starliner software is intended to initialize its mission elapsed timer from the Atlas 5 launch vehicle, but only in the “terminal count” phase of the countdown. The software, he said, lacked that terminal count requirement. “So, it polled an incorrect mission elapsed time from the launch vehicle, which then gave us an 11-hour mismatch,” he said.

The second problem, revealed Feb. 6 at a meeting of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), was a “valve mapping error” for the thrusters in the vehicle’s service module. Those thrusters perform a “disposal burn” of the service module after separating from the crew module just before reentry.

Mulholland said the valves were configured for conditions in normal flight for that disposal burn, which, had it not been corrected, could have pushed the service module into the crew module. That could have caused the crew capsule to become unstable, requiring additional thruster firings to reorient itself, or have damaged the capsule’s heat shield.

The second error was detected during the review of the spacecraft software on the ground after the timer problem took place. Mulholland said engineers found the thruster software issue late Dec. 21, with the corrected and reverified code uploaded to the spacecraft around 5 a.m. Eastern Dec. 22, or about three hours before the spacecraft landed at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

“We went hunting immediately after our first software problem, and we found one,” said Jim Chilton, senior vice president of Boeing Space and Launch, of the thruster error. “I don’t think we would have found it if we hadn’t gone looking right after that first one.”

The two software problems are signs of a more fundamental issue, NASA argued. “The real problem is that we had numerous process escapes in the design, development and test cycle for software,” said Doug Loverro, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations. “As we go forward, that is what we’re going to be concentrating on.”

The software, Mulholland said, is supposed to go through a “pretty standard” development process where code is written and goes through peer reviews and a series of tests leading up to formal qualification tests. “There are a number of checks along the way that are designed to uncover and correct code errors as early as you can,” he said.

However, there were “breakdowns in multiple areas in that process” discovered by the independent review team, Loverro said. “For each of these two problems that we know about, some of that breakdown was in different spots and some was in the same spot of the process.”

“The process broke down in many areas for each of these things, and that’s one of the reasons why we have to go back and do such a thorough review of all of the software,” he added.

Mulholland said that Boeing planned to review all of the software developed for Starliner, which totals about one million lines of code. “We believe we need to go back and reverify all of the software code,” he said. Boeing will consult with NASA and the independent review team to confirm that plan, but didn’t state how long that reverification process would take.

The overall investigation into the problems encountered with the mission, which also includes communications glitches not related to the software, is still in progress. Bridenstine said that the investigation should be complete by the end of the month.

He suggested the only reason NASA and Boeing held this briefing was that ASAP had been briefed about an interim report on the ongoing investigation, which ASAP then discussed at its Feb. 6 public meeting. “But in the interests of transparency, and some of the things that I saw online yesterday, I wanted to make sure that everybody knew kind of where we were in the investigation,” he said.

Because that investigation is ongoing, he said it was premature to decide whether a second uncrewed test flight will be needed, something Loverro agreed with. “You don’t go ahead and do flight tests to verify that you’ve solved problems. You do flight tests to look at a holistic picture of the system,” Loverro said. The need for another flight test, he said, will only become clear after completing the reviews and fixing the process errors.

That will include a full organizational safety assessment of Boeing, which the ASAP also revealed at its meeting. Part of the reason for that review, Loverro said, was “press reports that we’ve seen from other parts of Boeing,” an apparent reference to problems with its 737 Max airliner, which has been grounded since two crashes blamed on the plane’s new software. “There could possibly be process issues at Boeing, and so we want to understand what the culture is at Boeing that may have led to that.”

“This just continues to show that we need to be vigilant,” said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, of the overall investigation. “We’ll continue to take the lessons and the items they are bringing up in their very thorough review forward, and continue to get better.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-investigation-finds-numerous-problems-in-boeing-software-development-process/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Luty 09, 2020, 18:54
NASA, Boeing managers admit problems with Starliner software verification
February 7, 2020 William Harwood [SFN]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 6 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) after NASA and Boeing media teleconference.
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/starliner_smsep.jpg)
Artist’s concept of the Starliner service module (top) separating from the Starliner crew module before re-entry. Credit: Boeing

Two software errors detected after launch of a Boeing Starliner crew ship during an unpiloted test flight last December, one of which prevented a planned docking with the International Space Station, could have led to catastrophic failures had they not been caught and corrected in time, NASA said Friday.

An independent review board “found the two critical software defects were not detected ahead of flight despite multiple safeguards,” according to an agency statement. “Ground intervention prevented loss of vehicle in both cases.”

In a teleconference with reporters, Douglas Loverro, director of spaceflight operations at NASA Headquarters, said the issues uncovered by the investigators go beyond the specifics of the software errors and an unexpected communications glitch that initially prevented flight controllers from commanding the spacecraft.

“Too put it bluntly, the issue that we’re dealing with is that we have numerous process escapes in the software design, development and test cycle for Starliner,” he said. The errors themselves “are likely only symptoms, they are not the real problem. The real problem is that we had numerous process escapes” that allowed the errors to slip through.

The Starliner software is made up of a million lines of code and “as we go forward, that is what we’re going to be concentrating on, how do we assure ourselves that all of the software that we’ve delivered, not just the two routines that were affected by these issues, are fixed.”

“Our NASA oversight was insufficient,” Loverro concluded. “That’s obvious, and we we recognize that. And I think that’s good learning for us. The independent review team didn’t just have recommendations for Boeing, it’s got recommendations for us as well, and we’re going to take all those to heart.”

Neither Loverro, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine nor Boeing Starliner project manager John Mulholland would speculate on whether a second unpiloted test flight might be ordered or even whether a Starliner, piloted or unpiloted, would fly this year. No such decisions will be made until after the safety review concludes at the end of the month.

“We will not speculate right now on a specific launch date,” Mulholland said. “What we have to do is fully understand the scope of the corrective actions, implement that into a work plan. Once we get that scope defined … we’ll be able to evaluate a specific launch target.”

The Boeing CST-100 Starliner was launched from Cape Canaveral atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on Dec. 20. The goal of the flight was to put the commercial crew ship through its paces, from launch through rendezvous and docking with the space station to re-entry and splashdown, to clear the capsule for a piloted test flight.

The Atlas 5 put the Starliner onto a sub-orbital trajectory as planned. After release from the rocket’s Centaur second stage, the spacecraft was expected to fire its own thrusters to put the craft into a safe orbit. But the critical orbit insertion rocket firing never happened, and the Starliner continued along a trajectory that, without quick corrective action, would have resulted in a catastrophic unplanned re-entry.

After struggling with communications glitches, engineers finally managed to regain control and put the spacecraft in a safe orbit. But by then, too much propellant had been wasted to press ahead with a planned rendezvous with the International Space Station. Instead, flight controllers focused on carrying out as many other tests as possible before bringing the ship down for landing in New Mexico two days later.

The Starliner’s failure to execute the orbit insertion burn was blamed on software that incorrectly set the spacecraft’s internal clocks based on data retrieved from the Atlas 5’s flight control system. The Starliner code should have retrieved the time during the terminal countdown, after the Atlas 5’s clocks were precisely set for launch.

Instead, the Starliner computer retrieved the time used during an earlier countdown sequence and as a result, its timer was 11 hours off from the actual time. That, in turn, threw off the timing of downstream post-launch events like the orbit insertion burn.

With that problem finally corrected, engineers began reviewing other critical software sequences as a precaution and discovered yet another problem. Software used to control thruster firings needed to safely jettison the Starliner’s service module just before re-entry was mis-configured, set for the wrong phase of flight.

Had the problem not been found and corrected, the cylindrical service module’s thrusters could have fired in the wrong sequence, driving it back into the crew module and possibly triggering a tumble or even damaging the ship’s protective heat shield.

While a detailed analysis was not carried out at the time, “nothing good can come from those two spacecraft bumping back into one another,” said Jim Chilton, a senior vice president for Boeing Space and Launch.

The timing problem was widely known during the Starliner test flight, but the service module issue was not revealed in any detail until a meeting of the NASA Aerospace Safety and Advisory Panel Thursday, setting off widespread social media calls for more information and “transparency” from NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

NASA responded with the on-line statement and media teleconference Friday.

“It is very unusual for NASA to do a press conference about what the investigation results are as the investigation is underway,” Bridenstine said. “But in the interest of transparency and, you know, some of the things that I saw online yesterday, I wanted to make sure that everybody knew kind of where we were in the investigation.”

Engineers are still investigating what caused the communications glitches that initially prevented flight controllers from quickly correcting the timing issue. As it turns out, Mulholland said high background radio noise, possibly from cell phone towers, may have played a role.

In any case, “software defects, particularly in complex spacecraft code, are not unexpected,” NASA said in its statement. “However, there were numerous instances where the Boeing software quality processes either should have or could have uncovered the defects.

“Due to these breakdowns found in design, code and test of the software, they will require systemic corrective actions. The team has already identified a robust set of 11 top-priority corrective actions. More will be identified after the team completes its additional work.”

Said Mulholland: “Nobody is more disappointed in the issues that we uncovered … than the Starliner team. But to a person, they’re committed to resolving these issues in partnership with NASA and the IRT and safely returning to flight.”

Since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011, NASA has been forced to buy seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry U.S. and partner astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

To end sole reliance on Russia for transportation to and from the space station, NASA announced in 2014 that Boeing and SpaceX would share $6.8 billion to develop independent space taxis, the first new U.S. crewed spacecraft since the 1970s.

Under a $2.6 billion contract, SpaceX is building a crewed version of its Dragon cargo ship that will ride into orbit atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. Boeing’s Starliner is being developed under a $4.2 billion contract.

SpaceX carried out a successful unpiloted flight to the space station in March 2019, but suffered a major setback the following April when that same Crew Dragon capsule was destroyed during a ground test. The California rocket builder has recovered from that incident and carried out a successful in-flight abort test in January.

It is widely expected that SpaceX will be ready to launch a Crew Dragon carrying two NASA astronauts — Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken — sometime this spring.

Boeing’s unpiloted test flight in December was only partially successful because of the two software errors and the communications glitch. It’s not yet known whether NASA will order a second unpiloted test flight or whether Boeing will be cleared to press ahead for a piloted mission after corrective actions are implemented.

“It’s still too early for us to definitively share the root causes and full set of corrective actions needed for the Starliner system,” NASA said. “We do expect to have those results at the end of February, as was our initial plan.

“Most critically, we want to assure that these necessary steps are completely understood prior to determining the plan for future flights. Separate from the anomaly investigation, NASA also is still reviewing the data collected during the flight test to help determine that future plan. NASA expects a decision on this review to be complete in the next several weeks.”


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/07/investigators-fault-boeing-for-potentially-catastrophic-software-errors-in-starliner-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Luty 29, 2020, 08:08
Boeing says thorough testing would have caught Starliner software problems
February 28, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/starliner_c3pf.jpg)
The crew module for the next test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is pictured inside the company’s factory and processing facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Boeing

The program manager in charge of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule program said Friday that additional checks would have uncovered problems with the spaceship’s software that plagued the craft’s first unpiloted orbital test flight in December, but he pushed back against suggestions that Boeing engineers took shortcuts during ground testing.

Boeing missed a pair of software errors during the Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test. One prevented the spacecraft from docking with the International Space Station, and the other could have resulted in catastrophic damage to the capsule during its return to Earth.

Both errors could have been caught before launch if Boeing had performed more thorough software testing on the ground, according to John Mulholland, vice president and manager of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner program.

Mulholland said Boeing engineers performed testing of Starliner’s software in chunks, with each test focused on a specific segment of the mission. Boeing did not perform an end-to-end test of the entire software suite, and in some cases used stand-ins, or emulators, for flight computers.

“We are recommitting ourselves to the discipline needed to test and qualify our products,” Mulholland said Friday in a conference call with reporters. “The Boeing team is committed to the success of the Starliner program, and we are putting in the time and the resources to move forward.”

The Orbital Flight Test, or OFT, in December was intended to demonstrate the Starliner’s performance in space for the first time ahead of the capsule’s first flight with astronauts this year. The issues that plagued the OFT mission might force Boeing and NASA to plan a second unpiloted test flight before moving on to a crewed mission.

Officials have not decided whether another automated test flight might be required, or said when the Starliner might fly in space again.

Boeing developed the Starliner spacecraft under contract to NASA, which is seeking to end its sole reliance on Russian Soyuz crew capsules to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. NASA awarded Boeing a $4.2 billion contract and SpaceX received a $2.6 billion deal in 2014 to complete development of the Starliner and Crew Dragon spaceships.

The Crew Dragon completed a successful unpiloted test flight to the space station in March 2019, and then demonstrated the capsule’s in-flight launch abort capability in January. Final preparations are underway for the first Crew Dragon flight with astronauts on-board, which could take off as soon as May.

After the OFT mission exposed inadequate testing, Boeing’s engineers are examining every line of Starliner software to ensure teams did not miss any other errors that went undetected during the spacecraft’s December test flight.

“Hindsight uncovered a couple of the issues, but I really don’t want you or anyone to have the impression that this team tried to take shortcuts,” Mulholland said. “They didn’t. They did an abundance of testing, and in certain areas, obviously, we have gaps to go fill. But this is an incredibly talented and strong team.”

One of the software problems was immediately apparent after the Starliner’s otherwise successful ascent into space Dec. 20 from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. A mission elapsed timer on the capsule had a wrong setting, causing the spacecraft to miss a planned engine firing soon after separating from the Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage.

The orbit insertion burn was required to inject the Starliner capsule into a stable orbit and begin its pursuit of the space station. After the automated sequence failed due to the on-board timer setting, ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston had to uplink manual commands for the Starliner spacecraft to perform the orbit insertion burn, but the ship burned too much fuel during the process, leaving insufficient propellant to rendezvous and dock with the space station.

Ground teams in Houston also encountered trouble establishing a stable communications link with the Starliner when they attempted to send commands for the orbit insertion burn, further delaying the start of the maneuver. Boeing says ground teams had issues connecting with the spacecraft on more than 30 additional occasions during the Starliner’s two-day test flight.

With a docking to the space station no longer possible, mission managers cut short the Starliner test flight and targeted a landing of the capsule at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, on Dec. 22.

After the mission timer problem, Boeing engineers reviewed other segments of the Starliner’s software code to search for other problem areas. They uncovered another software error that was missed in pre-flight testing, which could have caused the Starliner’s service module to slam into the craft’s crew module after the ship’s two elements separated just before re-entry into the atmosphere.


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/49258250868_d3ffed72fd_k.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen after landing Dec. 22 at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico following the ship’s first unpiloted Orbital Flight Test. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Controllers sent a software patch to the Starliner spacecraft to resolve the potential problem before it performed a deorbit burn to aim for landing in New Mexico.

Mulholland said Friday that more extensive testing before the Starliner test flight would have revealed the software errors.

Engineers traced the mission elapsed time problem to a coding error that caused the Starliner spacecraft retrieve the wrong time from the Atlas 5 rocket’s flight control system. The Starliner set its internal clocks based on a time captured from the Atlas 5’s computer hours before launch, when it should have retrieved the time from the launch vehicle in the terminal countdown.

Joint software simulations between Boeing and ULA focused only on the launch sequence, when the Starliner spacecraft is attached to the Atlas 5 rocket. The simulations ended at the time of the capsule’s deployment from the launcher, but testing would have revealed the timing error if the simulations continued through the time of the orbit insertion burn, which was scheduled to occur around a half-hour after liftoff.

“If we had run that integrated test for a number of minutes longer, it would have uncovered the issue,” Mulholland said.

“I think the sensitivity of this mission elapsed time was not recognized by the team and wasn’t believed to be an important aspect of the mission, so ideally we would have run that (software test) through at least … the first orbital insertion burn,” Mulholland said. “So from a hindsight standpoint, I think it’s very easy to see what we should have done because we uncovered an error.

“If we would have run the integrated test with ULA through the first orbital insertion burn timeframe, we would have seen that we would have missed the orbital insertion burn because the timing was corrupt,” he said. “When we got to that point in time, the software believed that the burn had happened many hours before, so it didn’t do the burn.”

Mulholland said Boeing teams thought it was more logical to break the Starliner mission phases into pieces, and run software testing on each segment of the flight.

“When you do a single run from launch to docking, that’s a 25-plus-hour single run in the computer,” he said.

“The team, at the time, decided that they would have multiple tests of different chunks of the mission,” Mulholland said. “It was not a matter at all of the team consciously shortcutting, or not doing what they believed was appropriate.”

Before every future Starliner mission, Boeing will run longer tests in software integration labs encompassing all events from launch through docking with the space station, then from undocking through landing, according to Mulholland.

Mulholland said more thorough testing could have also revealed the mis-configured software needed to safely jettison the Starliner’s service module before re-entry. Without a software patch, the service module, or propulsion element, could have rammed back into the crew module after separation, damaging the ship’s heat shield, or worse.

A propulsion controller is responsible for coordinating thruster burns on the service module to ensure it does not recontact the crew module after separation, which occurs after the Starliner’s deorbit burn and before re-entry.

The service module is designed to burn up in the atmosphere, while the reusable crew module descends back to Earth protected by a heat shield.

The propulsion controller on the Starliner service module is based on a design used by another program, and its software was improperly configured for the service module’s disposal burn after separating from the crew module, Mulholland said. The propulsion controller had a wrong “jet map,” which contains information about the service module’s thrusters and valves.

The Starliner uses two different jet maps: One when the entire spacecraft is connected — when the crew module computers command thruster firings — and another for the disposal burn after the service module is jettisoned.

“The only thing that was picked up was the one jet map for the integrated spacecraft, and we missed the jet map that was required for the service after separation,” Mulholland said.

He said software testing for the propulsion controller used an emulator, or a simulated component, rather than the actual controller intended to fly on the Starliner spacecraft. When Boeing ran the software simulation, the real propulsion controller was being used for test-firings of the service module thrusters in New Mexico.

“While that propulsion controller was outside supporting that other test was when they ran the qualification test of that section of the software, and because we had an incorrect emulator (and) it didn’t have the correct jet mapping, that issue was not uncovered during the qualification test,” Mulholland said. “Because that hardware was returned to the lab, we were able to, during the mission, re-run that sequence, identify the jet mapping issue and upload the software fix before we did the re-entry burn.”

One of many improvements Boeing says it is implementing is a requirement to ensure the proper hardware, avionics boxes and other components are included in future software tests.

“So if it is important to have a specific piece of avionics in the lab, we’ll be required to have that in there before we actually run the qualification test,” Mulholland said.

Another problem encountered during the Starliner test flight involved the ship’s communications link with NASA’s network of Tracking and Data Relay Satellites.

The spacecraft had trouble locking onto the TDRS network 37 times during the two-day test flight in December, according to Mulholland. Boeing engineers have identified the cause of one of the communications interruptions, which was caused by an explainable “false lock” condition, Mulholland said.

The other 36 instances of an unexpected communications outage all occurred over northern Europe and Russia, including on the Starliner’s first pass over the region minutes after launching from Florida. That’s when ground teams had trouble sending a command for the spacecraft to perform an orbit insertion burn after the mission elapsed timing error.

An independent review team chartered to investigate the problems that cropped up on the Starliner test flight is nearing the end of its inquiry. The results of the investigation will be announced next Friday, March 6.

But Mulholland said engineers are still looking into the communications issues, and a final verdict on the cause of the radio link interruptions is not expected next week.

Despite the problems in flight, the Starliner spacecraft safely returned to Earth and post-landing inspections show it can be flown again, Boeing says.

The ship’s heat shield and parachutes performed well, as did the Starliner’s life support systems, Mulholland said. Boeing was also able to test the functionality of the capsule’s docking system, but teams were unable to fully check the performance of the Starliner’s rendezvous and navigation sensors because the spacecraft did not dock with the space station.

Boeing technicians at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida are readying a second Starliner vehicle for the next test flight, whether it is a redo of the unpiloted OFT mission, or the first test flight with astronauts on-board.


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/28/boeing-says-thorough-testing-would-have-caught-starliner-software-problems/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Luty 29, 2020, 09:05
Boeing implementing more rigorous testing of Starliner after software problems
by Jeff Foust — February 28, 2020 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/starliner-orbit-879x485.jpg)
Boeing says it's implementing more rigorous testing of software and other systems on its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft after two major software errors were found on its uncrewed test flight last December. Credit: Boeing

WASHINGTON — As the independent review of last December’s test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle nears completion, the company said it will perform more rigorous testing to catch errors that slipped through on that flight.

In a Feb. 28 briefing at Boeing offices here, John Mulholland, vice president and program manager of Starliner, said the company is continuing an audit of the software on the spacecraft after two significant errors were found during its two-day uncrewed test flight, while making plans to perform more rigorous testing prior to future missions.

“We know we need to improve, particularly with rebuilding trust with our customer, and we pledge our discipline and commitment to doing so,” he said. “We’re going to apply additional rigor to systems engineering and software development.”

That test flight, known as Orbital Flight Test (OFT), was shortened to two days, and a planned docking with the International Space Station cancelled, because a problem with a mission elapsed timer on the spacecraft kept it from performing an orbital insertion burn as planned shortly after separation from the rocket’s upper stage. An investigation found that the spacecraft’s timer was initialized at the wrong time during the launch countdown, causing it to be off by 11 hours.

At a Feb. 6 meeting of NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, members said they had been briefed about a second software problem, called a “valve mapping error,” for the thrusters on the Starliner’s service module. That problem could have caused the service module to collide with the crew module after separation just before reentry, damaging the module and putting a safe landing in jeopardy. Engineers found the problem while Starliner was in orbit and transmitted corrected software to the spacecraft about three hours before landing.

Mulholland said that the timer problem was not corrected in prelaunch testing with United Launch Alliance because the company split testing of the spacecraft into different phases of the mission. For launch, the tests ended immediately after spacecraft separation, and thus did not detect the timer offset. “If we would have run the integrated test with ULA through the first orbital insertion burn timeframe, we would have seen that we would have missed the orbital insertion burn because the timing was corrupt,” he said.

Going forward, he said Boeing will test Starliner operations from launch through docking, and from undocking to landing. That wasn’t done earlier because of the length of such tests: more than a day from launch to docking. “The team thought at the time it was more logical to break these mission phases into chunks and do a lot of testing in those smaller chunks,” he said.

The valve mapping problem involved the use of what Mulholland called a “legacy propulsion controller” on the service module. One mapping, which identified thrusters and valves in software, is needed when the service module is attached to the crew module while another is required for use after separation.

“Unfortunately, that requirement was not picked up” in interface control documents for that propulsion controller, he said. “The only thing that was picked up was the one jet map for the integrated spacecraft and we missed the jet map that was required for the service module after separation.”

That oversight wasn’t caught in testing because the controller itself was not available when the software was tested because it was being used for a service module hotfire test. The emulator used in its place didn’t allow engineers to identify the missing jet mapping.

In the future, Mulholland said they’ll more closely study hardware requirements for testing. “We’re not only going to define exactly what tests have to be performed, but we’re going to require that define exactly what the hardware configuration needs to be in the lab,” he said.

At a Feb. 7 briefing, Boeing announced it would review all the Starliner software, accounting for about one million lines of code. Mulholland said that audit had completed all of the “high” and “medium” items in terms of complexity of their logic, and most of the low-complexity ones. That audit found a few gaps in testing that engineers are now following up on, but no evidence of additional software anomalies.

Asked why some testing was overlooked, Mulholland said it wasn’t a matter of cost-cutting or otherwise taking deliberate shortcuts. “They did an abundance of testing and in certain areas we obviously have gaps to go fill,” he said of the Starliner team.

Other aspects of Starliner performed well during the abbreviated test flight with only minor technical issues. Engineers are still investigating a communications problem that hindered initial efforts to recover the spacecraft after the timing problem kept it from performing its orbit insertion burn. That problem took place 37 times during the mission, all but one over the same area, northern Europe and Russia, he said, with the sole exception a known case where the antenna falsely thought it was locked.

Mulholland said it’s not clear yet if the problem is caused by interference unique to that area or if the specific selection of antennas for communicating with relay satellites made it more susceptible to ordinary interference. “We really need to look a little bit deeper into that before we give any final results,” he said.

The investigation into the communications problem is unlikely to be completed before an independent review team presents its results. While the briefing was in progress, NASA announced another media briefing was scheduled for March 6 to discuss the findings from the rest of that independent team’s work, with both NASA and Boeing personnel scheduled to participate.

Mulholland declined to speculate on whether a second OFT mission should be flown before performing a crewed Starliner flight, or when that flight would take place. “The timeframe between now and the next flight is going to be determined by us methodically working our way through that audit process,” he said, including any problems it might yet uncover. “It’s a little too early” to set that schedule, he argued.

A decision on whether the next flight will be uncrewed or crewed, he added, will ultimately be made by NASA and not Boeing. “NASA is doing the evaluation of that now, and it’s their decision on which flight will be next.”

Congress will be closely watching that decision and other aspects of NASA’s overall commercial crew program. “It is absolutely something we’re following and concerned about,” said Rep. Kendra Horn (D-Okla.), chair of the House space subcommittee, in a Feb. 28 interview prior to the Boeing briefing.

“We’re looking at something that has slipped. There have been problems with both of the contractors,” she said, a reference to SpaceX, the other commercial crew provider, which suffered the loss of a Crew Dragon spacecraft last April during testing for a planned in-flight abort test. “That’s why it’s important that NASA have that ability to direct and oversee and have access at all parts of this process.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/boeing-implementing-more-rigorous-testing-of-starliner-after-software-problems/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Marzec 07, 2020, 05:59
No decision yet on need for second Starliner uncrewed test flight
by Jeff Foust — March 6, 2020 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/starliner-landingonairbags.jpg)
NASA said it's too soon to know yet if Boeing will need to perform a second uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, as the company works to implement corrective actions from the December 2019 uncrewed flight. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

WASHINGTON — Although an independent review team has wrapped up its investigation into issues with last December’s uncrewed test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, NASA says it will be some time before it decides if a second uncrewed test flight is needed.

NASA and Boeing officials, speaking during a media teleconference March 6, said there is still significant work ahead as the company addresses 61 corrective actions identified by that review into the Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test (OFT), which suffered at least three significant issues with software and communications.

Those corrective actions will be worked on “over the next several months in order to make sure that, when we decide to fly again, we can fly safely,” said Doug Loverro, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations.

Loverro added that he was formally designating that OFT mission a “high-visibility close call” in NASA parlance, which is defined in agency procedures as one it “judges to possess a high degree of safety risk, programmatic impact or public, media, or political interest including, but not limited to, mishaps and close calls affecting flight hardware or software, or completion of critical mission milestones.”

The “close call” designation is below that of a mishap, but still requires a NASA review. “It’s the lowest level of a call we make in something like this,” he said. “We can all agree that this was a close call. We could have lost a spacecraft twice during this mission.”

That designation, he said, allows the agency to formally collect recommendations and lessons learned and triggers an “organizational root cause assessment” to look at processes both at NASA and Boeing that may have contributed to the problems in the flight. Doing so will make sure “we truly do learn from this event and that we know how to fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The 61 corrective actions found by the independent review team do not mean there are 61 separate problems with the mission. John Mulholland, vice president and manager of the Starliner program at Boeing, said the panel reviewed the three problems previously discussed: a software issue that caused the spacecraft’s mission elapsed timer to be off by 11 hours, an incorrect software mapping for thrusters in the spacecraft’s service module, and intermittent communications problems.

“There were 61 recommendations. They don’t map to 61 design issues,” added Jim Chilton, senior vice president at Boeing Space and Launch.

Neither NASA nor Boeing, though, would immediately release the list of 61 corrective actions or give other details about them. Loverro, asked by reporters several times during the call to release that list, said “we hadn’t had that conversation with Boeing” yet about making the list public.

Implementing the corrective actions and carrying out the reviews triggered by the high-visibility close call notification will take time, and Loverro said there was no decision on whether Boeing would need to perform a second uncrewed test flight or move directly to a crewed test flight as originally planned.

“Quite frankly, right now, we don’t know” if Boeing will need a second uncrewed test flight, he said. The company needs to first come back to NASA with a plan and schedule for implementing those corrective actions, and then carry out that work for inspection by NASA.

“We are still a ways away from that, and I can’t even tell you what the schedule is for making that decision,” Loverro said. Kathy Lueders, NASA’s commercial crew program manager, said there was a review scheduled for the end of March for NASA to examine Boeing’s plan to implement those corrective actions.

“At the end of the day, what we have got to decide is, based upon the work that Boeing will do, do we have enough confidence to say we are ready to fly with a crew, or do we believe that we need another uncrewed test flight?” Loverro said.

He declined to discuss any contractual implications of requiring a second uncrewed test flight, although Boeing announced in January it took a $410 million charge in earnings related to its commercial crew program, in part to cover costs of a potential OFT reflight.

“For us, it’s not that complicated,” Chilton said. “Boeing stands ready to repeat an OFT.”

The implementation of the corrective actions, and the reviews linked to the close call designation, should not affect SpaceX as it prepares for its Demo-2 crewed test flight of its Crew Dragon spacecraft. “There’s no known crossover to the SpaceX demonstration at this point,” Loverro said, beyond any changes in NASA procedures. “I don’t foresee any real impact out of this to the SpaceX schedule.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/no-decision-yet-on-need-for-second-starliner-uncrewed-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Marzec 09, 2020, 08:15
No decision yet on additional test flight for Boeing Starliner spacecraft
March 7, 2020 William Harwood [SFN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/roll1.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner rolls out of the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility in November 2019 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, during preparations for its first Orbital Flight Test. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

A review team studying software glitches and other miscues that cropped up during an unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 crew capsule last December has made some 60 recommendations to make sure all the known shortcomings are addressed before the spacecraft is cleared for another flight, NASA managers said Friday.

During the December test flight, a major software error, coupled with communications dropouts, prevented a planned rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station. Another software mistake could have caused a catastrophic failure during the capsule’s return to Earth had it not been caught in time.

Douglas Loverro, director of spaceflight at NASA Headquarters, told reporters Friday he classified the incidents as a “high-visibility close call,” a formal designation that kicks off additional government review. In the meantime, he said the agency will make sure the review team’s recommendations are implemented.

It’s not clear how long that may take. Loverro said he did not yet know whether NASA might require a second unpiloted orbital flight test, or OFT, to verify the performance of all of the CST-100 Starliner’s systems, or whether Boeing could develop a rationale for pressing straight ahead to a crewed flight test, or CFT, to the International Space Station.

“Quite frankly, right now we don’t know,” Loverro said. “They have to now come back to NASA with a plan, how they’re going to go ahead and address all of those (recommendations). … We will do our own inspection of the results of their work. And then we’ll be in a position to decide whether or not we need another (uncrewed) test flight or not.

“So we are still a ways away from that. And I can’t even tell you what the schedule is for making that decision, because it’s very dependent upon what we see as Boeing’s corrective action plan and the thoroughness by which we believe that correction action plan has been implemented.”

Jim Chilton, senior vice president at Boeing Space and Launch, said the company will do whatever NASA asks. The company told investors earlier that it was taking a $410 million charge against pre-tax earnings in large part to cover the possible cost of another test flight.

“For us, it’s not that complicated,” he said. “Boeing stands ready to repeat an OFT (if required). … There’s not any intent on our part to avoid it. We just want to make sure that whatever we fly next is aligned with NASA’s preferences. And of course for all of us, crew safety is number one.”

Boeing and SpaceX are both building piloted astronaut ferry ships for NASA, under commercial contracts valued at up to $6.8 billion, to end the agency’s sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to carry U.S. crews to and from the International Space Station.

SpaceX carried out a successful unpiloted test flight of its Crew Dragon spacecraft last year and is gearing up for a second test flight, this one with two NASA astronauts on board, in the May-June timeframe.

Boeing launched an unpiloted CST-100 Starliner capsule last December, but the spacecraft’s computer set its mission clock to the wrong time before liftoff, causing it to miss a critical orbit raising maneuver.

By the time flight controllers figured out what happened and worked around a communications problem to uplink corrective commands, the capsule was no longer able to carry out a planned rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station.

Boeing engineers then found and corrected another software oversight that could have caused the spacecraft’s service module, jettisoned prior to atmospheric entry, to crash back into the capsule.

The software problems made it into the spacecraft in part because Boeing did not carry out end-to-end tests of the systems in question before launch. Engineers relied on emulators that act as electronic stand ins in some cases that did not accurately reflect the behavior of flight hardware. In addition, some critical software was tested in segments that masked problems that otherwise might have been caught and corrected.

The mission elapsed timer error, the service module disposal problem and the communications glitches were the major issues encountered during the OFT mission, but the Independent Review Team looking into the incidents came up with some 60 recommendations for corrective actions.

NASA has not yet released a list of those recommendations.

“I want to make sure that everybody understands we at NASA are taking this very seriously,” Loverro said. “We’re going to make sure that at the end of the day, we can fly astronauts safely on Starliner.”


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/07/no-decision-yet-on-additional-test-flight-for-boeing-starliner-spacecraft/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Kwiecień 07, 2020, 06:24
Boeing to fly second Starliner uncrewed test flight
by Jeff Foust — April 6, 2020 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/starliner-orbit-879x485.jpg)
Boeing announced April 6 that it will refly its uncrewed Orbital Flight Test of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft later this year to confirm the company corrected problems found on the first flight. Credit: Boeing

WASHINGTON — Boeing announced April 6 that it has decided to fly a second uncrewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle later this year to confirm it has corrected problems encountered in a test flight last December.

In a brief statement, Boeing said it would perform a second Orbital Flight Test (OFT) of the spacecraft at its own expense. Boeing made the announcement shortly after the Washington Post reported that the company planned to repeat the flight (https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/06/boeing-starliner-test-repeat/).

“We have chosen to refly our Orbital Flight Test to demonstrate the quality of the Starliner system,” the company said in a one-paragraph statement. “Flying another uncrewed flight will allow us to complete all flight test objectives and evaluate the performance of the second Starliner vehicle at no cost to the taxpayer.”

A second OFT mission looked increasingly likely in the months after the original OFT. That mission was shortened to two days and without a planned docking at the International Space Station because of a timer problem on the spacecraft that caused it to think it was at a different phase of its flight immediately after separation from the Atlas 5 upper stage that launched it.

An investigation also revealed a problem with software controls for the spacecraft’s service module that could have caused the module to bump back into the crew module after they separated shortly before reentry. The software was fixed just a few hours before reentry.

Boeing, anticipating the need to refly the mission, took a $410 million charge against earnings in January. “NASA’s approval is required to proceed with a flight test with astronauts on board. Given this obligation, we are provisioned for another uncrewed mission,” Greg Smith, Boeing’s chief financial officer, said in a Jan. 29 earnings call.

While an independent review of the OFT mission found 61 corrective actions for Boeing, NASA officials said in early March they had not yet decided if Boeing needed to perform a second uncrewed test flight.

“At the end of the day, what we have got to decide is, based upon the work that Boeing will do, do we have enough confidence to say we are ready to fly with a crew, or do we believe that we need another uncrewed test flight?” Doug Loverro, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said in a March 6 call with reporters. “We are still a ways away from that, and I can’t even tell you what the schedule is for making that decision” about reflying OFT.

Ultimately, that decision came from Boeing, and not from NASA. In a separate statement, NASA said it not made its own conclusion about whether a second OFT was required.

“If Boeing would have proposed a crewed mission as the next flight, NASA would have completed a detailed review and analysis of the proposal to determine the feasibility of the plan,” the agency said. “However, as this was not the recommendation made by Boeing, NASA will not speculate on what the agency would have required.”

NASA added that Boeing still has to address the 61 corrective actions from the independent review. “NASA still intends to conduct the needed oversight to make sure those corrective actions are taken,” the agency said.

“Hats off to Boeing for recommending a repeat of their Orbital Flight Test for the Commercial Crew program,” Loverro tweeted (https://twitter.com/DouglasLoverro/status/1247320612059656192) after the Boeing announcement. “Corporate responsibility takes many forms, and this is one of them.”

NASA and Boeing are still working on an “agreeable schedule” for the second OFT mission, Boeing spokesman Jerry Drelling told SpaceNews, but said that the company expects to fly it in the fall of 2020. That would mean it would come after SpaceX’s Demo-2 crewed test flight of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, currently scheduled for no earlier than the latter half of May. If that mission flies on schedule and is a success, NASA will likely launch the first operational Crew Dragon mission, Crew-1, in late summer.

Drelling also said that Boeing will use the Starliner spacecraft called “Spacecraft 2” for the second OFT mission. That spacecraft was originally slated to fly the Crew Flight Test. The Starliner used for the OFT, “Spacecraft 3,” was to be refurbished for the first operational mission for NASA.


Source: https://spacenews.com/boeing-to-fly-second-starliner-uncrewed-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: [AS] Starliner Clears Pad Abort Test as ULA Rolls Out Rocket for Dec 17 Orbital
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Kwiecień 08, 2020, 09:22
After problem-plagued test flight, Boeing will refly crew capsule without astronauts
April 6, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/EIfOJxFWwAI0_bN.jpeg)
In this file photo from 2019, technicians prepare Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft for fueling before its first unpiloted space mission. Credit: Boeing

Boeing officials said Monday the company’s Starliner crew capsule will fly a second time without astronauts after software problems and other issues plagued a first test flight in December, preventing the ship from reaching the International Space Station.

The CST-100 Starliner crew capsule was expected to fly with astronauts for the first time this year, capping a multibillion-dollar NASA-funded development program. But a mission timing error caused the spacecraft to burn too much fuel to enter orbit after an otherwise successful launch Dec. 20 prevented the capsule from docking with the space station.

A potentially catastrophic programming oversight discovered after the Starliner’s launch had to be corrected with a software patch to ensure the capsule could safely come back to Earth.

The Starliner capsule, designed to be reusable, landed at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico on Dec. 22.

Beleaguered by back-to-back crashes and the subsequent global grounding of the 737 MAX passenger jet and more recent headwinds from the slump in air travel due to the coronavirus pandemic, Boeing said it would fund the unplanned crew capsule test flight “at no cost to the taxpayer.”

Boeing told investors earlier this year it was taking a $410 million charge against its earnings to cover the expected costs of a second unpiloted test flight.

The company on Monday confirmed a report in the Washington Post that it will fly a second uncrewed demonstration mission — which Boeing calls an Orbital Flight Test — before astronauts ride a Starliner into orbit.

“We have chosen to refly our Orbital Flight Test to demonstrate the quality of the Starliner system,” Boeing said in a statement Monay. “Flying another uncrewed flight will allow us to complete all flight test objectives and evaluate the performance of the second Starliner vehicle at no cost to the taxpayer.  We will then proceed to the tremendous responsibility and privilege of flying astronauts to the International Space Station.”

NASA said it accepted a recommendation from Boeing to fly a second unpiloted mission.

“Boeing has decided to fly a second uncrewed flight test as a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program,” the space agency said in a statement. “Although no new launch date has been set, NASA has accepted the proposal to fly the mission again and will work side-by-side with Boeing to resume flight tests to the International Space Station on the company’s CST-100 Starliner system.”

The Washington Post reported the second Orbital Flight Test, with much the same objectives as the first, is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral “sometime in October or November.”

Boeing said the company is “committed to the safety of the men and women who design, build and ultimately will fly on the Starliner just as we have on every crewed mission to space.”

“Although many of the objectives of Boeing’s first uncrewed flight test in December 2019 were accomplished, Boeing decided the best approach to meeting the agency’s requirements would be to fly the mission again, including docking with the space station,” NASA said Monday. “Data from the next and previous flight test will be used as part of NASA’s process of certifying Boeing’s crew transportation system for carrying astronauts to and from the space station.”

Earlier this year, Boeing officials said the company missed chances to uncover the software bugs during testing before the first Orbital Flight Test.

John Mulholland, vice president and manager of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner program, said in February that the company performed testing of Starliner’s software in chunks, with each test focused on a specific segment of the mission. Boeing did not perform an end-to-end test of the entire software suite, and in some cases used stand-ins, or emulators, for flight computers.

A review team investigating the miscues during the December test flight issued some 60 recommendations to be implemented before the Starliner flies in space again. Doug Loverro, head of NASA’s human spaceflight directorate, said last month he designated the botched Starliner test flight a “high-visibility close call,” which triggers another government review.


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/starliner1.jpg)
The Starliner spacecraft from Boeing’s first Orbital Flight Test is seen Jan. 15 inside the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A darkened streak from the heat of atmospheric re-entry is visible on the capsule’s thermal blankets, and the ship’s hatch is open. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now

One of the software problems was immediately apparent after the Starliner’s ascent into space Dec. 20 from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. A mission elapsed timer on the capsule had a wrong setting, causing the spacecraft to miss a planned engine firing soon after separating from the Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage.

The orbit insertion burn was required to inject the Starliner capsule into a stable orbit and begin its pursuit of the space station. After the automated sequence failed due to the on-board timer setting, ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston had to uplink manual commands for the Starliner spacecraft to perform the orbit insertion burn, but the ship burned too much fuel during the process, leaving insufficient propellant to rendezvous and dock with the space station.

Ground teams in Houston also encountered trouble establishing a stable communications link with the Starliner when they attempted to send commands for the orbit insertion burn, further delaying the start of the maneuver. Boeing says ground teams had issues connecting with the spacecraft on more than 30 additional occasions during the Starliner’s two-day test flight.

With a docking to the space station no longer possible, mission managers cut short the Starliner test flight and targeted landing in New Mexico on Dec. 22.

After the mission timer problem, Boeing engineers reviewed other segments of the Starliner’s software code to search for other problem areas. They uncovered another software error that was missed in pre-flight testing, which could have caused the Starliner’s service module to slam into the craft’s crew module after the ship’s two elements separated just before re-entry into the atmosphere.

A software fix uplinked to the Starliner spacecraft before re-entry ensured the capsule could safely land.

“The second uncrewed flight does not relieve Boeing from completing all the actions determined from the joint NASA/Boeing independent review team, which was commissioned following the flawed initial flight,” NASA said in a statement. “NASA still intends to conduct the needed oversight to make sure those corrective actions are taken.”

Boeing has two space-rated Starliner crew capsules in preparation at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, including the craft that flew in December. Both are designed to fly up to 10 times to the space station, with each mission lasting up to seven months.

Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson — a former space shuttle commander — is assigned to the first crewed Starliner test flight. NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Nicole Mann will also be aboard the Starliner’s Crew Flight Test, a prerequisite to operational crew rotation missions using the Boeing capsule.

Space agency officials said Monday they have not determined a schedule for the first crewed Starliner mission.

NASA is paying Boeing more than $4.8 billion to design, develop, test and fly astronauts on the the Starliner spacecraft to the space station. Boeing announced the CST-100 Starliner program in 2010, and officials at the time said the capsule could begin operational crew rotation flights to the station by 2015.

That schedule fell aside after NASA encountered difficulty securing funding from Congress for the commercial crew program, which aims to restore U.S. human spaceflight capability and end NASA’s reliance on Russian Soyuz crew ships to get astronauts to the space station.

Once funded, the program suffered a series of delays caused by technical problems with the Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship, NASA’s other commercial crew program.

NASA has agreements with SpaceX valued at $3.1 billion to develop and fly the Crew Dragon spaceship.

The Crew Dragon has successfully completed all of its test flights before astronauts strap in and ride the capsule into orbit. The SpaceX capsule successfully docked with the space station and returned to Earth on an uncrewed mission in March 2019, but an explosion during a ground test of the ship’s launch escape engines in April 2019 forced a multi-month delay.

SpaceX redesigned part of the high-pressure abort propulsion system, and demonstrated the change during an in-flight escape test in January over the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken could take off from the Kennedy Space Center on the Crew Dragon’s final test flight — the first one with a crew on-board — as soon as mid-to-late May atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a trip to the International Space Station, according to the space agency. Another Crew Dragon mission with four astronauts could launch to the space station later in the summer.

It will be the first crewed launch into Earth orbit from U.S. soil since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011.

“This is exactly why NASA decided to select two partners in the commercial crew effort,” NASA said Monday. “Having dissimilar redundancy is key in NASA’s approach to maintaining a crew and cargo aboard the space station and to keeping our commitments to international partners. It also allows our private industry partners to focus on crew safety rather than schedule. The safety of our commercial crew team always will remain as our top priority.”

United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is the launch provider for the Starliner program.


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The Atlas booster originally assigned to the Starliner Crew Flight Test arrived at Cape Canaveral on June 5, 2019. The rocket is now expected to be used for the second Orbital Flight Test of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule. Credit: NASA/Frank Michaux

“We are ready to support Boeing and NASA when they are ready to fly the second Orbital Flight Test,” ULA said in a statement Monday. “We continue to work closely with Boeing to ensure that the CST-100 Starliner flies as soon as the spacecraft is ready. We are committed to safety and mission assurance and are working to ensure the highest level of safety for the future crew.”

The Atlas 5 rocket for Starliner’s first piloted mission — called the Crew Flight Test — is already at Cape Canaveral after delivery from ULA’s factory in Alabama last year. That launch vehicle is expected to be used for the second Orbital Flight Test.

“The hardware for the next flight is at the Cape and is ready for launch processing once a launch date has been determined by the Boeing, NASA and ULA team,” ULA said in a statement.


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/06/after-problem-plagued-test-flight-boeing-will-refly-crew-capsule-without-astronauts/
Tytuł: Odp: [SN] NASA completes reviews of Boeing commercial crew test flight
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Lipiec 11, 2020, 22:25
NASA completes reviews of Boeing commercial crew test flight
by Jeff Foust — July 7, 2020 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Boeing-CST-100-Starliner-post-landing_NASA-879x485.jpg)
NASA said July 7 an independent review made 80 recommendations to address issues found during last December's uncrewed test of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

WASHINGTON — NASA announced July 7 that it has completed two major reviews that stemmed from Boeing’s flawed commercial crew test flight last December as the agency and company prepare for a second test flight later this year.

NASA said that an independent review team (IRT), jointly organized by NASA and Boeing to investigate the CST-100 Starliner uncrewed test flight last December, had wrapped up its work, having added 19 recommendations to the 61 the agency reported in March.

The additional recommendations cover communications problems experienced during the abbreviated Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission. NASA said Boeing will install a radiofrequency filter to reduce out-of-band interference that caused intermittent space-to-ground communications problems during that flight.

Those problems were on top of software errors in a mission elapsed timer experienced immediately after launch that caused NASA to call off a planned docking of the spacecraft to the International Space Station. In addition, there was a software configuration issue with thrusters in the service module (https://spacenews.com/nasa-safety-panel-calls-for-reviews-after-second-starliner-software-problem/) that, had it not been found and corrected during the two-day flight, could have caused the service module to bump into and potentially damage the crew capsule after separation just before reentry.

NASA did not release the specific set of recommendations, saying in a statement that list was “company sensitive and proprietary.” It noted the recommendations fell into five broad categories: testing and simulation, software requirements, process and operational improvements, software updates, and knowledge capture and modifications to Starliner hardware.

Boeing has started implementing those recommendations. “As soon as the IRT produced recommendations, they started adding resources,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said in a call with reporters. “They’ve been incrementally changing the software, testing the software, adding resources when required.”

As that independent review was winding down last spring, Doug Loverro, at the time NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said he had designated the OFT mission a “high-visibility close call” that required a second review to identify any additional issues that needed to be addressed.

“We really wanted to make sure that we looked deep into ourselves, and our Boeing teammates,” said Kathy Lueders, who took over as associate administrator for human exploration and operations in June after managing the commercial crew program. The review was looking for any additional lessons learned that could be applied not just to Starliner but also other NASA human spaceflight programs.

That resulted in several recommendations, with a particular emphasis on systems engineering and integration, as well as software development and testing. Stich said NASA had added personnel to work “side by side” with Boeing on software.

Both Lueders and Stich acknowledged that NASA hadn’t put enough emphasis on reviewing software. “Perhaps we didn’t have as many people embedded in that process as we should have,” Stich said. “It was an area where perhaps we just didn’t have quite the level of NASA insight as we should have in hindsight.”

He added that NASA may have been blinded to some potential issues because of its familiarity with Boeing, given its experience on other NASA programs. NASA had been focused more on the other commercial crew company, SpaceX, in part because it used what he termed “a bit of a nontraditional approach” to software development.

“When one provider has a newer approach than another, it’s often natural for a human being to spend more time on that newer approach, and maybe we didn’t quite take the time we needed with the more traditional approach,” he said.

Lueders said the lessons from the close-call review would help other programs in her directorate, from the Space Launch System to the Human Landing System program for lunar lander development. “Where we had problems was across interfaces,” she said, so there’s a renewed focus on interfaces such as those between SLS and Orion or between elements of SLS itself. “It did give us pause, and then a particular action to go make sure that there are not any kind of hidden gotchas out there.”

“We do need to change our assumptions about how we’re working together,” she said of NASA’s work with commercial partners. “That’s going to be real learning that we can take forward into our Human Lander System programs and other programs.”

Boeing, which did not participate in the NASA media briefing, announced in April it would perform a second uncrewed flight test (https://spacenews.com/boeing-to-fly-second-starliner-uncrewed-test-flight/), called OFT-2, at its own expense. That mission is not yet formally scheduled, although Stich said current planning is for it to take place late this year.

“Today, we’re turning the page a bit from the investigation phase of OFT into hardware development” for OFT-2, Stich said. “The pacing item right now for flight is getting all the software upgrades in place and tested for a flight.” He declined to give a more specific launch date than the “latter part” of the year.

That makes it difficult, he said, to estimate a date for a crewed flight test for Starliner, similar to the ongoing Demo-2 Crew Dragon mission. In addition, Boeing is refurbishing the Starliner that flew the OFT mission for that crewed flight, a process the company is going through for the first time. He suggested, though, a flight next spring could be feasible. “We’ll have to see how that all shakes out as they get the software ready and continue to refurbish the vehicle.”

Stich said there was no chance that Boeing would be dropped from the commercial crew program. “Right now, I cannot envision a scenario where SpaceX is the only provider,” he said, arguing that the recommendations should address the problems found during the OFT mission before flying OFT-2. “I really don’t see a scenario where we would get to flight and have a flight that was similar to OFT-1.”


Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-completes-reviews-of-boeing-commercial-crew-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: [SFN] Starliner test flight next on ULA’s launch schedule
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Styczeń 27, 2021, 04:12
Starliner test flight next on ULA’s launch schedule after military mission delay
January 25, 2021 Stephen Clark

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Jan14CM2_C01421JNP049_C3PF-Lift-to-Mate-with-SM2-2.jpg)
The Starliner crew module for the unpiloted Orbital Flight Test-2 mission was mated to its service module Jan. 14 inside the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Boeing/John Proferes

The U.S. Space Force has decided to delay the planned late February launch of two military satellites aboard a ULA Atlas 5 rocket to “evaluate readiness” of one of the payloads, giving officials a window to move forward the liftoff of an unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to no earlier than March 25.

The launch of the military’s Space Test Program-3, or STP-3, mission was previously scheduled Feb. 26 on an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The STP-3 mission will deliver two military spacecraft into a geosynchronous orbit more than 20,000 miles over the equator.

A spokesperson for the Space and Missile Systems Center said the STP-3 launch has been delayed to “evaluate readiness” of one the military satellites, named STPSat6, and “ensure mission success of the primary payload.”

STPSat 6 hosts several payloads and experiments, including the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Space and Atmospheric Burst Reporting System-3 payload, which is designed to detect nuclear detonations from orbit. NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration experiment and several more payloads are also flying on the STPSat 6 spacecraft.

A smaller satellite named LPDE 1 will ride into orbit with STPSat 6. The LPDE 1 spacecraft is designed to accommodate experimental payloads and small satellites, which could be deployed from the parent satellite in orbit.

The STP-3 mission is also a milestone mission for ULA because it will be the first Atlas 5 launch with U.S.-built payload fairing. The 5.4-meter-diameter (17.7-foot) shroud is identical in size to payload fairings that flew on previous Atlas 5 flights, but those were built by RUAG Space in Switzerland.

But the new fairings are built by RUAG technicians inside ULA’s rocket factory in Decatur, Alabama, using updated manufacturing techniques. The same fairing design is intended to fly on ULA’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket.

The Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center said the STP-3 mission does not have a new target launch date.


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/WS-OFT-1-1367.jpeg)
United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket lifts off Dec. 19, 2019, with Boeing’s first Starliner capsule. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now

With the STP-3 mission out of the way, ULA’s first launch of 2021 will carry Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft into orbit on a test flight to the International Space Station.

The unpiloted demonstration mission, named Orbital Flight Test-2, is a repeat of Boeing’s OFT-1 test flight in December 2019. Software problems on the OFT-1 mission prevented the Starliner spacecraft from docking with the space station, forcing a premature landing under parachutes at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico.

Boeing said earlier this month (https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/01/18/boeing-making-progress-on-starliner-software-for-test-flight-in-march/) that engineers completed “requalification” of the Starliner software code. The software will undergo an end-to-end test next month to check its functionality throughout a simulated Starliner flight from launch through docking, and from undocking through landing.

The Starliner spacecraft is one of two new crew capsules designed to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule flew with astronauts for the first time last May, but Boeing’s software problems delayed the Starliner program more than a year.

NASA contracted with Boeing and SpaceX to develop the new crew capsules, ending U.S. reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for astronaut transportation services.

The OFT-2 mission was previously scheduled for liftoff March 29, but NASA and Boeing officials moved the launch date forward to no earlier than March 25 after the STP-3 launch delay.

“The target launch date is enabled by an opening on the Eastern Range, the availability of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 6 rocket, steady progress on hardware and software, and an International Space Station docking opportunity,” NASA said in a statement.


(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/stp3.jpeg)
United Launch Alliance’s mission poster for the Atlas 5 launch with the STP-3 payloads, with illustrations of the STPSat 6 and LPDE 1 spacecraft. Credit: United Launch Alliance

“Boeing recently mated the spacecraft’s reusable crew module on its brand new service module inside the Starliner production factory at Kennedy Space Center in Florida,” NASA said. “Teams are working to complete outfitting of the vehicle’s interior before loading cargo and conducting final spacecraft checkouts.”

Assuming the week-long OFT-2 test flight goes well, Boeing hopes to launch the Starliner’s first Crew Flight Test with a three-person crew as soon as mid-2021. The three astronauts will dock with the space station, where they are expected to spend one-to-two weeks before coming back to Earth.

After the Crew Flight Test, NASA will certify the Starliner to fly on operational crew rotation missions to the space station. Those flights will carry four astronauts and last up to seven months.


Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/01/25/starliner-test-flight-next-on-ulas-launch-schedule-after-military-mission-delay/
Tytuł: Odp: [SN] Starliner test flight scheduled for July 30
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Maj 09, 2021, 00:53
Starliner test flight scheduled for July 30
by Jeff Foust — May 6, 2021 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/starliner-oft2preps-879x485.jpg)
The CST-100 Starliner that will fly the OFT-2 uncrewed test flight is nearly ready for a launch now scheduled for July 30. Credit: Boeing

WASHINGTON — NASA and Boeing have scheduled a second uncrewed test flight of the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft for July 30.

In separate statements, the agency and the company said they were planning to launch the Starliner on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 at 2:53 p.m. Eastern July 30 on the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission. A launch that day would allow the spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station on the evening of July 31.

Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-test-flight-scheduled-for-july-30/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Lipiec 25, 2021, 07:42
Starliner cleared for second uncrewed test flight
by Jeff Foust — July 23, 2021 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/starliner-oft2-rollout-879x485.jpg)
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner spacecraft was transported July 17 to the launch pad, where it was installed on the Atlas 5 rocket that will launch it July 30. Credit: United Launch Alliance

WASHINGTON — NASA approved plans July 22 for the launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on a second uncrewed test flight that seeks to demonstrate that the company has corrected the problems seen on the first.

At the conclusion of the flight readiness review, NASA gave the go-ahead for a July 30 launch of Starliner on the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission. Liftoff of the spacecraft on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 is scheduled for 2:53 p.m. Eastern that day. If the launch is postponed, the next opportunity is Aug. 3 because of range conflicts and orbital mechanics.

Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-cleared-for-second-uncrewed-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Lipiec 25, 2021, 07:45
NASA clears Boeing Starliner for launch on second unpiloted test flight
July 22, 2021 William Harwood STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION [SFN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/oft2_1.jpg)
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is secured atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on July 17, 2021. Starliner will launch on the Atlas V for Boeing’s second Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2) for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. The spacecraft rolled out from Boeing’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center earlier in the day.

NASA and Boeing held a day-long flight readiness review Thursday and cleared the company’s CST-100 Starliner astronaut ferry ship for launch July 30 on a second unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/07/22/nasa-clears-boeing-starliner-for-launch-on-second-unpiloted-test-flight/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Lipiec 30, 2021, 05:06
Weather key issue for Starliner launch
by Jeff Foust — July 27, 2021 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/starliner-oft2-onatlas-879x485.jpg)
The CST-100 Starliner spacecraft on top of its Atlas 5 rocket, being prepared for a launch scheduled for July 30, weather permitting. Credit: Boeing/John Grant

WASHINGTON — NASA and Boeing say a second test flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle remains on track for launch July 30, with weather the biggest concern.

Source: https://spacenews.com/weather-key-issue-for-starliner-launch/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Lipiec 30, 2021, 05:08
“All eyes on weather” for Friday test launch of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule
July 27, 2021 Stephen Clark [SN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/KSC-20210717-PH-BOE01_0002large-2.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is stacked on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral. Credit: Boeing/Damon Tucci

The threat of lightning could thwart plans to launch an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Friday with a Boeing commercial crew capsule on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station, according to the forecasters on the Space Coast.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/07/27/all-eyes-on-weather-for-friday-test-launch-of-boeings-starliner-crew-capsule/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Sierpień 03, 2021, 22:39
Starliner glitch delays launch
by Jeff Foust — August 3, 2021

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/starliner-oft2-rollout3-879x485.jpg)
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, seen here atop its Atlas 5 rocket, scrubbed an Aug. 3 launch attempt because of a technical issue with its propulsion system. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

WASHINGTON — A problem with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle scrubbed a launch attempt Aug. 3, pushing back its uncrewed test flight by at least a day.

Boeing announced about three hours before the scheduled 1:20 p.m. Eastern liftoff that the launch had been postponed for the day. In a statement a short time later, the company said engineers detected “unexpected valve position indications in the propulsion system” of the spacecraft.

Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-glitch-delays-launch/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Sierpień 08, 2021, 13:15
Boeing’s Starliner capsule returns to hangar for valve troubleshooting
August 5, 2021 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/oft2rollback.jpeg)
United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket and Boeing’s Starliner capsule depart pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday morning. Credit: Boeing

Ground teams at Cape Canaveral wheeled Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule and a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket back inside their assembly hangar Thursday for further troubleshooting of misbehaving valves inside the Starliner propulsion system.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/08/05/boeings-starliner-capsule-returns-to-hanger-for-valve-troubleshooting/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Sierpień 10, 2021, 09:43
Starliner investigation continues
by Jeff Foust — August 8, 2021 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/starliner-oft2-rollout3-879x485.jpg)
A combination of schedule conflicts on both the ISS and with the Atlas 5 could push back the CST-100 Starliner's test flight by months if it does not launch in August. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

WASHINGTON — Boeing is continuing its investigation into the thruster issue that delayed the launch of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle but could soon run into schedule conflicts on both the International Space Station and with its launch vehicle. (...)

What caused the valves to malfunction isn’t clear, although Boeing said in an earlier statement that they had ruled out software problems. One possibility is damage such as water intrusion during a severe thunderstorm shortly after the rocket was rolled out to the pad Aug. 2.

Neither NASA nor Boeing have set a new launch date for the OFT-2 mission. Boeing said in its statement that it is “assessing multiple launch opportunities for Starliner in August” and will work with NASA and United Launch Alliance to determine an appropriate launch date.

Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-investigation-continues/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Sierpień 14, 2021, 07:15
Starliner test flight faces months-long delay
by Jeff Foust — August 13, 2021 Updated 2:45 p.m. Eastern after media teleconference.

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/starliner-repairs-879x485.jpg)
Technicians attempt to repair valves in the propulsion system on Boeing's CST-100 Starliner that have forced an extended delay in the launch of the spacecraft on an uncrewed test flight. Credit: Boeing

WASHINGTON — A test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle will be delayed for at least several months to fix a problem with valves on the spacecraft.

Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-test-flight-faces-months-long-delay/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Sierpień 14, 2021, 07:55
Boeing opts to haul Starliner back to hangar, delays flight indefinitely
August 13, 2021 William Harwood [SFN] STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

(https://mk0spaceflightnoa02a.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/starlinerpropulsion.jpg)
This infographic from Aerojet Rocketdyne, which supplies thrusters and valves for the Starliner spacecraft, shows the vehicle’s propulsion system. Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne

Around-the-clock work to fix valve problems that derailed an Aug. 3 attempt to launch Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule on an unpiloted test flight was called off Friday, delaying another try until after NASA launches a higher-priority asteroid probe in mid-October.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/08/13/boeing-opts-to-haul-starliner-back-to-hangar-delays-flight-indefinitely/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Wrzesień 22, 2021, 23:29
Starliner test flight likely to slip to 2022
by Jeff Foust — September 22, 2021 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/starliner-oft2-onatlas-879x485.jpg)
A second uncrewed test flight of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner, postponed in August because of valve problems, is unlikely to take place before 2022, a NASA official said Sept. 21. Credit: Boeing/John Grant

WASHINGTON — A test flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle, delayed by a valve problem in August, is unlikely to take place before some time next year, NASA official said Sept. 21.

In a call with reporters about organizational changes at NASA, Kathy Lueders, associate administrator for the new Space Operations Mission Directorate, said engineers were still trying to determine why valves in the propulsion system of the Starliner spacecraft were stuck shut, postponing an uncrewed test flight that had been scheduled for early August.

Source: https://spacenews.com/starliner-test-flight-likely-to-slip-to-2022/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Październik 08, 2021, 21:28
NASA reshuffles commercial crew astronaut assignments because of Starliner delays
by Jeff Foust — October 7, 2021 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/crewdragon-approach-879x485.jpg)
NASA reassigned two astronauts who were to fly on CST-100 Starliner commercial crew missions to a Crew Dragon mission called Crew-5 to give the rookie astronauts flight experience sooner rather than later. Credit: NASA

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA has reassigned two astronauts from Boeing commercial crew missions to a SpaceX one as the agency addresses delays in the development of the CST-100 Starliner and works out a seat barter agreement with Russia.

Source: https://spacenews.com/nasa-reshuffles-commercial-crew-astronaut-assignments-because-of-starliner-delays/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Październik 31, 2021, 07:46
Boeing takes $185 million charge because of Starliner delays
by Jeff Foust — October 27, 2021 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/starliner-oft2-rollout3-879x485.jpg)
Boeing took a $185 million charge to cover additional costs for the OFT-2 test flight after taking a $410 million charge in January 2020. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

DUBAI, U.A.E. — Boeing announced Oct. 27 it is taking an additional $185 million charge against its earnings to cover the costs to get its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle flying again.

Source: https://spacenews.com/boeing-takes-185-million-charge-because-of-starliner-delays/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Październik 31, 2021, 07:49
Boeing reports $185 million charge to pay for Starliner delays
October 28, 2021 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/oft2_roll3.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft emerges from the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing facility in July, during preparations before Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test-2 mission. Credit: Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now

Boeing said Wednesday it will take on a $185 million charge in its third quarter earnings to pay for the latest setback on the Starliner crew capsule, bringing the company’s out-of-pocket costs on the troubled program to $595 million since 2019.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/10/28/boeing-reports-185-million-charge-to-pay-for-starliner-delays/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Marzec 12, 2022, 00:36
NASA safety panel recommends agency review how it manages human spaceflight programs
by Jeff Foust — January 18, 2022 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/starliner-oft2-onatlas-879x485.jpg)
Among the issues raised in the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel report was a difference in opinion between NASA and Boeing on the risk posed vt stuck propulsion valves in the CST-100 Starliner that the panel said was evidence the two organizations "do not share a common understanding of how to assess and characterize risk." Credit: Boeing/John Grant

WASHINGTON — NASA’s safety advisers are calling on the agency to reexamine how it manages human spaceflight programs to reflect the changing relationship with industry and to better run its core exploration effort.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-safety-panel-recommends-agency-review-how-it-manages-human-spaceflight-programs/

Boeing Starliner test flight next on ULA’s launch schedule
March 11, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/starliner-c3pf-1.jpeg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft inside the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Boeing

The U.S. Space Force has postponed a multi-spacecraft mission that was booked to fly on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in April, moving a redo of a test flight for Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to the front of the line on ULA’s launch schedule.

ULA announced the delay in the Space Force’s USSF 12 mission in a brief statement shared on social media. The launch company, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, said the delay was ordered at the request of the Space Force’s Space Systems Command.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/03/11/boeing-starliner-test-flight-next-on-ulas-launch-schedule/

ULA begins stacking Atlas 5 rocket for Boeing’s Starliner test flight
April 21, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/av082stack1.jpg)
An Atlas 5 first stage, with its Russian-made RD-180 engine, is prepared for stacking outside ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility on Wednesday morning. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Final assembly of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket began Wednesday with the hoisting of a first stage booster onto a mobile launch platform at Cape Canaveral, kicking off a campaign to prepare for liftoff May 19 on a delayed unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/04/21/ula-begins-stacking-atlas-5-rocket-for-boeings-starliner-test-flight/

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule meets Atlas rocket for long-delayed test flight
May 4, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHKqK0pZ2zI

Ready for another try at launching on a test flight to the International Space Station, Boeing rolled a repaired Starliner crew capsule to United Launch Alliance’s seaside rocket hangar at Cape Canaveral Wednesday to prepare for a liftoff scheduled for May 19.

The test flight will not carry astronauts, but could set the stage for the first Starliner crew mission to the space station late this year or in early 2023, NASA and Boeing officials said in a press conference Tuesday.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/04/boeings-starliner-crew-capsule-meets-atlas-rocket-for-another-attempt-at-test-flight/

NASA, Boeing ready for second Starliner test flight
by Jeff Foust — May 5, 2022 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/starliner-rollout-20220504.jpg)
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft rolls past the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center on its way to the launch pad to be installed on an Atlas 5 rocket ahead of its May 19 launch. Credit: NASA/Glenn Benson

WASHINGTON — NASA and Boeing say they’re confident they have resolved a valve issue that delayed a test flight of the company’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle last year and are ready to try again later this month.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-boeing-ready-for-second-starliner-test-flight/

Boeing considering redesign of Starliner valves
by Jeff Foust — May 12, 2022 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/starliner-oft2-pad.jpg)
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft arrives at the launch pad for the OFT-2 mission. Boeing said at a May 11 briefing the company is considering a valve redesign as a long-term solution to a corrosion problem discovered last year. Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

WASHINGTON — Boeing says it is considering redesigning the propellant valves on future CST-100 Starliner commercial crew spacecraft as a long-term solution to the corrosion problem those valves suffered last year.

At a May 11 briefing about the upcoming Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission, Boeing’s manager for the program said that while a solution to prevent corrosion of the valves is working for the upcoming mission, a valve redesign is “definitely on the table” as a long-term fix, something the company had not previously acknowledged.
https://spacenews.com/boeing-considering-redesign-of-starliner-valves/

NASA safety advisors voice concerns over Boeing’s Starliner, SpaceX’s Starship
May 13, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/49258609652_80c8596dbe_k.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft descends under parachutes on Dec. 22, 2019, at the conclusion of the Orbital Flight Test-1 mission. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

Members of NASA’s independent safety advisory panel on Thursday cautioned the space agency not to rush toward a crew test flight of Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft, and voiced concerns about final certification of the capsule’s parachutes and Boeing staffing levels on the program.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/13/nasa-safety-advisors-voice-concerns-over-boeings-starliner-spacexs-starship/

NASA, Boeing ready for long-delayed, high-stakes Starliner test flight
May 17, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/starliner_oft2_pre1.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft was hoisted on top of ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket May 4 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Credit: United Launch Alliance

Running years late, Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule program is poised for a crucial unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station set for launch Thursday, a do-over of an abbreviated 2019 demo mission that has cost the aerospace contractor nearly $600 million.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/17/nasa-boeing-ready-for-long-delayed-high-stakes-starliner-test-flight/

Atlas 5 rocket and Starliner capsule return to Florida launch pad
May 18, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/atlas-oft-2-pre4.jpg)
ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket and Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule on their launch pad Wednesday at Cape Canaveral. Credit: Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now

United Launch Alliance rolled an Atlas 5 rocket to its launch pad Wednesday at Cape Canaveral, moving into the starting position for a critical unpiloted demo flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule. Unlike the first Starliner test flight, the spacecraft’s launch abort system will be armed during the climb to space Thursday.

Running years behind schedule, Boeing’s crew capsule is one of two spacecraft NASA selected in 2014 to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The other capsule was SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which has now launched seven times with people on-board.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/18/atlas-5-rocket-and-starliner-capsule-return-to-florida-launch-pad/

Starliner astronauts eager to see results from crew capsule test flight
May 18, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/52083131119_a356f5fd8b_k.jpg)
NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore speaks with reporters Wednesday at the Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

The NASA astronauts training for the first crew missions on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will be closely watching each step of the capsule’s unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station, set for blastoff Thursday from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas 5 rocket.

NASA has funneled more than $5 billion into Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule program since 2010, but the spacecraft is running years behind schedule. The mission set for launch Thursday, named Orbital Flight Test-2, is a precursor demonstration flight to prove out key Starliner systems before NASA commits to putting astronauts on the vehicle.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/18/starliner-astronauts-eager-to-see-results-of-crew-capsule-test-flight/

NASA and Boeing set for second Starliner test flight
by Jeff Foust — May 19, 2022 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/oft2-rollout-may22.jpg)
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft, atop its Atlas 5 rocket, rolled out to the launch pad May 18. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is ready to attempt another uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station, with both the company and the agency expressing confidence in the spacecraft despite past problems.

The Starliner spacecraft, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, rolled out to the pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, May 18. Launch of the spacecraft on the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) 2 mission remains scheduled for 6:54 p.m. Eastern May 19.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-boeing-set-for-second-starliner-test-flight/

Atlas 5 launches Starliner on second uncrewed test flight
by Jeff Foust — May 19, 2022 Updated 10 p.m. Eastern with comments from postlaunch briefing.  [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/oft2-launch-nasa.jpg)
An Atlas 5 lifts off from Cape Canaveral carrying Boeing's CST-100 Starliner on a second uncrewed test flight. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft is on its way to the International Space Station on a critical, long-delayed uncrewed test flight of the commercial crew vehicle.

An Atlas 5 N22 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:54 p.m. Eastern May 19. The Starliner spacecraft, formally designated Spacecraft 2 by Boeing, separated from the dual-engine Centaur upper stage 15 minutes after liftoff, performing a 40-second orbital insertion burn 16 minutes later to place the spacecraft into a stable orbit.
https://spacenews.com/atlas-5-launches-starliner-on-second-uncrewed-test-flight/

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule takes off on long-awaited test flight
May 19, 2022 Stephen Clark [SN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/oft2launch1.jpg)
ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket climbs off pad 41 with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Credit: Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft thundered into orbit Thursday from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, aiming to dock at the International Space Station on a years-late test flight to prove the capsule’s systems before flying astronauts.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/19/boeings-starliner-crew-capsule-takes-off-on-long-awaited-test-flight/

OFT-2 Flies, Heads for Friday Space Station Docking
by Ben Evans May 20, 2022 [AS]

(https://www.americaspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Screenshot-2022-05-19-at-23.55.28-1536x868.png)
OFT-2 takes flight at 6:54 p.m. EDT Thursday. Photo Credit: NASA

After more than two years of mixed fortunes, the second Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2) of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner—the second of two Commercial Crew vehicles, alongside the now-active SpaceX Crew Dragon—rose from historic Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., during an “instantaneous” launch window at 6:54:47 p.m. EDT Thursday, 19 May.
https://www.americaspace.com/2022/05/20/oft-2-flies-heads-for-friday-space-station-docking/

Starliner docks with ISS for the first time
by Jeff Foust — May 20, 2022 Updated 10:45 p.m. Eastern with post-launch briefing comments. [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/oft2-docking-879x485.jpg)
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner approaching the International Space Station shortly before its docking. Credit: NASA TV

TITUSVILLE, Fla. — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station May 20, a little more than 24 hours after its launch.

The spacecraft docked with the forward docking port on the Harmony module of the station at 8:28 p.m. Eastern. Controllers reported a hard docking securing the spacecraft to the station about 20 minutes later, although hatches separating the spacecraft from the station won’t open until around 11:45 a.m. Eastern May 21.

The central theme of the annual report of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), released Jan. 11, was a need to reexamine the roles and responsibilities of NASA as human spaceflight programs are increasingly managed by industry rather than NASA itself, as was the case for most of the agency’s history.
https://spacenews.com/starliner-docks-with-iss-for-the-first-time/

Boeing’s Starliner capsule completes first “nail-biting” docking at space station
May 21, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/starlinerdocking1.jpg)
Russian cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov captured this view of the Starliner spacecraft approaching the International Space Station. Credit: Sergey Korsakov / Roscosmos

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule finally reached the International Space Station Friday night with a “nail-biting” rendezvous and docking, overcoming several technical glitches to accomplish a long-awaited objective for the spacecraft before NASA clears it to ferry astronauts to the research complex.

The crew capsule docked at the forward end of the station’s Harmony module at 8:28 p.m. EDT Friday (0028 GMT Saturday), using vision-based navigation to autonomously guide itself to the docking target.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/21/boeings-starliner-capsule-completes-first-nail-biting-docking-at-space-station/

Starliner launches to remain on Atlas 5
by Jeff Foust — May 22, 2022 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/oft2-launch-pad.jpg)
An Atlas 5 launches Boeing's CST-100 Starliner May 19. Seven future crewed launches will all be on Atlas 5, even if the vehicle is otherwise retired as ULA shifts to the Vulcan Centaur. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

WASHINGTON — Boeing and United Launch Alliance say they remain committed to launching future CST-100 Starliner commercial crew missions on Atlas 5 rockets even after that vehicle is effectively retired for other missions.

As with the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) mission in late 2019, an Atlas 5 launched Starliner on the OFT-2 mission May 19. Boeing has a contract with ULA to launch both the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission, the first Starliner mission to carry astronauts, and six operational or post-certification missions on Atlas 5 vehicles as well.
https://spacenews.com/starliner-launches-to-remain-on-atlas-5/

Starliner spacecraft cleared for undocking and re-entry
May 24, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/oft2-docked-1.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft docked at the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Astronauts on the International Space Station closed the hatch to Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft Tuesday, and ground teams used the lab’s robotic arm to inspect the capsule’s heat shield to clear the test vehicle for undocking Wednesday and return to Earth for a late afternoon landing in New Mexico.
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/24/starliner-spacecraft-cleared-for-undocking-and-re-entry/

Starliner concludes OFT-2 test flight with landing in New Mexico
by Jeff Foust — May 25, 2022 Updated 10:30 p.m. Eastern with comments from postlanding briefing. [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/oft2-landing.jpg)
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner moments before landing at White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, to conclude the OFT-2 uncrewed test flight. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner safely landed in New Mexico May 25, concluding a six-day uncrewed test flight to the International Space Station and setting the stage for the spacecraft’s first flight with people.
https://spacenews.com/starliner-concludes-oft-2-test-flight-with-landing-in-new-mexico/

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft lands in New Mexico after successful test flight
May 25, 2022 Stephen Clark [SFN]

(https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/52099461903_b7c69cb245_4k.jpg)
Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft descends toward landing at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft parachuted to a “picture perfect” landing in southern New Mexico Wednesday, capping a six-day test flight to the International Space Station that NASA’s commercial crew program manager said paves the way for the next Starliner mission to carry astronauts.

The crew capsule touched down at White Sands Space Harbor, co-located with the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range, at 6:49 p.m. EDT (4:49 p.m. MDT; 2249 GMT).
https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/05/25/boeings-starliner-spacecraft-lands-in-new-mexico-after-successful-test-flight/

OFT-2 Returns Safely Home, Completing Successful ISS Mission
by Ben Evans May 26, 2022 [AS]

(https://www.americaspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/CST100LANDING-1536x1023.jpg)
The long-awaited OFT-2 mission comes to a successful conclusion at White Sands Space Harbor (WSSH), N.M., at 4:49 p.m. MDT (6:49 p.m. EDT) Wednesday. Photo Credit: NASA

After a flight lasting a few minutes shy of six full days, more than four days of which were spent docked to the International Space Station (ISS), Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner safely returned to Earth late Wednesday, touching down at 4:49 p.m. MDT (6:49 p.m. EDT) with the assistance of its airbags and three perfect parachutes at mountain-ringed White Sands Space Harbor (WSSH), N.M. It marked the triumphant conclusion of the long-awaited second Orbital Flight Test (OFT-2) of the spacecraft, wrapping up a major test objective for NASA’s second Commercial Crew partner. Pending data review from OFT-2, the next step will be a Crew Flight Test (CFT) to the space station, later this year.
https://www.americaspace.com/2022/05/26/oft-2-returns-safely-home-completing-successful-iss-mission/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Czerwiec 17, 2022, 10:34
NASA assigns two astronauts to Starliner test flight
by Jeff Foust — June 16, 2022 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/cft-cadre.jpg)
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore (left) and Suni Williams (right) will fly the first crewed Boeing CST-100 Starliner mission. Mike Fincke (center), previously assigned to the mission, will be a backup. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA has assigned two veteran astronauts to the first crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in the latest reshuffling of personnel assigned to the long-delayed mission.

NASA announced June 16 that Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will fly the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission no earlier than late this year. The mission will travel to the International Space Station on a flight currently expected to last two weeks.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-assigns-two-astronauts-to-starliner-test-flight/



First crewed Starliner mission on track for April
Jeff Foust February 17, 2023

(https://i0.wp.com/spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cst100-cst-processing.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1)
Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft was wheeled into a processing area at the Kennedy Space Center in early February in preparation for fueling ahead of its launch on a crewed test flight in mid to late April. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — Preparations for the first crewed flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner vehicle to the International Space Station remain on schedule for a launch in mid to late April, company and NASA officials said Feb. 17.

The Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission will send NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to the station on an eight-day mission, launching from Cape Canaveral and landing at White Sands, New Mexico. The mission, following a successful uncrewed flight to the ISS last May, is intended to be the final major test of the vehicle before NASA certifies it for use on ISS crew rotation missions.
https://spacenews.com/first-crewed-starliner-mission-on-track-for-april/


STARLINER CREW FLIGHT TEST SLIPS AGAIN, NOW JULY AT THE EARLIEST
By Marcia Smith | Posted: March 29, 2023 9:55 pm ET | Last Updated: March 29, 2023 9:57 pm ET

(https://spacepolicyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/OFT2-landing-ingalls-768x512.jpg)
Boeing Starliner OFT-2 landing at White Sands Space Harbor, NM, May 25, 2022. Photo credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The Crew Flight Test of Boeing’s commercial crew spacecraft, CST-100 Starliner, has slipped again by several months. NASA and Boeing said today the test flight carrying two NASA astronauts will take place no earlier than July 21 and even that date is contingent on deconflicting with a U.S. Space Force launch about the same time.

Boeing and SpaceX won contracts from NASA in 2014 to develop crew transportation systems to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station through Public-Private Partnerships. NASA wanted two contractors to provide redundancy and competition.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon was certified as meeting NASA’s requirements in 2020 and is now operational. Boeing suffered a series of setbacks starting in December 2019 when the first uncrewed Orbital Flight Test (OFT) experienced significant anomalies. The decision was made to redo the test. Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) ran into its own problems and did not successfully launch until May 2022. (...)

Steve Stich, the head of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and Mark Nappi, Boeing Vice President and Program Manager for Starliner, attributed the delay to a combination of final preparations taking longer than expected and finding a time to fit it into the busy schedule on the ISS and at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). (...)
https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/starliner-crew-flight-test-slips-again-now-july-at-the-earliest/

NASA, Boeing Target NET 21 July for Starliner Crew Flight Test (CFT) Launch
by Ben Evans March 30

(https://www.americaspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cftcrewvalidationtestoct22-1-1536x1024.jpg)
Pilot Suni Williams (left) and Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore participate in a crew validation test of their Boeing launch and entry suits in October 2022. Photo Credit: NASA

Teams from NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance (ULA) are tracking No Earlier Than (NET) 21 July for the launch of the long-awaited Crew Flight Test (CFT) of the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). Originally targeting liftoff atop a mighty ULA Atlas V booster from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., in the second half of April, the mission—crewed by Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Pilot Suni Williams—has slipped by almost 12 weeks to midsummer in response to issues pertaining to product certification, hardware/software testing and a busy ISS visiting vehicle manifest.
https://www.americaspace.com/2023/03/29/nasa-boeing-target-net-21-july-for-starliner-crew-flight-test-cft-launch/
Tytuł: Odp: Różne artykuły o CST-100 Starliner
Wiadomość wysłana przez: Orionid w Lipiec 27, 2023, 07:46
Boeing records more losses from Starliner delays
Jeff Foust July 26, 2023 [SN]

(https://i0.wp.com/spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/starliner-may2023.jpg?resize=1200%2C893&ssl=1)
Issues with parachutes and tape for wiring harnesses will delay the first crewed flight of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner beyond July. Credit: Boeing/John Grant

WASHINGTON — Boeing took another loss on its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew program as the first crewed flight of that vehicle remains in limbo.

In its fiscal second quarter financial results released July 26, the company said it took a $257 million loss on the Starliner program, citing the delay in the vehicle’s first flight with astronauts on board that Boeing and NASA announced June 1. That loss was the biggest single factor in a $527 million loss the company reported for its Defense, Space and Security business unit in the quarter.
https://spacenews.com/boeing-records-more-losses-from-starliner-delays/



Starliner “on track” for April crewed test flight
Jeff Foust November 21, 2023 [SN]

(https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/starliner-capsule.jpg)
The Boeing CST-100 Starliner crew capsule being prepared for the Crew Flight Test mission. Credit: Boeing/John Grant

WASHINGTON — NASA says the first crewed launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner vehicle remains on schedule for the middle of April as the company completes work to resolve the latest technical problems with the vehicle.

Speaking at a Nov. 20 meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee, Phil McAlister, director of the agency’s commercial space division, said preparations for the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission were on schedule for a launch as soon as April 14.
https://spacenews.com/starliner-on-track-for-april-crewed-test-flight/