Starliner Return Delayed to July

In reply to RX Reven' :

Oh, there definitely are concerns about undocking. I think that was called out as being the highest risk part of the return. I wouldn't launch Crew-9 until Starliner was on the ground. But that could be a 48 hour window, not three weeks. Starliner has been happily docked without concern for months now. 

I'm sure there are reasons. I just haven't heard what they are yet. And I don't think we have a drop date for the Boeing ship, it's no earlier than early Sept. which means it could be mid-Sept. 

Keith Tanner said:

It's odd that there is a 3 week lag between Starliner jettison and Crew-9 launch. That's the most dangerous time for the astronauts, as they'll be using the Crew-8 Dragon as a lifeboat if necessary and that involves riding down in shirtsleeves on a cargo pallet. Seems like you'd want to minimize that by hanging on to Starliner as long as possible. 

I think that depends on what happens with the patched software in autonomous mode.  Boeing made a bunch of software updates to the control system since the first uncrewed test flight and hasn't executed the full test plan for autonomous mode yet so they had to scramble to update stuff.  Worst case is that they undock starliner and it goes dead a few minutes later, leaving it and the station in very similar orbits that have the potential to collide in the near future.  Perhaps they want to have a time window in which to deal with that potential problem without the additional complication of a Crew Dragon in the picture?

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

Right, which is why you don't launch Crew-9 until Starliner is on the ground. But why schedule it so there's a nearly three week lag?

 I'm assuming they could always push back Crew-9 in that situation, but the Crew-8 Dragon is getting close to its 210 day rating in orbit and delaying Crew-9 would mean a delay in returning Crew-8. That makes sense. 

I'm realizing that Keith mentioned back in June that the space suits are not compatible between the Space X and Boeing vehicles but somehow I've only just become aware of that fact.   Jeebus.   I mean c'mon NASA, you couldn't write a spec for something that basic to astronaut safety?  US Astronauts can ride in a Soyuz spacecraft, a US Navy DSRV can connect to Russian submarines! Safety first people! Cripes.

The suits are part of the spacecraft, really. The point at which they integrate into the life support seems to be different. When US astronauts ride in a Soyuz, they wear Russian suits. 

And you don't want to know about the docking port differences for Soyuz and US spacecraft on the ISS :)

11GTCS said:

a US Navy DSRV can connect to Russian submarines!

I suspect that safety reasons were not the primary motivating factor in that particular design. :)

From what I've read, there is a lot of subtlety to the question about the suit "compatibility".  It isn't just a question of having the right plumbing connections for air and cooling, there's also a bunch of electronics in the suit that talk to the capsule (astronaut health monitoring, voice communications, etc etc).  NASA wouldn't just need a connector diagram, they'd also need a communications protocol specification and that adds a ton of complexity to everything for what initially seems like very little gain.

This is especially true since the need for the suit in this situation is just a backup for the capsule itself.  This isn't the kind of suit you see them wearing during EVAs, it's a lightweight suit that is just intended to provide air in the event that the capsule leaks.  AFAIK that's only happened once -- Soyuz 11, who are the only three crew to actually die in space (Columbia and Challenger were both below the altitude cutoff).

I'm not saying it's not a good idea to use the suit during re-entry, but using the "wrong" capsule is a backup, so the suit compatability is a backup to a backup and there are good arguments for not increasing complexity to that level.

In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :

I suspect that safety reasons were not the primary motivating factor in that particular design. :)

There's no question that I'm woefully ignorant on the fine details of spaceflight.  I do believe that the DSRV thing was actually coordinated as an international standard.  (We did offer to assist with a DSRV after the Kursk disaster for example.)  Either way, if you're descending from space you need to have something to protect you in the event of a loss of capsule pressure.  Maybe ( I'm sure I am!) I'm oversimplifiying but you'd think after 60 plus years of spaceflight the suit thing would be a standard among all vehicles.

So anyone have any insight into what the two Starliner pilots are doing to keep busy while crashing on the ISS couch? Was there already a contingency plan for absorbing  two freeloaders in space?  That is a lot of food, poop and Oxygen that was not on the budget.

Betamax vs VHS?

Apple iOS vs Android style power cords?

Tesla vs everybody else's power cords?

Space X vs Boeing spacesuits? 

They never learn.

NOHOME said:

So anyone have any insight into what the two Starliner pilots are doing to keep busy while crashing on the ISS couch? Was there already a contingency plan for absorbing  two freeloaders in space?  That is a lot of food, poop and Oxygen that was not on the budget.

I think they've taken over a bunch of the ISS maintenance tasks, which is a pretty heavy workload. This has freed up the others to do more "real" work. When Crew-8 leaves, the two Starliner crew members will be taking the place of two astronauts who were scheduled to come up on Crew-9. So it'll be the normal complement at that point. And yes, the station carries extra supplies.

The two Starliner crew are both highly experienced. I think Butch has "only" 500+ days on the station, Sunni has more like 650. They're useful. 

It looks like the Starliner crew is going to have to wait longer. A lot longer. And here I am complaining about delays at DFW. At least I usually get back within a couple of days. 

Today is the day?  You may notice it does not land in the water like the Apollo and SpaceX capsules.

Anyone want to put some odd on success?  I think realistically, there is only a small chance of a failure, it's just that that small chance still exceeds the required level to involve astronauts.   I think they are still a bit stuck with this thing as I am not sure this mission passes as proving that the capsule is crew capable (!?) and there are no more Atlas boosters (retiring) to test with....

Starliner is scheduled to undock from the ISS at 6:04 p.m. ET today (Sept. 6) and land six hours later.

Starliner's homecoming will begin at 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT) today, featuring the capsule's undocking at 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT). You can watch it here at Space.com, via NASA Television. 

Landing, at White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, is scheduled about six hours later, on Saturday (Sept. 7) at 12:03 a.m. EDT (0403 GMT or 10:03 p.m. local time Sept. 6). NASA will livestream that event as well, starting at 10:50 p.m. EDT (0250 GMT). 

In reply to aircooled :

"Anyone want to put some odds on success"

Can we define success as it lands on time, on target, without incident?

If so, I'll guestimate 96% given that they'll be using some quickly developed software and the thrusters will need to work fairly well even though they've had issues. 

In reply to aircooled :

Wait...are you saying they (Boeing or NASA) don't even have a booster rocket for this thing now?  What was the plan for the rocket part?  If no plan what was the point?

The capsule is intended to be used on the SLS rocket (thus it being too large for the Atlas rockets).  They were testing it with the Atlas since the SLS is wildly bigger and more expensive.  The Atlas clearly needed an adapter.  Not sure what other smallish rocket they could use.  Creating an adapter for a Falcon would be... weird.

Nasa coverage just began. 4:88 EDT.

Oops, I evidently found the landing of the first uncrewed Starliner re-entry from whenever. Sorry lol.

aircooled said:

The capsule is intended to be used on the SLS rocket (thus it being too large for the Atlas rockets).  They were testing it with the Atlas since the SLS is wildly bigger and more expensive.  The Atlas clearly needed an adapter.  Not sure what other smallish rocket they could use.  Creating an adapter for a Falcon would be... weird.

Orion is the one to be used on the SLS. It's not for LEO taxi service. It's a big chonky thing, partly to prevent it from being launched on "lesser" rockets. It's the one to be used for the moon missions - not to land, just to get in the vicinity. Then the really hilarious thing happens, but that's a different discussion.

Starliner is launched on an Atlas booster. They are out of production with no more available - but there are six set aside for the six scheduled crew launches. So there are enough, but no spares. If Starliner is to continue service after those six missions, it will have to be on a different booster such as Vulcan (not yet human rated). That's what it means that there are "no more left". Amazon also has a few reserved for Kuniper satellite launches, and it's possible that Boeing could buy one of those if necessary.

The reality is that it's looking less and less likely that Starliner will complete those six missions. I think NASA has only committed to two at this point. ISS is only going to be up there until 2030, then there's nowhere to go.

I think Starliner will land okay. Odds are that it will succeed, even if the odds weren't good enough to put people on board.

And she's down. Haven't heard if all the various tests were flawless, but the capsule is home. 

I was hoping to see the reentry as I'm about 280 miles directly northeast of the White Sands Range but with the trajectory and distance, it was too low on the horizon to see from my house.

Oh well.

It was a great reentry and landing though. Everything seemed to work perfectly.