Astronauts weirdly stuck on space station indefinitely (guests who can't leave)

[C C]

I guess the ultimate humiliation for Boeing would be if a SpaceX Dragon has to be sent up to return the two home. Presumably the suspect Starliner is automated enough that it could still reenter the atmosphere normally without a crew, rather than burn-up after disengagement from ISS.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog...r-BB1qCOj8
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog...r-BB1qCBGz

EXCERPTS: The astronauts stranded on the International Space Station are still not able to come home, NASA has said.

Two astronauts went to the space station almost 50 days ago as part of a test of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. But the spacecraft was plagued by problems both before and after the launch – and since then engineers have delayed the return until they can understand what went wrong.

[...] NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are stuck in space indefinitely as their return aboard Boeing's troubled Starliner capsule has been delayed due to technical glitches.

The astronauts, who were meant to spend about a week at the International Space Station and come back to Earth in mid-June, are now waiting for engineers to resolve thruster failures and helium leaks that have plagued the spacecraft.

"We'll come home when we're ready," NASA's commercial crew program manager Steve Stich stated, without committing to a specific return date. He emphasized the priority is to ensure a safe journey back for Wilmore and Williams aboard the Starliner.

Stich admitted that alternative plans are being considered if the issues can't be fixed promptly.

[Yazata]

I think that Starliner's cursed.

Maybe Boeing couldn't find a virgin to sacrifice and offered up a dirty sock instead. It has to have been something like that...

[C C]

Clearly, this doesn't restore any confidence that it's not a "lost in space" situation: ‘Not stranded in space’: how Nasa lost control of Boeing Starliner narrative
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NASA may send Starliner home without its crew — leaving astronauts stuck in space until 2025
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-...thout-crew

INTRO: The stranded Boeing Starliner spacecraft is now delaying SpaceX's planned Crew-9 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) — and NASA is considering scrapping the spacecraft's crewed return flight to Earth as more details about Starliner's malfunctions come to light.

The delay, which moves the launch of the Crew-9 mission from Aug. 18 to no earlier than Sept. 24, "allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency's Boeing Crew Flight Test," NASA wrote in a blog update on Tuesday (Aug. 6).

The update has arrived at a fraught time for NASA and Boeing. The Crew-9 members, who are scheduled to replace the current Crew-8 aboard the ISS, cannot arrive at the station until a free docking port opens up. The preferred Harmony module is currently being occupied by the Starliner spacecraft, which has been stuck on the ISS since June.

There is still no return date for Boeing's spacecraft or its astronauts, who have now been on the ISS for months longer than anticipated. Engineers at NASA are now debating whether they should send Starliner to Earth uncrewed and take the astronauts home aboard a SpaceX vehicle in early 2025.

"I would say that our chances of an uncrewed Starliner return have increased a little bit based on where things have gone over the last week or two, and that's why we're looking more closely at that option" Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, said at a news conference Wednesday (August 7). "But again, new data coming in, new analysis, different discussion — we could find ourselves shift in another way." (MORE - details)

[Yazata]

Today NASA was supposed to have a big press conference about Starliner and our two astronauts marooned in space. But it turned out to be underwhelming.

They still have no decision whether to try to bring Butch and Suni back on Starliner or whether to send up the next crew-rotation Dragon flight with only two astros and two empty seats (plus two SpaceX space suits that have already been manufactured to their physical measurements). The idea then would be to extend Butch and Suni's mission another six months and use them as ISS crew, replacing the two missing astronauts in that role, then have them return in that mission's Crew Dragon.

Big hassle, and a huge humiliation for Boeing if that happens.

NASA said that they do have a contingency plan to return Butch and Suni if the Starliner is undocked with nobody aboard, but then the next crew rotation Dragon can't arrive for some reason. In that very unlikely scenario, Butch and Suni could catch a ride back to Earth on the Crew Dragon already at the station, as its fifth and sixth passengers. They would have to ride without space suits or acceleration couches, on pads in the cargo area under the seats, but it can be done. (Dragon was originally designed to carry seven, but NASA didn't like the tight seating arrangement.)

NASA says that they won't have a decision on a path forward for another couple of weeks.

So, what is the problem with Starliner? Bad thrusters apparently. Specifically bad valve seals that degrade under space thermal conditions and leak. NASA thinks that they have identified the problem and are performing tests at White Sands NM to better understand it. The big difficulty is that they don't know how bad it is on the Starliner at the ISS without being able to disassemble it and inspect the seals first hand.

Eric Berger says that he hears from his sources that opinion inside NASA is starting lean towards the Dragon rescue plan. But they are a long way from officially making that decision.

X has some very interesting remarks today from Jordan Noone (that's really his name), one of the founders of Relativity Space. He says:

"The vehicle was designed for the wrong duty cycle resulting in incorrect thermal analysis.

It’s fairly unprecented to have such a critical component on a already crewed flight vehicle, that has completely incorrect analysis, resulting in significant thermal design violations.

The temperature bounds for these seals is very known. What is unknown is how much those bounds can be violated further if at all, on a vehicle in orbit where the current state and degradation can’t be inspected, with significant temperature violations prior in the mission, while still guaranteeing sufficient performance/reliability to carry crew."

https://x.com/theJordanNoone/status/1823408375511834859

"Additional comments on how Boeing's Starliner got in this predicament.

Clearly a breakdown between Boeing in-house and external engineering teams where the thrusters were provided the wrong design criteria. The thrusters, and their troublesome valve seals, were tested and designed "correctly", but for the wrong conditions.

Most likely traces back to the reported breakdown in communication between Boeing and their component vendors. Boeing didn't want to pay vendors for design changes.

Curious if the root is someone at Boeing accidentally not relaying vehicle updates to vendors, or if it was a conscious decision to avoid paying for change requests."

https://x.com/theJordanNoone/status/1823421499686183220

But shouldn't pre-flight testing have caught the valve seals that had been properly designed for the wrong thermal conditions? ...

"The original testing was clearly done with the wrong scope. They 100% should have been fully tested. AFAIK the campaign was thoroughly done but the vehicle's requirements were relayed to the design/test team incorrectly."

https://x.com/theJordanNoone/status/1823486811492302870

So assuming this is true, it sounds like the subcontractor was provided the wrong specifications and then dutifully designed the valve seals to those incorrect specs. Then the test team was provided the wrong test conditions and they dutifully tested the out-of-spec valves to those incorrect conditions. That really makes it sound like a potentially fatal screw-up at Boeing's end.

If this is true, it's a lot worse than I imagined.

[Yazata]

Here's Ars Technica's take on it:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/na...ion-issues

The problem apparently is that the thrusters have some teflon valve seals. These apparently can swell up in certain thermal conditions. When the Starliner was maneuvering to dock with the space station, it was rapidly cycling its thrusters in many short bursts. So the thrusters got hot, the seals swelled, and propellant supply to the thrusters was choked off, causing five of the thrusters to stop working.

After the Starliner was docked to the station, NASA performed additional tests of the thrusters and apparently they are working again after they had a chance to cool. But NASA remains concerned that the thrusters might choke again when they are trying to position Starliner for its deorbit burn.

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Russian pensioners urge Vladimir Putin to rescue Starliner astronauts
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/bo...da-squads/

INTRO: One of the odder propaganda phenomena in Russia, of late, is seemingly spontaneous groups of elderly Russian pensioners gathering outdoors and espousing some random bit of agitprop.

From a Western perspective, these are obviously staged and hilarious to behold. For example, last year a very earnest-looking group of elderly women and a few men urged Russia to "take back Alaska" in an attempt to preserve the United States from fascism. One of the women in the video also advocated for a military alliance with Mexico, saying, "In order to effectively fight fascism, we must establish military relations with Mexico to prevent the fascism from spreading further. We must form a military alliance with Mexico."

There are entire Telegram channels devoted to these "Putin's squads" videos, and you can find them on YouTube as well. It is not clear whether these "man on the street" videos are having any impact on Russian opinion, but evidently someone in the Kremlin believes they are helping to shape domestic opinions.

They would probably be invisible to audiences outside Russia, except that a former member of the Ukrainian Parliament, and adviser to the government, named Anton Gerashchenko has been sharing these videos on his X and Telegram social media accounts with translations. His intent is to highlight the ridiculous lengths to which Russian propagandists will go... (MORE - missing details)

[Yazata]

NASA will hold an internal flight-readiness review for Starliner's return on Saturday morning August 24.

Then a press conference is scheduled for 12:00 PM CDT from Houston to discuss whatever it is that they decide to do.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/boeing-crew-fligh...rn-review/

[Yazata]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/leader...light-test

Eric Berger's bottom line take on it:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/as...t-we-dont/

[C C]

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/leader...light-test

Eric Berger's bottom line take on it:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/as...t-we-dont/

I don't see how NASA could take the risk of them returning on Starliner. And as humiliating as the other option is, it's hard to see how Boeing would want to gamble, either.

But strange decisions happen...

[Yazata]

NASA's decision is in!

Butch and Suni will spend six more months on the space station and then return on the Crew-9 Dragon. Starliner will detach from the station in early September and return to Earth uncrewed.

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-d...hout-crew/

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Eric Berger tells the backstory in his new book Reentry which comes out next month (I have a copy preordered).

Read Steve Jurvetson's account of Eric's story here

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/1827425468175245748

Lots of information nuggets. Boeing pressuring NASA to be the sole Commercial Crew contractor and get the entire Commercial Crew budget. Many of the NASA management suits agreed, believing only Boeing was qualified to build crew vehicles. (SpaceX was perceived as an untested upstart at the time.) Boeing had 200 people writing their proposal, SpaceX's proposal writers could fit around a conference table.

Bill Gerstenmeier ultimately decides to give SpaceX a contract too, but Boeing gets twice as much money.

The NASA astronauts found that they much preferred SpaceX whose engineers listened to their input and tried to incorporate astronauts' suggestions in their designs. The Boeing engineers thought they knew better. Doug Hurley (of 'Bob and Doug's excellent adventure' fame) is quoted by Berger as saying "There was an arrogance with them that you certainly didn't see at SpaceX."

Hurley is quoted as saying that he felt no sense of urgency from Boeing. They seemed to be working on Starliner part-time. Everything was about dollars and cents.

Hurley ultimately told the NASA astronaut office that he refused to fly on Starliner and was assigned to the first manned flight of Crew Dragon (which went perfectly).

Berger says Suni Williams, currently marooned on the space station awaiting rescue by SpaceX, also wanted to fly Dragon instead of Starliner, but was the good-soldier and accepted the assignment she was given.