XPost: alt.astronomy, ca.politics, seattle.politics
XPost: alt.fan.heinlein
On 9/9/24 13:57, a425couple wrote:
Some think Boeing will just give up on it!
from
https://www.space.com/boeing-starliner-next-iss-mission-nasa-plan
Boeing's Starliner capsule just landed with no crew aboard. What's next
for this astronaut taxi?
News
By Elizabeth Howell published 2 days ago
It's too soon to tell when Starliner will fly again.
Comments (8)
the comments included
8 Comments
Comment from the forums
steve_foston
It is sensible that NASA have more than 1 way for the USA to get there
and back to the ISS so I wish Starliner well for the future. However is
it sensible that the spacesuits for both vehicles are incompatible
surely this needs sorting out - its like the air filters on A13 were a makeshift device allowed a square peg to go into a round hole surely we
should have learnt something from this
Reply
Unclear Engineer
Glad to see it made the return flight without any more problems.
Hopefully, Boeing will stick with this project and make the capsule work reliably without having to "baby" the thrusters. Having tight limits on thruster use that are OK when everything else works as planned does not
sound like a prudent policy, because there might not be enough margin to
handle the thruster needs when something else is not going right.
Considering that the capsule had thruster problems on its last 2 flights
and NASA was unwilling to bet the crew's lives on the capsule for this
reentry, it seems logical that Boeing is going to need to do another
uncrewed flight to show that it has fixed the thruster problem
sufficiently to warrant certifying it for crew.
Reply
trailrider
If I understand correctly, one objective in creation of both crew and
cargo spacecraft is reusability. Also, being able to check over major
systems postflight is smart. How, then does Boeing justify a design like Starlink that discards a major portion of its RCS after a single flight?
It is probably too late in the game for Boeing to do a redesign of
Starlink, but perhaps some other company would be willing to come up
with a spacecraft to back up Dragon, perhaps in conjunction with some commercial space station when ISS is deorbited. Also, there definitely
should be compatability between space suits.
Reply
Unclear Engineer
Trailrider,
First, Boeing's capsule is "StarLiner" and this one was named "Calypso".
" StarLink" is the SpaceX communication satellites.
SpaceX's Dragon capsule also has a "service module" between the Falcon 9 booster and the Dragon capsule, which gets burned-up and not reused.
When Sierra Space gets it DreamChaser capsule going, it will have a
similar small service module that will not be reused.
The huge SpaceX "StarShip" and its "SuperHeavy" first stage will be the
first (nearly) totally reusable system, with both stages being able to
reenter and be reused without an intermediate service module.
The service modules for the current crop of capsules are designed to be
the least expensive parts.
Reply
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