21–30 of 64 posts
> According to the source, Boeing patched a software code error just two hours before the vehicle reentered Earth's atmosphere. Had the error not been caught, the source said, proper thrusters would not open during the reentry process, and the vehicle would have been lost. Uh, that's extremely concerning for a CREWED capsule.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can't always simulate every possible failure mode. Things fail on the ground that wouldn't be possible during normal operation and vice versa. This should be concerning, then: https://spaceflightnow.com/2019/11/04/boeing-starliner-pad-a... > “Boeing is not going to do an in-flight abort test,” said Jon Cowart, deputy manager of the mission management office for NASA’s commercial crew program, before the pad abo…
You'd think that after two air plane disasters, they'd tread carefully
This is a welcome development.
On a certain blog that is completely outside acceptable standards for wrongthink and political correctness, a very popular topic of late is why NASA seems to have it in for Elon Musk Personally and SpaceX generally. The commonly stated reasons, and I will be paraphrasing and transliterating freely, are: HR culture defining administration wide objectives and methods and reasoning, professional embarrassment over langu…
> On a certain blog that is completely outside acceptable standards for wrongthink and political correctness What does this statement really add besides political signaling?
> According to the source, Boeing patched a software code error just two hours before the vehicle reentered Earth's atmosphere. Had the error not been caught, the source said, proper thrusters would not open during the reentry process, and the vehicle would have been lost. Uh, that's extremely concerning for a CREWED capsule.
Doesn't that depend on the testing schedule? If the schedule called for simulations to be run in parallel with the live test, then it's an expected outcome. It should be _expected_ that every test will find a problem. Since this was uncrewed, there was no risk (other than to the uncompleted tests possibly requiring a second flight) to running them in parallel and porting across fixes for any problems that were found.…
This is editorializing but it looks like Boeing didn't uncover very complicated interactions - they failed at a more basic level of competency - timer synchronization for the launch issue and then a major software bug for an important orbital maneuver. Those sorts of issues really should be sorted out on the ground using hardware simulators. Furthermore, the timer synchronization failure prevented testing of the docking hardware, further delaying the overall program.
For a human rated vehicle, personally I think you should have at least one full-up, fully nominal test before you send anyone along for the ride.
"Given the potential for systemic issues at Boeing, I would also note that NASA has decided to proceed with an organizational safety assessment with Boeing as they previously conducted with SpaceX"
On a certain blog that is completely outside acceptable standards for wrongthink and political correctness, a very popular topic of late is why NASA seems to have it in for Elon Musk Personally and SpaceX generally. The commonly stated reasons, and I will be paraphrasing and transliterating freely, are: HR culture defining administration wide objectives and methods and reasoning, professional embarrassment over langu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't that depend on the testing schedule? If the schedule called for simulations to be run in parallel with the live test, then it's an expected outcome. It should be _expected_ that every test will find a problem. Since this was uncrewed, there was no risk (other than to the uncompleted tests possibly requiring a second flight) to running them in parallel and porting across fixes for any problems that were found.…
Boeing took the "we'll do very rigorous engineering up front and prove everything on paper" approach, where SpaceX took the "we'll prove it works by actually launching it" approach (which isn't to say SpaceX isn't operating with engineering rigor). In theory Boeing ran all their simulations over the past couple years, and this flight should have just been a formality. As it turns out, Boeing is running into a lot of…
> According to the source, Boeing patched a software code error just two hours before the vehicle reentered Earth's atmosphere. Had the error not been caught, the source said, proper thrusters would not open during the reentry process, and the vehicle would have been lost. Uh, that's extremely concerning for a CREWED capsule.
It depends on if the crew would have been able to control those thrusters themselves. Obviously you want the entire system to be autonomous enough that no crew interaction is required but things do happen and the crew needs to be able to act and fix the problem if capsule can't do it nor the ground. When the Starliner started a burn at the wrong time, a crew would have been able to stop it and prevent the loss of fue…
On a certain blog that is completely outside acceptable standards for wrongthink and political correctness, a very popular topic of late is why NASA seems to have it in for Elon Musk Personally and SpaceX generally. The commonly stated reasons, and I will be paraphrasing and transliterating freely, are: HR culture defining administration wide objectives and methods and reasoning, professional embarrassment over langu…
I'm confused by what you mean. NASA has provided SpaceX with lots of expertise and assistance. And you are aware that Starliner is a Boeing vehicle, not SpaceX?