Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative




 
More problems on Boeing Starliner. At this point, I am wondering why Boeing hasn't called a company wide all-hands meeting to discuss work quality.

Spacex Starship covered during first 7 minutes of video. Starliner info starts around 7:07 mark.
 
Who the heck is writing Boeing’s software these days, and how did they not pick these bugs up?
 

The First Crewed SpaceX Flight Could Happen In May - Slashdot

Ars Technica's Eric Berger said on Twitter that the SpaceX Crew Dragon could take off on May 7th. "Though, due to 'a number of variables not hardware related' the launch could happen in late April or later in May," reports Engadget, adding: "We don't know yet how long the flight will be." From...
science.slashdot.org
 
Just spotted a retweet of the Orlando Sentinel's space guy @ChabeliH : "Members of @NASA's safety advisory panel said @BoeingSpace didn't perform key test (testing the full mission integrated w/ Atlas V in a System Integration Lab) that could have caught problems w/ Starliner. "That was somewhat surprising to us on the panel." "

The link to their story is below, but I can't get in to read it as it's pulling the "Oh, you're in the EU (nope) and protected by GDPR (yup), oh, the horror" farce:

Boeing didn’t perform full end-to-end test of its astronaut capsule before troubled mission, ‘surprising’ NASA safety panel

A panel learned early this month that Boeing did not perform a full, end-to-end integrated test of Starliner in a Systems Integration Lab with ULA’s Atlas V rocket. It’s the kind of test that could have caught the issues Boeing later experienced in the mission.
t.co
 

NASA update on Starliner flight test review

Washington DC (SPX) Mar 09, 2020 - The joint NASA and Boeing Independent Review Team formed following the anomalies during the company's uncrewed Orbital Flight Test as a part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program has completed its
www.spacedaily.com
 
fredymac said:
Boeing Starliner must make 2nd uncrewed demo.

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.
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https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/...g-will-refly-crew-capsule-without-astronauts/
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They're spinning it as a voluntary decision by Boeing. I suspect it was more "jump before we push you."
 

Crew Demo-2 Mission

SpaceX and NASA are targeting May 27 for Falcon 9’s launch of Crew Dragon’s second demonstration mission (Demo-2) from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley
www.spacex.com
 
 
Very curious. He resigns due to Artemis program pace but there doesn't seem to be any specific action he took where he says he made a mistake. Considering the program is at the very earliest stage, it isn't clear what kind of "risk" he could have taken. The only thing going on was the decision on how the lunar gateway station would be configured.



NASA’s chief of human spaceflight resigns on cusp of critical crew launch
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/05/...ight-resigns-on-cusp-of-critical-crew-launch/

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Loverro said in an interview his resignation had “nothing to do” with the Crew Dragon flight scheduled for next week.

“It had to do with moving fast on Artemis, and I don’t want to characterize it in any more detail than that,” Loverro told the Washington Post.........

.......
“The risks we take, whether technical, political, or personal, all have potential consequences if we judge them incorrectly,” he wrote. “I took such a risk earlier in the year because I judged it necessary to fulfill our mission.

“Now, over the balance of time, it is clear that I made a mistake in that choice for which I alone must bear the consequences,” Loverro wrote. “And therefore, it is with a very, very heavy heart that I write to you today to let you know that I have resigned from NASA effective May 18th, 2020.”...........

.......
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Soure said that the second flight of Starliner without a crew to the ISS is expected in mid-November 2020, and the first flight with a crew - in April 2021
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Источник сообщил, когда Starliner полетит к МКС

Американский корабль Starliner отправится в повторный полет без экипажа на Международную космическую станцию в середине ноября 2020 года, его первый полет с... РИА Новости, 31.05.2020
ria.ru
 
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Our #Starliner parachutes and team performed with flying colors during a recent test. They showed that even under dynamic abort conditions and a simulated failure - astronauts would be safe.

More: http://www.boeing.com/features/2020/06/starliner-parachutes-perform-under-pressure.page
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Starliner Parachutes Perform Under Pressure
Boeing’s spacecraft completes another reliability test; shares data
June 29, 2020 in Space

Boeing put Starliner’s parachutes to the test again on June 21 as part of a supplemental reliability campaign designed to further validate the system’s capabilities under an adverse set of environmental factors.

Boeing is developing the Starliner spacecraft to take astronauts to and from the International Space Station in partnership with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.

This latest balloon drop, conducted high above White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, demonstrates Starliner’s parachutes continue to perform well even under dynamic abort conditions and a simulated failure. Boeing and NASA jointly developed the conditions for this test as part of a comprehensive test campaign to demonstrate Starliner parachute performance across the range of deployment conditions.

Teams wanted to be sure that if an abort were to occur early into launch, certain parachutes in Starliner’s landing sequence would inflate correctly despite needing to deploy in significantly different flight conditions than those seen with normal landings.

“Parachutes like clean air flow,” said Jim Harder, Boeing’s flight conductor. “They inflate predictably under a wide range of conditions, but in certain ascent aborts, you are deploying these parachutes into more unsteady air where proper inflation becomes less predictable. We wanted to test the inflation characteristics at low dynamic pressure so we can be completely confident in the system we developed.”

This critical test phase began six seconds into the drop when small parachutes designed to lift away Starliner’s Forward Heat Shield deployed successfully. Ten seconds later, the vehicle’s two drogue parachutes followed suit, inflating perfectly despite the low dynamic pressure. But the Starliner boilerplate wasn’t out of the woods yet.

Test teams added a fault scenario to the test objectives by preventing one of Starliner’s three main parachutes from deploying altogether. At 98 seconds into flight, just two pilot chutes were fired resulting in only two of the three main parachutes deploying. Despite the higher loading, Starliner’s parachutes performed effectively, bringing the test article down to Earth safely and slowly about two-and-a-half minutes later.

The data extracted from this test will be utilized to improve the reliability of the Starliner parachute system ahead of crewed flights and be shared with NASA for their own vehicle use.

“Our parachute system is very similar to the design NASA uses to bring humans safely back from the Moon. Turns out, we can use some of their test data to model our mission scenarios, and they can use a lot of our data to model theirs,” said Starliner test manager Dan Niedermaier. “It really is all about the data. The more you have, the more accurate your models will be. This shared approach helps to keep both systems incredibly safe.”

During the summer, Boeing and NASA will continue to test Starliner’s parachute strength, building out even more reliability on a system that’s already shown to be consistently robust.

“Our parachutes have passed every test.” Niedermaier said. “We continue to push our system because we know what’s at stake. This demanding test program ensures Starliner can bring our astronauts home safe.”

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is a public-private partnership combining NASA’s experience with new technology and designs pioneered by private industry to make space travel safer and available for all. This test is one of many steps that advances NASA’s goals of returning human spaceflight launches to U.S. soil on commercially-built and operated American rockets and spacecraft, preparing for a human presence on the Moon, and ultimately sending astronauts to Mars.
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Certainly seems like Boeing’s Starliner has a lot of issues to fix.

NASA and Boeing Complete Orbital Flight Test Reviews

NASA and Boeing have completed major reviews of the company’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test in December 2019 and are continuing with preparations to refly the test, designated Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2), to the International Space Station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
www.nasa.gov
 
The good news is that it was systemic... And the system has changed (new management).
 
TomcatViP said:
The good news is that it was systemic... And the system has changed (new management).
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You were saying!!!

From a NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel meeting:

View: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1286313196723343360


McErlean: panel continues to be concerned about quality control problems that have seemingly plagued the Boeing commercial crew program.
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Hearing there will be a delay in Starliner's upcoming OFT-2 launch date announced fairly soon, maybe later today. The current public date is March 25.
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Significant delay or fairly minor?
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I've heard both. I expect the initial delay, at least, to be short. Trying to get more details.
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View: https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1362089409743585284


View: https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1362089814493954048
 


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