Boeing's Starliner finds yet another way to not reach space Boeing's Starliner has failed to launch once again, this time due to a faulty power supply in a ground computer chassis. Unreliable power supplies are the bane of many an administrator, and it appears that the space program is not immune to their vagaries. The launch, from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral …
With Boeing's recent track record I wouldn't want to be one of the crew... not without highly absorbent underwear, a fireproof suit, an ejector seat, a good life insurance policy for my family and ... oh forget it, find someone else.
Tend to agree, although on a point of order I think they wear a nappy at launch (or diaper in left-pondian-speak). Shitting myself would be the least of my concerns though in comparison to your other excellent points
They're also wearing fireproof (and air tight) suits, but rather than an ejector seat, the entire capsule has an abort system which was at least 2/3rds successful during testing.
Their life insurance premiums are probably pretty steep though.
Was the actual problem that a single psu failed or that the "redundant system did not activate"? IMO, on a safety critical system, potentially duplicated across multiple supplies, a non-activation failure of a redundant failover system is far more of an issue than the primary failure.
"Captain! You are sitting on a thousand tons of propellant but the engine won't start!"
"It's ok Ground Control, I'm with the AA"
Or they go:
This is ground equipment - we will not launch with any failures known, it's just not worth having a second failure at a critical moment.
This is another delay that isn't an issue with the starliner itself, it's not great, but as far as I can read it's a ULA system which failed.
"All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch countdown to ensure crew safety."
Carelessness, impatience and an eye solely to the bottom line have no place in manned spaceflight, and to my surprise it seems as if Boeing, NASA and ULA have made the right choice for once.
As my mum used to say "It's better to be five minutes late for an appointment than five minute early for heaven."
Another delay.
They did the right thing.
So why not just say that? The final (or last) phase of a countdown is far clearer than saying "terminal phase". It's unambiguous too.
Maybe the corporate bullshitter who said "terminal phase" is the same one who said "unscheduled rapid disassembly" when an earlier rocket blew up?
Referring to a "terminal phase" means you are invoking the Roman deity Terminus to look upon your works at this boundary[1] with good grace.
It is always a Good Idea to Placate The Gods - and Boeing clearly needs all the help it can get from whichever pantheons happen to be around!
[1] the boundary from "being on the pad" to "being (safely) in the air"
There are specific nuances that can be important. "The last phase" can refer the to phase just gone, or the final one. "Final" can imply never again, but I'm sure they're hoping to reuse at least some of the kit at some point. Most of these are ambiguous or synonyms in normal usage, but have developed those nuances within an industry.
In the same way as they use "nominal" and a lot of people question why they don't just say "normal" - "nominal" means "within predefined limits" whereas "normal" would mean "the value that we usually get"
Equally a Spaniard won't have "one last drink" - their last drink is the one before they die. "El penultimo" is the last drink of this session, always allowing for one more.
> So why not just say that? The final (or last) phase of a countdown is far clearer than saying "terminal phase". It's unambiguous too.
Because then engineers will start talking about equipment that is used during the 'final' phase as 'final' equipment. And, before you know it, you'll have emails using the phrase 'the final solution'. And then someone will be triggered. And then there will be questions in Congress. :-)
"With SpaceX and now Blue Origin showing that reusability is the way of the future, Starliner's 1960's man-in-a-can design doesn't appear to have much life to it."
Not at all. Reusability can work if you have plans to reuse the rocket more than ten times in a short period of time. If it's going to be 5-6 years before you rack up those 10-12 flights, the tech will be stale and the airframe will have been sitting around in the weather more than is good for it. It also requires between 40% and 50% more margin to return the craft back for a recoverable landing. If you aren't going to have the flight rate AND have to make the rocket 50% more capable, the cost difference isn't in your favor.
So what is this ? Sloppy engineering, bad procurement or just bad luck ?
I can understand that a power supply fails, but if the power supply fails and the redundant power supply does not activate, it seems to be that there is a whiff of bad engineering floating about.
"I can understand that a power supply fails, but if the power supply fails and the redundant power supply does not activate, it seems to be that there is a whiff of bad engineering floating about."
The components and systems on a space vehicle are qualified and tested within a mm of their life. I have to wonder if the same care is taken with the Ground Support Equipment (GSE).
Still on track, as previously stated:
" ... One of NASA's goals with the Commercial Crew Program was to create redundancy ..."
This has been achieved 100%, the Boeing 'It's not going' capsule is totally redundant !!!
I am sure quite a few astronauts are hoping that it stays 100% redundant .... for their sake !!!
:)
I hope that the NASA contracting/procurement officer at least spent some thoughts on the severability and claw-back clauses of the contract. At what point do you pull the plug and declare this a 'non-delivery'? When do you ask the question "this baby is not worth the bathwater we use"?
If they don't have such a non-delivery clause in this contract then a) that's a huge oversight, and b) hopefully this get held up in the future as "here's a bad contract if you want to see one, don't write them like this".
IIRC this is a "Cost-Plus" contract, which means that the contractor has zero incentive to keep costs down, to delivery quickly, or do anything else that is for the benefit of the entity awarding the contract. The longer they can stretch this gravy train, the more money they make. In fact, the more money they spend, the most money they make (the "plus" part of a "Cost-Plus" means "plus X percent of the cost guaranteed profit, with the government/NASA paying all costs")
I am somewhat aghast at the blatant disregard for quality of work by (US) government contractors these days, spanning broader than just Boeing. They no longer even pretend to deliver quality work, just stuff that barely, barely crosses the mark of "do the bare minimum so that we can't get sued, everything else eats into our profits so F 'em". For all the lip and teeth that Uncle Sam shows around the world, it would behoove it to show some teeth in the GovCon sector at home as well...
Is it Cost-Plus-Percentage, or Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee (CPFF)? If the latter, that "fee" isn't going to stretch forever.
I've been in US gov't contractors my whole career (see nickname), and I'm also aghast at what gets by. We really are horrible, either delivering poor quality within schedule/budget, blowing schedule/budget for actual good quality (usually because someone in manglement bungled the project estimate to win the contract), or all of the above. (Sometimes it's our gov't customer that makes poor decisions that causes us to look even worse.)
"Part of the issue with SLC-41 is that cadence is very low so you have equipment sitting around for long periods not doing much."
One of the strange things at the Cape is their RADAR equipment is dragged from one launch pad to another for each flight which can take days. There is other infrastructure that is also deployed per flight rather than being a permanent installation. You'd think they'd get pretty good at moving things around, do it at night and have it all sussed out to be very routine, but it's the government there so there will be none of that. Companies that launch from the site are forced to do things that match how the base wants to do things, not the other way around.
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If the redundancy saves lives then it has done its job! Just saying.
Boeing auto-timer thrusters and steering jets might still be a situation they haven't fixed yet.
It is all looking like MCAS and lithium batteries on a plane when nicd batteries were good enough for the job. Just because a tech is old and reliable doesn't mean that it needs replacing. Similarly putting in old-fashioned timers without any idea of how it should work is deadly.
Apollo went to the moon with the equivalent computer power of a pocket calculator and returned safely (excepting Apollo 13 of course) but this thing can't get launched due to its multiple redundant safety systems. Safety has been made paramount but at what point does risk become acceptable? When it comes to everyday passenger jets like the 737 Max risk has to be absolutely minimized, but does it have to be with space flight?
I'd say it needs to be minimized for space flight too, not only for the safety of the crew but also for the future of space flight. If the Starliner blows up on the launch pad it will a massive blow to the already beleaguered Boeing company's reputation. SpaceX could end up with a monopoly that NASA is trying to avoid. People in power may simply decide space travel is too risky for humans, resulting in no political will for a moon base or lots of other space projects.
> People in power may simply decide space travel is too risky for humans, resulting in no political will for a moon base or lots of other space projects
So long as they are still happy to send robots to risk being launched then not sending men up will give a much better return per dollar.
Shame politics is all about showing off instead of being practical about anything.
"Apollo went to the moon with the equivalent computer power of a pocket calculator and returned safely"
Instead of realizing that NASA hasn't done this sort of thing for nearly 60 years and should KISS, the spec sheet goes into full bloat mode. The first priority should be to get a system together that can perform a mission with plans for the future to expand capabilities. The chances that future missions will morph over time is 100% so getting locked into specifics on the space vehicle systems will be a problem. I expect the first lunar mission is mainly going to be a "stomp around a bit" on the surface once again sort of thing. Yes, they'll do some experiments and stuff if they don't encounter any issues, but it's all new gear and there will be issues. Each next mission can add on some sort of thing that won't make the whole mission a massive failure if it doesn't work as expected.
When I go on holiday, I have a list of things I want to do in ranked order so if I don't get all the way down the list, I've seen and done the things that were the most important. If #7 is going skiing, I'm going to strike that since it requires hauling a bunch of stuff with me at massive extra cost. If I do happen to get to item #7, I can just play in the snow and take some photos which isn't skiing, but enjoying the winter a bit and it's off to #8 (or the pub).
"A space worthy or for that matter any critical power supply *should* have been tested for 1000's of hours prior to deployment so should not fail."
If it isn't going into space, what level of MTBF expectation should there be? The crap $80 PSU should be a non-starter, but are there any computer power supplies that can be relied on? I almost never have one go bad, but I have a shelf of spares salvaged from computers I've received for free. For something mission critical, I think I might move away from the classic POS that goes into a beige box to something much higher spec that's external.
wait ... what ? They use standard PCs with PSUs ? Even model RC planes have redundant receiver batteries, how could NASA computers not be PSU-proof ! And even then: every computer should be redundant, meaning that any computer failing shouldn't even be noticed (apart from the warning). Either the problem is much bigger than a PSU failing, or this is some excuse for some other real problem they don't want to say.
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Whilst I understand the (very-worthy) desire of multiple flight providers,,, Boeing and SpaceX are not comparable services - Boeing isn't remotely competitive.
The Gov should mandate a 2nd reusable LE service and stop throwing good money after bad at disposable rocketry.
> ... The trouble was caused by a single ground power supply within one of three redundant chassis ...
and
> Boeing said: "All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch countdown to ensure crew safety."
Not very redundant, is it?
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