back to article 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 …

  1. imanidiot Silver badge

    Boeing Scrubliner

    It's been done to death already but once again: "If it's Boeing, it ain't going". It's incredible just how much of a shit show Starliner is turning out to be.

    1. TReko Silver badge

      Re: Boeing Scrubliner

      The offending power supply unit will now probably "commit suicide" just like the other troublesome Boeing whistleblowers.

  2. Andy Non Silver badge
    Mushroom

    "Starliner's crew has a safe trip to the International Space Station"

    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.

    1. MyffyW Silver badge

      Re: "Starliner's crew has a safe trip to the International Space Station"

      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

      1. phuzz Silver badge

        Re: "Starliner's crew has a safe trip to the International Space Station"

        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.

        1. Andy Non Silver badge

          Re: "Starliner's crew has a safe trip to the International Space Station"

          "Their life insurance premiums are probably pretty steep though."

          Astronomical.

    2. batt-geek

      Re: "Starliner's crew has a safe trip to the International Space Station"

      agreed - if i was one of those astronauts i'd be thinking i drew the short straw here and would be considering a quick career change ... :-/

  3. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    What was the fault?

    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"

    1. John Robson Silver badge

      Re: What was the fault?

      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.

      1. nematoad Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: What was the fault?

        "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.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: What was the fault?

          For some values of "right thing". A better thing would be to start asking why they got to this situation before going any further. The best thing would have been to have not got into this situation at all. There's a huge gulf between right thing and best thing.

        2. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: What was the fault?

          Always heard it as "Better to be five minutes late in this world than fifty years early to the next"

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What was the fault?

          Good points except "an eye solely to the bottom line" - the total cost doesn't reflect that.

      2. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

        Re: What was the fault?

        Ground equipment at SLC-41 is a mixture of ULA and Space Force.

        1. Jon 37 Silver badge

          Re: What was the fault?

          And Boeing equipment too. There's ground equipment to monitor and command the capsule, which will be provided by Boeing.

          1. John Robson Silver badge

            Re: What was the fault?

            It was ULA who was going to report on it, so my guess is that it's ULA equipment.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What was the fault?

      > "Captain! You are sitting on a thousand tons of propellant but the engine won't start!"

      "Oh, good, can I go home and change careers now?!"

    3. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

      Re: What was the fault?

      Agreed, they may have scrubbed anyway even if the redundant power supply did kick in (out of an abundance of caution.) But that is HIGHLY troubling if their redundancy system essentially also failed.

    4. hoofie2002

      Re: What was the fault?

      Read the article - they required ALL 3 redundant supplies to be running at a certain point in the countdown. One failed so they aborted.

      I presume if they go past a certain point they will continue even if one fails.

      1. DS999 Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: What was the fault?

        I presume if they go past a certain point they will continue even if one fails

        I believe that point is known as "launch"

        1. John Robson Silver badge

          Re: What was the fault?

          That's not a troll... that's the point at which you can't abort for something like this.

      2. Paul Smith

        Re: What was the fault?

        Read the article. They needed three supplies for a launch, one failed AND THE REDUNDANT SUPPLY DID NOT ACTIVATE.

  4. R Soul Silver badge

    Corporate bollocks-speak

    "All three of these chassis are required to enter the terminal phase of the launch"

    It's probably a bad idea to talk about anything in aerospace having a terminal phase. More so when Boeing is involved.

    1. Jon 37 Silver badge

      Re: Corporate bollocks-speak

      "terminal" just means "final", in this context. The final phase of the countdown.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Corporate bollocks-speak

        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?

        1. that one in the corner Silver badge

          Re: Corporate bollocks-speak

          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"

        2. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
          Alien

          Re: Corporate bollocks-speak

          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.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Corporate bollocks-speak

          > 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. :-)

  5. iron
    Mushroom

    Starliner?

    More like bin liner.

  6. Mr D Spenser

    The new Spruce Goose?

    Can't help but wonder if the inaugural manned flight of Starliner will also be its last. 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.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: The new Spruce Goose?

      "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.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: The new Spruce Goose?

      "the inaugural manned flight of Starliner"

      Even that sounds optimistic.

  7. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "The redundant power supply did not activate"

    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.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "The redundant power supply did not activate"

      Sounds like someone didn't press the On button.

      1. mcswell

        Re: "The redundant power supply did not activate"

        The manual called for them to operate the ON-OFF control to the ON detent.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: "The redundant power supply did not activate"

      "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).

    3. wobball

      Re: "The redundant power supply did not activate"

      Akin to the distinctive smell of melting insulation in an old school toroidal transformer before it go proper bang.

      I remember it well!

  8. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    Pressure to launch

    Nope. Don't even go there.

    We had a minor problem with a Space Shuttle a few years back. I hope lessons were learned.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Boeing 'It's not going' Capsule continues to be 'Redundant' .... as designed.

    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 !!!

    :)

  10. Anna Nymous

    Babies and bathwater

    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...

    1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker

      Re: Babies and bathwater

      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.)

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Babies and bathwater

      "IIRC this is a "Cost-Plus" contract"

      No, it's a fixed price contract. Boeing has to eat the overages.

  11. Oneman2Many Bronze badge

    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.

    Now if they had a higher launch cadence then then equipment get used and tested more frequently.

    1. Zibob Silver badge

      But you don't need to be launching to send techs round to inspection the stuff works.

      And if its a case that the systems can't be tested without a rocket on it, then there is further WTF levels of oversight and planning.

    2. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "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.

  12. xyz Silver badge

    Can someone please take this POS out back

    And do the decent thing and put it out of its misery.

    1. Zibob Silver badge

      Re: Can someone please take this POS out back

      Maybe they are just waiting for July, I hear the Americans are fond of blowing up rockets around then, maybe this will be the BIG ONE to really oooohhhh and aaaaawwww at.

      1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Can someone please take this POS out back

        POS - Pieces Of Starliner!

      2. druck Silver badge

        Re: Can someone please take this POS out back

        You do know this mission is a manned one?

  13. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Battery Replacement

    Did they fall off the back of a Dreamliner?

  14. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. wobball

      Rrrr's

      Individually, less so.

      Reliability, resilience, redundancy, restore and recoverability.

      Some, but not all, apply in this scenario and caution is good here.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Redundancy

    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.

    1. wobball

      Re: Redundancy

      Payload improvements are king in this space, I suspect a bank of car battery era tech would not appeal for this reason.

  16. dadbot5000

    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?

    1. Andy Non Silver badge

      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.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        > 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.

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Apollo 13 returned safely as well. By a hair's breadth, but all astronauts were alive and recovered after splashdown.

      Apollo 13 did not accomplish its original mission, but after it came back, there was one hell of a do-over for the specs of the following capsules and modules.

    3. MachDiamond Silver badge

      "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).

  17. Nudge Away More

    Not In Space

    A cheap $80 power supply may well be expected to fail.

    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.

    Bathtube curve - simples really !

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Not In Space

      "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.

      1. Zolko Silver badge

        Re: Not In Space

        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.

  18. Peshman

    As the great Micky Caine would say...

    "You're only supposed to watch the bloody doors fall off!"

  19. spireite Silver badge

    Redundant...?

    Fair to say this last 18 months is close to proving that the one thing there is redundant..... Is Boeing!

  20. spold Silver badge

    New strategy - launch Binliner from altitude

    ...the plan is to drop it from a 737 Max...

    If you can't get it up going down is always an option (vicar).

  21. This post has been deleted by its author

  22. Creslin

    Meanwhile Falcon has launched 48 times,, this year.

    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.

  23. Pascal

    This is not what "redundant" means.

    > ... 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?

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    At least the crew are getting plenty of practice climbing in and out.

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