Just a reminder that Monday May 6 at 10:34 PM Eastern, the Starliner Crew Flight Test, CFT, is scheduled. All information we can get suggests things are moving smoothly toward that test.
The last major review was held last Thursday, April 25, and the mission passed the review.
“I can say with confidence that the teams have absolutely done their due diligence,” said NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free. “There’s still a little bit of closeout work to do, but we are on track for a launch.”
That remaining work is what Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, described as “a couple standard things” for pre-launch preparations. They include replacing a valve in a liquid oxygen replenishment system at SLC-41 and performing additional analysis on a part of the parachute system that releases a cover called the forward heat shield so that the drogue and main parachutes can deploy. That additional analysis is being done “out of an abundance of caution,” he said.
A major milestone that had to happen was that Cargo Dragon CRS-30 had to undock from the ISS to return to Earth. That was originally scheduled for Friday but delayed due to weather in the areas SpaceX recovers them. Word today is that the undocking occurred Sunday. In typical ISS traffic juggling, members of the Crew-8 mission would then board their Crew Dragon spacecraft and move it from the forward port to the zenith port on the Harmony module. That movement is to free up the forward port for Starliner, which is only approved for docking to that port.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle being installed on its Atlas 5 rocket for the Crew Flight Test mission. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will be the crew in the Starliner, and they project a good combination of not expecting everything to go flawlessly, but seeing their role as to see just how far they can push to the edges of the envelope. At one of the interviews along the way, Butch Wilmore was quoted as saying, “It’s a test pilot’s dream, if you will, everything that we’re doing from start to finish.”
I do hope that Boeing got everything or everything important correct finally. It would be very bad for the US space program to lose any astronauts at this time.
ReplyDeleteYou know, in comparing the two, Dragon and Starliner, Dragon looks futuristic and sleek, something designed well both to fly and to appeal to the eye (which, come to think of it, holds true in aerodynamics) while Starliner looks like it is covered in styrofoam that birds have been pecking at. Close up look at Starliner just doesn't inspire me.
Yea, and a close up view shows the thing is filthy. The Apollo 10 command module was named Charlie Brown, this Starliner should be named after Charlie’s friend, Pig Pen.
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I wonder if Boeing did the Shake-Rattle-Roll thingy to get all the loose ash and trash out of that thing. Would be pretty horrible to find loose garbage in flight.
DeleteSeems such a waste of resources running what is essentially an upgraded Apollo redux. When what is needed is a fast turnaround people shuttle system.
ReplyDeleteConstruct a purpose design fresh water runway, no need for complexity of landing gear and its useless mass you got to pay to go up every launch. Instead your re-entry heat abatement design does double duty by being the amphibious landing system, a boat in simple terms. No moving parts no complex heat shield weak points where the landing gear doors intersect, far less weight. And a smooth care free basically runway with the fresh water landing strip.
Where. has all the common sense design and engineering gone?
I mean seriously in the not too far future if space occupation and manufacturing are to be viable enterprises gonna need to ship humans in large numbers up and down in earths gravity well. You have to have a reliable working shuttle system. Already there is SpaceX's proven reusable launch system that they are getting 20 plus launches out of, it looks like its simple pie sticking a shuttle on top of the main booster, do something really unique with the second stage where it is reused at least in orbit, instead of throwing it away. No way around it.
Question begs, is this vehicle supposed to ultimately be the point of this whole what looks like just another boondoggle and corporate welfare from Not A Space Agency? Who is running this thing, because it really sucks when held up in the light of SpaceX's systems.
Off the top of my head, I think the story goes back about 15 years. Someone at NASA had the idea to get out of the "how to get there" business and into the "what we do when we're there" side. They started the process of requesting bids for capsules just to support the space station. Bring cargo and people up and bring people back. As long as they flew their Cygnus cargo ships, Northrop Grumman burned them up on reentry. SpaceX saw the wisdom in reusability.
DeleteThe wild card is these were bid as fixed price jobs. They only get paid what they bid. There are those that said if Boeing hadn't joined in the bidding, NASA (or congress) would have cancelled the program. Nobody believed the startup - who even bid less than them - would beat the established Giant. "Those nobodies are going to do it faster, better, cheaper than Boeing? Not a chance." Boeing has lost over $1 billion on this.
There are still congress critters saying NASA should never buy on fixed price, only on cost plus. I'm sure it has nothing to do with those critters getting kickbacks from Boeing or ULA.
In defense of capsules, the next-gen Apollo flight capsules that would have been made after the 20th Apollo capsule were designed to be 75-90% reusable, only replacing heat shields and 'disposable' items like air scrubbers and air tanks and stuff like that. And a 'permanent' heat shield was in the works, which became the basis for the Shuttle's tiles.
DeleteAnd capsules are far easier to design, maximize volume over surface area, easier to make, easier to fly, require less delicate handling and far less moving parts.
They are basically self-steering and easy to transition from space to air.
Another benefit is the docking collar is usually on the far end of the cockpit from the heat shield, so there's no reason to have a movable panel in one's heat shield.
Capsules will always be a viable option.
Space planes are, in comparison, difficult beasties, with weird surfaces, moving external parts like flaps and such, need actuators and other thingies that suck up internal room, have a much more difficult flight profile for reentry than capsules.
And docking collars are an issue. Side collars, like on the shuttle, require some weird tiles and moving parts that can handle stress of reentry. Back collars, like on the Dreamchaser, require a trunk or extension that sticks out the back of the ship, which can be removable, but then you have all that non-returnable space, or if not removable, is a wicked pissa to handle reentry issues.
Space planes are sexy, but are not as practical.
You can steer a capsule in reentry as easily as you can steer a space plane. You can design capsules to land on land as easy or easier than a space plane. Space planes cannot handle water landings (so far) but capsules can, if designed for it.
Fingers crossed!!!
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