posted 08-09-2023 10:39 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by perineau:
I think the Starliner is redundant at best...

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posted 08-10-2023 09:04 AM               

This is how it works. The government helps (which is not providing all of it) fund a contractor to develop a service and then also gets the services at a lower cost. The contractor gets to market the service to other users and as a result, the cost to the government is again lowered because the other users help offset the operating costs.

Versus the government paying for all the development costs and then eats all the operating costs whether it is using the service or not.

posted 08-10-2023 05:02 PM               

Say that the Army wants a new type of tank. Normally there's a standard contract and evaluation phase, with a handful of prototypes built for testing. Then, the best (and cheapest) tank eventually is supposed to be chosen and later fielded.

But no, what we have here is several companies are each building their own tank types, with SOME of the company money used to design and build them, with an expectation that the moment uniformed crews step into them, the buck is passed to the taxpayer. Meanwhile, the Army has three or four different types of tanks running around the battlefield in small numbers, when it was always better to have a large number of ONE type.

And once the tanks get rolling, the government will have spent money on several different processes to similar ends as opposed to ONE doing so.

posted 08-10-2023 07:59 PM               

Also, last I checked, pretty much all major US military hardware contracts these days are cost plus, so there is no such thing as a firm contract. Another point that is different is that the expectation of commercial crew capsules/rockets was that anyone could buy a ticket aboard a commercial spacecraft, not just NASA astronauts.

To me, these contracts are more along the lines of the US Government in the second half of the 1800's deciding that railroads were a necessary step to knit together the East and West Coasts. There were both economic and strategic reasons to build out the railroads.

posted 02-21-2024 11:28 AM               

Today we begin stacking the 100th Atlas V, but this flight will be unlike any of the previous. This rocket will launch NASA Commercial Crew Program astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the Crew Flight Test (CFT) for The Boeing Company's Starliner to the International Space Station!

posted 04-15-2024 05:25 PM               

Accurate weight and CG measurements are critical to the nominal performance of both the entire integrated spacecraft and launch vehicle during ascent and the spacecraft during on-orbit maneuvers and reentry.

Facetious maybe, but overall not impressed with Boeing. The problems in their civil aviation sector seem to be present in their space business. I mean, flammable tape? parachute straps that don't work? I presume they have heard of Apollo.

posted 04-16-2024 11:40 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by star61:
...but overall not impressed with Boeing.

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I'll give you an example. SpaceX has flight computers. Let's say you had this catastrophic failure — it never will happen, but let's say it does happen and you lose all your computers. You have to reboot them. You have to have a computer or you can't come home. Can't. If you can't get the computers back online, you don't survive. That's just the way it is. That's the way the system is designed.

If Starliner loses its computers and you can't get them back, we still come home. Under this backup mode, we still have full displays. It's through a different box, because the computers died. So it's through the integrated propulsion control, IPC, into the DMC, the display management computer, which gives us our displays. And we still come home and we still hit the bullseye.

posted 04-25-2024 05:01 PM               

Join us in welcoming the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Kennedy Space Center. The crew will be spending the next few days completing final preparations before launch.

NASA, Boeing and United Launch Alliance are targeting no earlier than 10:34 p.m. EST on Monday, May 6 for the launch of the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test mission to the International Space Station.

posted 05-01-2024 05:32 PM               

But that's not entirely accurate as Pad 41 is on Kennedy Space Center property, as confirmed by NASA.

The Land Use Map shows current and future land use areas at KSC. The land use areas noted on the map are described below:

Vertical launch: includes all facilities and land areas directly related to vertical launch operations, including launch pads 39A, 39B and 41, and notional future vertical launch facilities.

posted 05-04-2024 05:53 PM               

This, of course, runs counter to Russian tradition, which considers it bad luck for the prime crew to see their rocket before launch day.

posted 05-06-2024 09:46 AM               

Boeing Starliner brings astronaut launches back to Atlas rocket and Cape Canaveral

posted 05-06-2024 09:59 AM               

Although they are in the same family of rockets, the Atlas D and the Atlas V have very little, if anything in common, other than their name. The modern Atlas, designed by Lockheed Martin, is powered by a Russian RD-180 engine on its first stage and a Centaur upper stage.

posted 05-06-2024 05:13 PM               

Watch live as two NASA astronauts launch from Boeing's Starliner spacecraft as one of the final steps on the road to certification. Launch of the ULA (United Launch Alliance) Atlas V rocket and Starliner spacecraft is targeted for 10:34 p.m. EDT Monday, May 6 (0234 UTC Tuesday, May 7) from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

posted 05-06-2024 10:21 PM               

If this was a satellite ... the satellite would already be in orbit.

Every now and again, in rare occasions, a valve like this can get into a position where it's just off its seat and it'll flutter, or buzz like in this case.

We've seen short buzzes maybe three or four times and what we would typically do is activate the solenoid, which forces the valve closed, cycling the valve. Then you turn that off and you let it return and [the buzzing] almost always stops.

In fact, this valve stopped. Once we had the crew off, we cycled the valve and it stopped buzzing.

ULA has tested and certified the valve to 200,000 cycles. It is possible it could go for much more than that, but the valve was never tested to destruction. So tonight, engineers will be combing through data to count how many cycles have been put on the valve.

If there is sufficient margin remaining, it is possible that a launch attempt could be made on Tuesday night. If not, then the valve needs to be replaced and that will take several days. The vehicle will need to be rolled back to the vertical integration facility (VIF) and pressure would need to be taken off the Centaur for the valve to be replaced.

If that is the situation, the soonest ULA might be ready to proceed with a launch would be on Sunday (May 12). NASA would then need to see what it could support, likely landing the next attempt mid-next week (May 14 or 15).

posted 05-07-2024 08:21 AM               

Out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the flight and pad crew, we scrubbed the Crew Flight Test (CFT) launch attempt due to an observation on a liquid oxygen self-regulating solenoid relief valve on the Centaur upper stage.

The team needs additional time to complete a full assessment, so we are targeting the next launch attempt no earlier than Friday, May 10.

posted 05-07-2024 07:04 PM               

United Launch Alliance has decided to replace the Centaur liquid oxygen self regulating valve, which is a pressure regulation valve on the upper stage.

To allow for the valve replacement work, the NASA-Boeing team is now targeting no earlier than May 17 for the next launch opportunity.