Boeing Starliner Orbital Demonstration Mission

[Yazata]

Starliner OFT-2 is scheduled to return tomorrow. Unlike Crew Dragon it won't be splashing down, but will instead be landing Soyuz-style in the desert at White Sands New Mexico. NASA will almost certainly be live-streaming the whole thing on NASA-live.

The information below is from William Harwood of CBS news. Times on left column are EDT. The middle columns are mission elapsed time.

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[Yazata]

Today is a  double header!

First, comes SpaceX Transporter-5 mission. This will send Falcon9 B1061 on its 8th flight. The highlight will be that it is a RTLS (return to launch site) mission in which the booster will land on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral. Always spectacular and eagerly awaited.

launch at 11:27 AM PDT/2:27 PM EDT

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/KHt3MyimuqU

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/dkBq1JP8qFo

Then comes the return to earth of Boeing Starliner OFT-2 (orbital flight test 2) in a Soyuz-style desert landing (cushioned by a giant air bag!) at White Sands New Mexico.

touchdown at 3:49 PM PDT/6:49 PM EDT

Watch Starliner here

https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

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Rosie the Rocketeer glad to be back on Earth. (I guess they returned her -- surely wouldn't have a mannequin consuming space on the station. And she's not one of those ___ dolls.)

[Yazata]

Announcement today that the Boeing Starliner Crew Test Flight has been pushed back to April 2023. Reason given was to deconflict with other spacecraft visiting the International Space Station. Too many capsules, not enough docking ports.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1...9181520896

Bob and Doug set off on their excellent adventure May 30, 2020! Boeing's Starliner won't fly humans until almost three years later!

And to think that everyone, including me, once expected Boeing's Starliner to make a crewed flight to orbit before SpaceX's Crew Dragon. Because Boeing had a significantly larger contract, and because, well, they were Boeing! with all that aerospace experience!

[Yazata]

Announcement today that several problems have been discovered with the Boeing Starliner, so the crewed test flight is being pushed back (again) indefinitely.

There's a problem with the parachutes and the wrapping for some of the electrical cables has proven to be flammable. There's speculation whether they will have to disassemble the capsule to get at the wiring.

So it doesn't look like they will be flying humans in it this summer, as hoped.

https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-n...definitely

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/bo...-problems/

Remember that when Starliner and Crew Dragon were both in development, we all (including me) assumed that Starliner would beat Crew Dragon to space. (They were Boeing!) It was the science-fiction nuts vs the experienced aerospace professionals.

But Bob and Doug's excellent adventure was May 30, 2020. Starliner still hasn't flown crew. While Crew Dragon has already flown 38 astronauts to and from orbit in the last three years, all successfully.

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Another (follow-up) piece at ars technica, the next day.
- - - - - -

To keep Starliner flying, Boeing must make some hard choices
https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/06/to...d-choices/

EXCERPT: . . . Boeing for a long time "nickel-and-dimed" the time engineers spent working on Starliner. This was partly due to congressional underfunding of the commercial crew program but also because Boeing did not want to put skin in the game.

This has been a poor decision in retrospect because, due to the fixed-price nature of its contract with NASA, Boeing is largely responsible for cost overruns and losses due to ongoing delays. The company now essentially has three options, none of which is particularly appealing.

Three options

The first option would be for the company to stick to its present course, spending internal funding on Starliner to complete a test flight with NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, and become certified for NASA missions. [...] One problem with this approach is that, even if Starliner achieves certification, NASA has front-loaded a lot of the $4.2 billion contract Boeing received for Starliner's final development and six operational flights. This means that once Starliner starts flying crew to the space station, Boeing is likely to continue losing money on an annual basis because NASA has previously distributed milestone payments to the company.

A second option is for Boeing to pull the plug on Starliner. When asked if Boeing management had discussed this, Nappi said, "No, not serious discussions about that." Ending the program would stanch the funding losses, but it would come with a steep price. By ending its participation in commercial crew, Boeing would be admitting defeat to SpaceX and its Crew Dragon spacecraft. This likely would mark the beginning of the end of Boeing as a major contractor in human spaceflight. The company might also have to pay back some of the money it has already received from NASA for commercial crew work.

The final option for Boeing is to double down on its investment in Starliner. It could put the kinds of resources into the program it should have five to 10 years ago and produce a safe, robust vehicle. Moreover, it must invest now to ensure Starliner has a future beyond six operational missions for NASA. For this, Boeing needs to build more crew capsules—there are just two human-rated Starliners—and find an alternative launch vehicle once the Atlas V rocket retires. (MORE - missing details)

[Yazata]

You've heard it all before, but Starliner's crewed test flight is now aiming at flying this April 22, according to Stephen Clark at Ars Technica.

Though Eric Berger (also of Ars Technica) says that he's heard that it's already slipped to April 26.

Come on Boeing! I'm all out of Schadenfreude at your expense. SpaceX's Dragon has already beaten you by enough. I just want to see Starliner succeed!

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/ma...is-spring/

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[Yazata]

Starliner press conference on Friday March 22.

The big news is that the first crewed flight is on for May 1, 2024. That date was determined by parking at the space station. Too many capsules, not enough docking ports. (The Russian docking ports aren't compatible with US capsules.) The CRS-30 cargo capsule will undock the end of April. The Crew 8 Dragon will reposition to the Zenith port of the Harmony module to open up a port.

Boeing says the parachute and tape issues are taken care of. Commercial Crew says there are only a few items to close out before Starliner gets its crew rating. NASA still emphasizes the importance of dissimilar redundancy.

NASA's final preflight review will be around the end of April. If the crewed test flight goes well (I expect it will) then Starliner-1, the first operational Starliner crew rotation flight to the ISS will be in December.

Boeing says they will consider private astronaut missions later in the decade, but are concentrating on fulfilling their NASA contract right now.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-and-boeing-pr...ht-in-may/