A Rule of Thumb (ROT) for life might well be that if someone has to remind you of an anniversary it's for their benefit, not yours. You just don't care that much about it.
Thursday the 5th was the one year anniversary of the launch of the Starliner Crewed Flight Test - The Adventures of Butch and Suni - an 8 day mission that turned into almost 9 months. Liftoff was at 10:52 AM Local Time.
But today's a Starliner anniversary, too. A year ago today, the Starliner docked with the ISS.
The interesting thing that brings this to memory was that Spaceflight Now ran a story today saying that Starliner is behind schedule again.
A year later, the future of the Starliner program remains uncertain as NASA announced late Friday that the next flight of the spacecraft was being delayed from no earlier than late 2025 to now early 2026 at the soonest.
The agency said the timing of the next launch is “pending system certification and resolution of Starliner’s technical issues.” Repeating what it said back in a March 27 press release, NASA said it was still determining whether or not the next flight of Starliner would carry astronauts onboard.
It probably doesn't come as a surprise that Suni Williams from that first crewed flight believes the next flight should be uncrewed, saying it would be “the logical thing to do.”
“I think that’s the correct path,” Williams told Reuters, adding that she hoped “Boeing and NASA will decide on that same course of action.”
You might find her crewmate Butch Wilson's response interesting, too.
Asked during a Crew-9 post-mission press conference if he would ride on Starliner again, Wilmore said, “Yes.”
“Because we’re going to rectify all of these issues that we encountered. We’re gonna fix ‘em. We’re gonna make it work,” Wilmore said. “Boeing’s completely committed, NASA’s completely committed and with that, I’d get on in a heartbeat.”
The takeaway I got from the Spaceflight Now article is that nothing has really been decided. The article goes over a lot of options for a potential crew and their mission. Many names get mentioned and more than a few of them were familiar. That said, none of the questions touched on here - such as crewed or uncrewed, later this year or next year - get resolved. The real story here is that uncertainty, to my way of thinking of it. Starliner doesn't sound the least bit better suited for a repeat of last year's planned short mission than it did in March.
Starliner docked to the ISS during June 2024's flight. Image credit: NASA
And then there's the unsaid issue. Currently, no matter how well rebuilt and ready Starliner is, there is no non-SpaceX way to lift said Starliner. Neither Blue Origin nor ULA (who is relying on engines from Blue Origin) look to have a flight ready rocket within the next year.
ReplyDeleteEven if suddenly BO starts popping out BE4 engines in a SpaceX fashion there are no open launch carriers. None. There's a huge backlog of launches scheduled and rescheduled for New Glen and Vulcan. There's no room in the schedule to fit in Starliner. There's no room in the schedule for Sierra Space's Dream Chaser to launch. There's no room in the schedule for BO's lunar lander. There's no room for anything.
It's so bad that companies are switching to SpaceX. It's so bad that I think Blue Origin is probably going to start using SpaceX to start launching their internet satellite constellations.
That's the hidden issue. There is no other way, right now and probably not for another year or so, to go to space than SpaceX. New Glenn still has to launch another certification flight. So does Vulcan. And that isn't happening anytime soon.
All of this. Without touching the horrid reputation that Starliner has, nothing's happening anyways.
Right now, at this moment, the only way the US is returning to the Moon or space is aboard variations of Falcon 9. None.
Not even Starship. The whole of Block 2 Starships has been a very expensive series of high-altitude fireworks. All of them have had serious issues that aren't getting corrected fast enough.
Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy. That's it.
Too bad the Ares program died. The tech and manufacturing behind the solid fuel boosters is pretty much fool-proof. Ares1, the solid booster to orbit launcher, would be a relatively easy way to launch Starliner, Dream Chaser and Orion. And could have been turned into a commercial launch vehicle. But that was killed off after being demonstrated with no problems.
Personally, I've been wondering if there was a major player in SpaceX engineering who left. Starship and SuperHeavy had been developing rather smoothly, a bit better every launch, until this last bunch. And the explanation this last time, a pressurized fuel leak? I thought that kind of problem was long gone.
DeleteWas it Tom Mueller, "Father of the Merlin engines" who went to Impulse Space? I just don't know. I just spent five minutes searching for that story.
Anyway, Starliner has its ride, it's listed in the NextSpaceflight ULA page at
https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/4750. Beyond that, I have no idea. It almost looks like the ISS will be decommissioned before Starliner will be worthwhile.
I dunno about Ares. What would have happened had an Ares rocket suffered a first stage malfunction of the SRB like what happened on that Vulcan launch? It'd have to have one heck of an escape system, given that unlike liquid fueled rocket stages, you can't shut off an SRB.
DeleteYou can, however, "zip" an SSRB. And Range Safety had forced them to make the zip go all the way through the nozzle, not just the booster casing as it had been for Shuttle.
DeleteThe tech and manufacturing and safety behind the Ares1 launcher was nigh perfect. After all it was based on the Shuttle SRBs which had perfect records after they fixed the o-ring issues (still boggles my mind that someones built a booster with an o-ring that couldn't handle below 45F temperatures, because it never got cold at the Cape or at Vandenberg (the other launch site that was abandoned partially due to a major contractor scandal involving screwing up wiring so bad they'd have to basically pull the whole launch pad and tower down and start again.)
DeleteAnd why not? After all, the Shuttle SRBs were (if you have read my rants, you know what's coming...) based on SRBs designed for post-Moon Saturn applications. No, really, stop laughing and assuming I've been huffing aerosolized polonium. Shuttle SRBs are the same diameter, the same nozzle section, the same stackable solid sections but with a cheaper!!! adaptor ring between sections.
The Vulcan SRBs were extended length SRBs from the Atlas V program, which also have (the Atlas V version being the GEM 63 and the Vulcan version being the GEM 63XL) an excellent record so I have no idea why there were issues with the 63XL.
Basically, the tech (again, once the adaptor and o-ring issue was solved) behind the SRBs being used on ARES1 or the SLS (which uses... two ARES1 size boosters) or the Shuttle was one of the better products out there with an outstanding safety and operation record.
So, yeah, the SRBs for an ARES1 style launch is a totally doable thing. As to what to do if there's an issue with the booster on a crewed flight, that's what the escape rocket system is designed for. ARES1 launched the first Orion capsule, service module and escape rocket tower. And then was poop-canned by some dumbo-eared hopeandchange jackwagon.
Beans' comment is a moment of clarity. SpaceX / Falcon is the world's launch provider.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Ares Program (solid rockets), Alliant Techsystems (ATK) / Northrop Grumman and Aerojet Rocketdyne / L3 Harris make solid fuel rockets. It is managerial incompetence they do not simply begin launches.
SiG's reply to Beans above and questioning "if there was a major player in SpaceX engineering who left" is hugely significant. Who? Where did they go and why? How do you identify and retain technical talent? What if it is Musk who has crashed out?
They didn't try for several reasons. First, ULA had a solid lock on all US space launches at that time. ATK would have had to do a lot to certify the system for NASA/DOD (because launching an Orion capsule wasn't good enough) and they'd have to do some serious ground hardware preparation, which they didn't want to fund. They wanted to be a supplier of launch vehicle parts, not a launch supplier.
DeleteTotally dumb move on their part. Totally.
Dumbasses....
A three hour tour . . . a three hour tour . . .
ReplyDelete