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Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

arstechnica.com

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Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#51

Post by avmich »

remarkEon wrote: post #35
m4rtink wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "crew would fix it" argument is a very very bad one. Many spacecraft maneuvers need to be very precise in both pointing and direction. Something computers are very good at, humans less so. Also, the crew would first have to know something wrong is going on either based on activity happening that was not planned previously or unexpected data on flight instruments. But guess what is driving those instruments in a m…

Im not disagreeing with you, I suppose, but we did do this before with a lot less sophisticated systems and a lot more manual control. It stands to reason that, given proper training, a pilot of one of these spacecraft could identify a problem and switch to manual.

A good spacecraft would allow transportation of injured or incapacitated crew, so fully automatic landing is definitely desirable.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#52

Post by avmich »

jbay808 wrote: post #14
classicsnoot wrote: post #12

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?

> NASA has provided SpaceX with lots of expertise and assistance.

Can you provide a link about that? I'm aware about SpaceX-NASA cooperation in debugging SpaceX disasters and also financial assistance from NASA on various stages of SpaceX evolution, but would like to learn about substantial involvement of NASA into important technical design and development processes in SpaceX.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#53

Post by greglindahl »

avmich wrote: post #52
jbay808 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> NASA has provided SpaceX with lots of expertise and assistance. Can you provide a link about that? I'm aware about SpaceX-NASA cooperation in debugging SpaceX disasters and also financial assistance from NASA on various stages of SpaceX evolution, but would like to learn about substantial involvement of NASA into important technical design and development processes in SpaceX.

SpaceX's Merlin engine started with plans and the team that developed the NASA-funded FASTRAC engine -- so there it is on Day 1 of SpaceX's existence.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#54

Post by ken »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #40
trhway wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm going to order a copy of "The Mythical Man-Month" for Boeing too late. Boeing is already deep in Agile, a methodology which promises that a child can be delivered by the way of 9 incremental monthly deliveries. https://www.infosysconsultinginsights.com/2019/06/12/the-ris... "Boeing was an early Agile adopter in 2008 surpassing its rival, Airbus, in 2012 by deploying a newly renovated 737 Max 8 faster to market.…

The baby analogy is pithy, but I don’t really see the comparison. You don’t do your software development in increments smaller than a month? What does that mean, you spend two months just writing specs?

Having worked at Boeing, I can tell you their specs take way longer than two months to write. That's a good thing.

What's the point of delivering this type of software piecemeal? A new airliner takes 10 years or so to produce. There's no value in shipping half an airplane.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#55

Post by avmich »

greglindahl wrote: post #53
avmich wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NASA has provided SpaceX with lots of expertise and assistance. Can you provide a link about that? I'm aware about SpaceX-NASA cooperation in debugging SpaceX disasters and also financial assistance from NASA on various stages of SpaceX evolution, but would like to learn about substantial involvement of NASA into important technical design and development processes in SpaceX.

SpaceX's Merlin engine started with plans and the team that developed the NASA-funded FASTRAC engine -- so there it is on Day 1 of SpaceX's existence.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/...

"In a salient departure from traditional engine design, NASA and its business partners have adapted commercial, off-the-shelf technologies and common manufacturing methods to develop the Fastrac engine. Significant involvement by small business has aided in broadening the competition and producing lower cost hardware.

For example, Barber-Nichols, Inc. of Arvada, Colo., worked alongside Marshall engineers to design and manufacture the turbopump. The Colorado-based company is experienced in building turbomachinery for the automotive industry and chemical plants, and not traditionally associated with the aerospace industry. The company helped design a turbopump for the Fastrac engine that can be built easily using commercial manufacturing techniques."

Sounds like NASA itself took help from the industry then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)

"The SpaceX turbopump was an entirely new, clean sheet design contracted to Barber-Nichols, Inc. in 2002 who performed all design, engineering analysis, and construction; the company had previously worked on turbopumps for the RS-88 (Bantam) and NASA Fastrac engine programs."

Turbopump is often the most complex part of the engine; doing it from scratch raises doubts how much the engine was derived.

I don't think NASA helped to SpaceX that much before Falcon-1 reached the orbit.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#56

Post by m4rtink »

worik wrote: post #20
m4rtink wrote: post #11

""While this anomaly was corrected in flight, if it had gone uncorrected it would have led to erroneous thruster firing and uncontrolled motion during SM separation for deorbit, with the potential for catastrophic spacecraft failure," Hill said during the meeting." I guess some things just never get old, citing from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_5 : "The flight was also memorable for its dramatic re-entry. The…

Given commercial pressures would a Boeing reentry vehicle be over designed to such a extent that on such a failure (failure to separate, entering with the wrong attitude ?correct term?) result in "...the craft righted itself before the escape hatch was burned through"?

I would assume it would work the same as with the soyuz, provided that the service module separates/explodes before the capsule reentering the wrong way is irrecoverably damaged.

Basically, all space capsules have their of gravity placed in such a way that they will automatically orient themselves heat shield forward once they encounter the atmosphere. So once the service module is gone, it should flip into the correct orientation just by physics alone.

(BTW, this is the same reason why the Crew Dragon spacecraft keeps it's aft section "ring" attached during a launch escape, where it's super draco thrusters drag it to a safe distance from a failing launcher.

The aft ring prevents the capsule from trying to flip over during the abort. Then once in safe distance from the vapor & debris cloud that used to be the launcher, the aft section is jettisoned and the capsule again automatically re-orients itself heat shield forward.)

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#57

Post by m4rtink »

remarkEon wrote: post #35
m4rtink wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "crew would fix it" argument is a very very bad one. Many spacecraft maneuvers need to be very precise in both pointing and direction. Something computers are very good at, humans less so. Also, the crew would first have to know something wrong is going on either based on activity happening that was not planned previously or unexpected data on flight instruments. But guess what is driving those instruments in a m…

Im not disagreeing with you, I suppose, but we did do this before with a lot less sophisticated systems and a lot more manual control. It stands to reason that, given proper training, a pilot of one of these spacecraft could identify a problem and switch to manual.

Sure, but that's different from a simpler spacecraft that simply does not have such automated systems, affecting crew training accordingly.

Having one that has sophisticated automation which you need to constantly monitor in case it tries to kill you due to a simple programming error is not really comparable I'm afraid.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#58

Post by jshevek »

mdocherty wrote: post #13
classicsnoot wrote: post #12

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…

Which blog?

The author says elsewhere that he has (paraphrased) gotten in trouble with hacker news for linking to it in the past.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#59

Post by jshevek »

MiroF wrote: post #16
classicsnoot wrote: post #12

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?

It is important as a community that we are aware of the criteria, both claimed and actual, which guide the moderation of our community. Statements like this give people like me an opportunity to research and learn more about the decision making of the mods.

Re: Starliner faced “catastrophic” failure before software bug found

#60

Post by simonblack »

smoyer wrote: post #7

So we know there were catastrophic bugs in the 737 Max, they've found additional bugs that haven't been catastrophic yet and now we hear that the Starliner also has software bugs. I'm going to order a copy of "The Mythical Man-Month" for Boeing ... they need to get way back to the basics. (Where's Margaret Hamilton when you need here?

Every extra finance-guy in the team means an engineer gets squeezed out. Eventually, there aren't enough engineers to make the team effective. Eventually, there is a disaster because the finance-guys don't have the engineering smarts to recognise failure.
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