Boeing

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NASA orders more tests on Starliner, but says crew isn’t stranded in space

Boeing, commercial crew, human spaceflight, international space station, NASA, Science, Space, starliner / /
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is seen docked at the International Space Station on June 13.

Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is seen docked at the International Space Station on June 13.

NASA and Boeing officials pushed back Friday on headlines that the commercial Starliner crew capsule is stranded at the International Space Station but said they need more time to analyze data before formally clearing the spacecraft for undocking and reentry.

Two NASA astronauts, commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, will spend at least a few more weeks on the space station as engineers on the ground conduct thruster tests to better understand issues with the Starliner propulsion system in orbit. Wilmore and Williams launched June 5 aboard an Atlas V rocket and docked at the station the next day, completing the first segment of Starliner’s first test flight with astronauts.

NASA managers originally planned for the Starliner spacecraft to remain docked at the space station for at least eight days, although they left open the possibility of a mission extension. The test flight is now likely to last at least a month and a half, and perhaps longer, as engineers wrestle with helium leaks and thruster glitches on Starliner’s service module.

Batteries on this Starliner spacecraft were initially only certified for a 45-day mission duration, but NASA officials said they are looking at extending the limit after confirming the batteries are functioning well.

“We have the luxury of time,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s space operations mission directorate. “We’re still in the middle of a test mission. We’re still pressing forward.”

Previously, NASA and Boeing officials delayed Starliner’s reentry and landing from mid-June, then from June 26, and now they have bypassed a potential landing opportunity in early July. Last week, NASA said in a statement that the agency’s top leadership will meet to formally review the readiness of Starliner for reentry, something that wasn’t part of the original plan.

“We’re not stuck on ISS”

Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, said Friday that he wanted to clear up “misunderstandings” that led to headlines claiming the Starliner spacecraft was stuck or stranded at the space station.

“I want to make it very clear that Butch and Suni are not stranded in space,” Stich said. “Our plan is to continue to return them on Starliner and return them home at the right time. We have a little bit more work to do to get there for the final return, but they’re safe on (the) space station.”

With Starliner docked, the space station currently hosts three different crew spacecraft, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz. There are no serious plans under consideration to bring Wilmore and Williams home on a different spacecraft.

“Obviously, we have the luxury of having multiple vehicles, and we work contingency plans for lots of different cases, but right now, we’re really focused on returning Butch and Suni on Starliner,” Stich said.

“We’re not stuck on the ISS,” said Mark Nappi, Boeing’s vice president in charge of the Starliner program. “It’s pretty painful to read the things that are out there. We’ve gotten a really good test flight that’s been accomplished so far, and it’s being viewed rather negatively.”

Stich said NASA officials should have “more frequent interaction” with reporters to fill in gaps of information on the Starliner test flight. NASA’s written updates are not always timely, and often lack details and context.

NASA officials have cleared the Starliner spacecraft for an emergency return to Earth if astronauts need to evacuate the space station for safety or medical reasons. But NASA hasn’t yet approved Starliner for reentry and landing under “nominal” conditions.

“When it is a contingency situation, we’re ready to put the crew on the spacecraft and bring them home as a lifeboat,” Bowersox said. “For the nominal entry, we want to look at the data more before we make the final call to put the crew aboard the vehicle, and it’s a serious enough call that we’ll bring the senior management team together (for approval).”

NASA orders more tests on Starliner, but says crew isn’t stranded in space Read More »

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Countdown begins for third try launching Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule

atlas v, Boeing, commercial crew, human spaceflight, international space station, launch, NASA, Science, Space, starliner, united launch alliance / /

Going today? —

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams have been in prelaunch quarantine for six weeks.

–

Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, wearing their Boeing spacesuits, leave NASA's crew quarters during a launch attempt May 6.

Enlarge / Astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, wearing their Boeing spacesuits, leave NASA’s crew quarters during a launch attempt May 6.

Fresh off repairs at the launch pad in Florida, United Launch Alliance engineers restarted the countdown overnight for the third attempt to send an Atlas V rocket and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on a test flight to the International Space Station.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were expected to awake early Wednesday, put on their blue pressure suits, and head to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to board the Starliner capsule on top of the 172-foot-tall Atlas V rocket.

Once more through the door

Wilmore and Williams have done this twice before in hopes of launching into space on the first crew flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. A faulty valve on the Atlas V rocket prevented liftoff May 6, then engineers discovered a helium leak on the Starliner capsule itself. After several weeks of troubleshooting, NASA and Boeing officials decided to proceed with another launch attempt Saturday.

Everything seemed to be coming together for Boeing’s long-delayed crew test flight until a computer problem triggered an automatic hold in the countdown less than four minutes before liftoff. Technicians from United Launch Alliance (ULA), the Atlas V rocket’s builder and operator, traced the problem to a failed power distribution source connected to a ground computer responsible for controlling the final phase of the countdown.

The instantaneous launch opportunity Wednesday is set for 10: 52 am EDT (14: 52 UTC), when the launch site at Cape Canaveral passes underneath the space station’s orbital plane. Forecasters predict a 90 percent chance of good weather for launch. You can watch NASA’s live coverage in the video embedded below.

The countdown began late Tuesday night with the power-up of the Atlas V rocket, which was set to be filled with cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants around 5 am EDT (09: 00 UTC). Kerosene fuel was loaded into the Atlas V’s first-stage booster prior to the mission’s first launch attempt in early May.

The two Starliner astronauts departed crew quarters at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the 20-minute drive to the launch pad, where they arrived shortly before 8 am EDT (12: 00 UTC) to climb into their seats inside the Starliner capsule. After pressure checks of the astronauts’ suits and Starliner’s crew cabin, ground teams will evacuate the pad about an hour before launch.

Assuming all systems are “go” for launch, the Atlas V will ignite its Russian-made RD-180 main engine and two solid-fueled boosters to vault away from Cape Canaveral and head northeast over the Atlantic Ocean. Wilmore and Williams will be not only the first people to fly in space on Boeing’s Starliner, but also the first astronauts to ride on an Atlas V rocket, which has flown 99 times before with satellites for the US military, NASA, and commercial customers.

The rocket’s Centaur upper stage will deploy Starliner into space around 15 minutes after liftoff. A critical burn by Starliner’s engines will happen around 31 minutes into the flight to finish the task of placing it into low-Earth orbit, setting it up for an automated docking at the International Space Station at 12: 15 pm EDT (16: 15 UTC) Thursday.

The two-person crew will stay on the station for at least a week, although a mission extension is likely if the mission is going well. Officials may decide to extend the mission to complete more tests or to wait for optimal weather conditions at Starliner’s primary and backup landing sites in New Mexico and Arizona. When weather conditions look favorable, Starliner will undock from the space station and head for landing under parachutes.

The crew test flight is a prerequisite to Boeing’s crew capsule becoming operational for NASA, which awarded multibillion-dollar commercial crew contracts to Boeing and SpaceX in 2014. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon started flying astronauts in 2020, while Boeing’s project has been stricken by years of delays.

Wilmore and Williams, both former US Navy test pilots, will take over manual control of Starliner at several points during the test flight. They will evaluate the spacecraft’s flying characteristics and accommodations for future flights, which will carry four astronauts at a time rather than two.

“The expectation from the media should not be perfection,” Wilmore told Ars earlier this year. “This is a test flight. Flying and operating in space is hard. It’s really hard, and we’re going to find some stuff. That’s expected. It’s the first flight where we are integrating the full capabilities of this spacecraft.”

Countdown begins for third try launching Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule Read More »

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Boeing’s Starliner test flight scrubbed again after hold in final countdown

atlas v, Boeing, commercial crew, human spaceflight, launch, NASA, Science, Space, starliner, united launch alliance / /

Hold Hold Hold —

The ground launch sequencer computer called a hold at T-minus 3 minutes, 50 seconds.

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NASA commander Butch Wilmore exits the Starliner spacecraft Saturday following the scrubbed launch attempt.

Enlarge / NASA commander Butch Wilmore exits the Starliner spacecraft Saturday following the scrubbed launch attempt.

A computer controlling the Atlas V rocket’s countdown triggered an automatic hold less than four minutes prior to liftoff of Boeing’s commercial Starliner spacecraft Saturday, keeping the crew test flight on the ground at least a few more days.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were already aboard the spacecraft when the countdown stopped due to a problem with a ground computer. “Hold. Hold. Hold,” a member of Atlas V launch team called out on an audio feed.

With the hold, the mission missed an instantaneous launch opportunity at 12: 25 pm EDT (16: 25 UTC), and later Saturday, NASA announced teams will forego a launch opportunity Sunday. The next chance to send Starliner into orbit will be 10: 52 am EDT (14: 52 UTC) Wednesday. The mission has one launch opportunity every one-to-two days, when the International Space Station’s orbital track moves back into proper alignment with the Atlas V rocket’s launch pad in Florida.

Wilmore and Williams will take the Starliner spacecraft on its first crew flight into low-Earth orbit. The capsule will dock with the International Space Station around a day after launch, spend at least a week there, then return to a parachute-assisted landing at one of two landing zones in New Mexico or Arizona. Once operational, Boeing’s Starliner will join SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule to give NASA two independent human-rated spacecraft for transporting astronauts to and from the space station.

It’s been a long road to get here with the Starliner spacecraft, and there’s more work to do before the capsule’s long-delayed first flight with astronauts.

Technicians from United Launch Alliance, builder of the Atlas V rocket, will begin troubleshooting the computer glitch at the launch pad Saturday evening, after draining propellant from the launch vehicle. Early indications suggest that a card in one of three computers governing the final minutes of the Atlas V’s countdown didn’t boot up as quickly as anticipated.

“You can imagine a large rack that is a big computer where the functions of the computer as a controller are broken up separately into individual cards or printed wire circuit boards with their logic devices,” said Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO. “They’re all standalone, but together it’s an integrated controller.”

The computers are located at the launch pad inside a shelter near the base of the Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. All three computers must be fully functioning in the final phase of the countdown to ensure triple redundancy. At the moment of liftoff, these computers control things like retracting umbilical lines and releasing bolts holding the rocket to its mobile launch platform.

Two of the computers activated as the final countdown sequence began at T-minus 4 minutes. A single card in the third computer took about six more seconds to come online, although it did boot up eventually, Bruno said.

“Two came up normally and the third one came up, but it was slow to come up, and that tripped a red line,” he said.

A disappointment

Wilmore and Williams, both veteran astronauts and former US Navy test pilots, exited the Starliner spacecraft with the help of Boeing’s ground team. They returned to NASA crew quarters at the nearby Kennedy Space Center to wait for the next launch attempt.

The schedule for the next try will depend on what ULA workers find when they access the computers at the launch pad. Officials initially said they could start another launch countdown early Sunday if they found a simple solution to the computer problem, such as swapping out a faulty card. The computers are networked together, but the architecture is designed with replaceable cards, each responsible for different functions during the countdown, to allow for a quick fix without having to replace the entire unit, Bruno said.

United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket and Boeing's Starliner spacecraft at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Enlarge / United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Later Saturday, NASA announced the launch won’t happen Sunday, giving teams additional time to assess the computer issue. The next launch opportunities are Wednesday and Thursday.

Bruno said ULA’s engineers suspect a hardware problem or a network communication glitch caused the computer issue during Saturday’s countdown. That is what ULA’s troubleshooting team will try to determine overnight. NASA said officials will share another update Sunday.

If it doesn’t get off the ground by Thursday, the Starliner test flight could face a longer delay to allow time for ULA to change out limited-life batteries on the Atlas V rocket. Bruno said the battery swap would take about 10 days.

Saturday’s aborted countdown was the latest in a string of delays for Boeing’s Starliner program. The spacecraft’s first crew test flight is running seven years behind the schedule Boeing announced when NASA awarded the company a $4.2 billion contract for the crew capsule in 2014. Put another way, Boeing has arrived at this moment nine years after the company originally said the spacecraft could be operational, when the program was first announced in 2010.

“Of course, this is emotionally disappointing,” said Mike Fincke, a NASA astronaut and a backup to Wilmore and Williams on the crew test flight. “I know Butch and Suni didn’t sound disappointed when we heard them on the loops, and it’s because it comes back to professionalism.”

NASA and Boeing were on the cusp of launching the Starliner test flight May 6, but officials called off the launch attempt due to a valve problem on the Atlas V rocket. Engineers later discovered a helium leak on the Starliner spacecraft’s service module, but managers agreed to proceed with the launch Saturday if the leak did not worsen during the countdown.

A check of the helium system Saturday morning showed the leak rate had decreased from a prior measurement, and it was no longer a constraint to launch. Instead, a different problem emerged to keep Starliner on Earth.

“Everybody is a little disappointed, but you kind of roll your sleeves up and get right back to work,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program.

Boeing’s Starliner test flight scrubbed again after hold in final countdown Read More »

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Boeing’s Starliner capsule poised for second try at first astronaut flight

atlas v, Boeing, commercial crew, human spaceflight, international space station, NASA, Science, Space, starliner, united launch alliance / /
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft sits on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft sits on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

NASA and Boeing officials are ready for a second attempt to launch the first crew test flight on the Starliner spacecraft Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Liftoff of Boeing’s Starliner capsuled atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is set for 12: 25 pm EDT (16: 25 UTC). NASA commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams, both veteran astronauts, will take the Starliner spacecraft on its first trip into low-Earth orbit with a crew on board.

You can watch NASA TV’s live coverage of the countdown and launch below.

The first crew flight on a new spacecraft is not an everyday event. Starliner is the sixth orbital-class crew spacecraft in the history of the US space program, following Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, the space shuttle, and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. NASA signed a $4.2 billion contract with Boeing in 2014 to develop Starliner, but the project is running years behind schedule and has cost Boeing nearly $1.5 billion in cost overruns. SpaceX, meanwhile, won a contract at the same time as Boeing and started launching astronauts on the Crew Dragon four years ago this week.

Now, it is finally Starliner’s turn. A successful crew test flight would set the stage for six operational Starliner flights to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).

Assuming the test flight gets off the ground Saturday, the spacecraft is due for docking at the ISS at 1: 50 pm EDT (17: 50 UTC) Sunday to begin a stay of at least eight days. Once managers are satisfied the mission has achieved all its planned test objectives, and pending good weather conditions in Starliner’s landing zone in the western United States, the spacecraft will depart the station and return to Earth for a parachute-assisted touchdown. If the mission takes off on Saturday, the earliest nominal landing date would be Monday, June 10.

Wilmore and Williams have been here before. On May 6, the astronauts were strapped into their seats inside Starliner’s cockpit awaiting takeoff on a flight to the International Space Station. A valve malfunction on the Atlas V rocket prevented launch that day, and officials subsequently discovered a helium leak on Starliner’s service module that delayed the mission until this weekend.

Flying as-is

After weeks of reviews and analysis, managers determined Starliner is safe to fly as-is with the leak. The spacecraft uses helium gas to pressurize its propulsion system and push hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants from internal tanks to the capsule’s maneuvering thrusters.

“When we looked at this problem, it didn’t come down to trades,” said Mark Nappi, Boeing’s vice president and program manager for Starliner. “It came down to: Is it safe or not? And it is safe, and that is why we determined that we can fly with what we have.”

Ground teams traced the leak to a flange on one of four doghouse-shaped propulsion pods around the perimeter of the Starliner spacecraft’s service module. In a worst-case scenario, if the condition grew worse during the flight, ground controllers could isolate it by closing the manifold feeding the leak. If the leak doesn’t worsen, engineers are confident they can manage it with no major impacts to the mission.

“We looked really hard at what our options were with this particular flange,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, which oversees the agency’s contract with Boeing. The flange has a helium conduit and lines for the spacecraft’s toxic fuel and oxidizer, which makes a repair “problematic,” Stich said.

Starliner commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams arrived back at NASA's Kennedy Space Center earlier this week to prepare for launch.

Enlarge / Starliner commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams arrived back at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center earlier this week to prepare for launch.

In order to safely fix the leak, which officials believe is likely caused by a defective seal, ground teams would have to disconnect the capsule from the Atlas V rocket, take it back to a hangar, drain its propellant tanks. This would probably push back the long-delayed Starliner test flight until late this year.

But the leak is relatively small and stable. “It’s about a half-pound per day out of 50 pounds of total capability in the tank,” Stich said.

“In our case, we have margin in the helium tank, and we’ve looked really hard to understand that margin and to understand the worst cases, and we took the time to go through that data,” Stich said. “We really think we can manage this leak, both by looking at it before the launch, and then if it got bigger in flight, we could manage it.”

Boeing’s Starliner capsule poised for second try at first astronaut flight Read More »

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Rocket Report: North Korean rocket explosion; launch over Chinese skyline

Boeing, china, Commercial space, european space agency, falcon 9, human spaceflight, india, launch, North Korea, rocket lab, rocket report, russia, Science, Space, spacex, starliner, starship / /
A sea-borne variant of the commercial Ceres 1 rocket lifts off near the coast of Rizhao, a city of 3 million in China's Shandong province.

Enlarge / A sea-borne variant of the commercial Ceres 1 rocket lifts off near the coast of Rizhao, a city of 3 million in China’s Shandong province.

Welcome to Edition 6.46 of the Rocket Report! It looks like we will be covering the crew test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft and the fourth test flight of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket over the next week. All of this is happening as SpaceX keeps up its cadence of flying multiple Starlink missions per week. The real stars are the Ars copy editors helping make sure our stories don’t use the wrong names.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Another North Korean launch failure. North Korea’s latest attempt to launch a rocket with a military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure due to the midair explosion of the rocket during the first-stage flight this week, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reports. Video captured by the Japanese news organization NHK appears to show the North Korean rocket disappearing in a fireball shortly after liftoff Monday night from a launch pad on the country’s northwest coast. North Korean officials acknowledged the launch failure and said the rocket was carrying a small reconnaissance satellite named Malligyong-1-1.

Russia’s role? … Experts initially thought the pending North Korean launch, which was known ahead of time from international airspace warning notices, would use the same Chŏllima 1 rocket used on three flights last year. But North Korean statements following the launch Monday indicated the rocket used a new propulsion system burning a petroleum-based fuel, presumably kerosene, with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. The Chŏllima 1 rocket design used a toxic mixture of hypergolic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide as propellants. If North Korea’s statement is true, this would be a notable leap in the country’s rocket technology and begs the question of whether Russia played a significant role in the launch. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged more Russian support for North Korea’s rocket program in a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (submitted by Ken the Bin and Jay500001)

Rocket Lab deploys small NASA climate satellite. Rocket Lab is in the midst of back-to-back launches for NASA, carrying identical climate research satellites into different orbits to study heat loss to space in Earth’s polar regions. The Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) satellites are each about the size of a shoebox, and NASA says data from PREFIRE will improve computer models that researchers use to predict how Earth’s ice, seas, and weather will change in a warming world. “The difference between the amount of heat Earth absorbs at the tropics and that radiated out from the Arctic and Antarctic is a key influence on the planet’s temperature, helping to drive dynamic systems of climate and weather,” NASA said in a statement.

Twice in a week… NASA selected Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle to deliver the two PREFIRE satellites into orbit on two dedicated rides rather than launching at a lower cost on a rideshare mission. This is because scientists want the satellites flying at the proper alignment to ensure they fly over the poles several hours apart, providing the data needed to measure how the rate at which heat radiates from the polar regions changes over time. The first PREFIRE launch occurred on May 25, and the next one is slated for May 31. Both launches will take off from Rocket Lab’s base in New Zealand. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

A rocket launch comes to Rizhao. China has diversified its launch sector over the last decade to include new families of small satellite launchers and new spaceports. One of these relatively new small rockets, the solid-fueled Ceres 1, took off Wednesday from a floating launch pad positioned about 2 miles (3 km) off the coast of Rizhao, a city of roughly 3 million people in China’s Shandong province. The Ceres 1 rocket, developed by a quasi-commercial company called Galactic Energy, has previously flown from land-based launch pads and a sea-borne platform, but this mission originated from a location remarkably close to shore, with the skyline of a major metropolitan area as a backdrop.

Range safety … There’s no obvious orbital mechanics reason to position the rocket’s floating launch platform so near a major Chinese city, other than perhaps to gain a logistical advantage by launching close to port. The Ceres 1 rocket has a fairly good reliability record—11 successes in 12 flights—but for safety reasons, there’s no Western spaceport that would allow members of the public (not to mention a few million) to get so close to a rocket launch. For decades, Chinese rockets have routinely dropped rocket boosters containing toxic propellant on farms and villages downrange from the country’s inland spaceports.

Rocket Report: North Korean rocket explosion; launch over Chinese skyline Read More »

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NASA finds more issues with Boeing’s Starliner, but crew launch set for June 1

atlas v, Boeing, commercial crew, NASA, Science, Space, starliner, united launch alliance / /
Boeing's Starliner spacecraft atop its Atlas V rocket on the launch pad earlier this month.

Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft atop its Atlas V rocket on the launch pad earlier this month.

Senior managers from NASA and Boeing told reporters on Friday that they plan to launch the first crew test flight of the Starliner spacecraft as soon as June 1, following several weeks of detailed analysis of a helium leak and a “design vulnerability” with the ship’s propulsion system.

Extensive data reviews over the last two-and-a-half weeks settled on a likely cause of the leak, which officials described as small and stable. During these reviews, engineers also built confidence that even if the leak worsened, it would not add any unacceptable risk for the Starliner test flight to the International Space Station, officials said.

But engineers also found that an unlikely mix of technical failures in Starliner’s propulsion system—representing 0.77 percent of all possible failure modes, according to Boeing’s program manager—could prevent the spacecraft from conducting a deorbit burn at the end of the mission.

“As we studied the helium leak, we also looked across the rest of the propulsion system, just to make sure we didn’t have any other things that we should be concerned about,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, which awarded a $4.2 billion contract to Boeing in 2014 for development of the Starliner spacecraft.

“We found a design vulnerability… in the prop [propulsion] system as we analyzed this particular helium leak, where for certain failure cases that are very remote, we didn’t have the capability to execute the deorbit burn with redundancy,” Stich said in a press conference Friday.

These two problems, uncovered one after the other, have kept the Starliner test flight grounded to allow time for engineers to find workarounds. This is the first time astronauts will fly into orbit on a Starliner spacecraft, following two unpiloted demonstration missions in 2019 and 2022.

The Starliner program is running years behind schedule, primarily due to problems with the spacecraft’s software, parachutes, and propulsion system, supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne. Software woes cut short Starliner’s first test flight in 2019 before it could dock at the International Space Station, and they forced Boeing to fly an unplanned second test flight to gain confidence that the spacecraft is safe enough for astronauts. NASA and Boeing delayed the second unpiloted test flight nearly a year to overcome an issue with corroded valves in the ship’s propulsion system.

Last year, just a couple of months before it was supposed to launch on the crew test flight, officials discovered a design problem with Starliner’s parachutes and found that Boeing installed flammable tape inside the capsule’s cockpit. Boeing’s star-crossed Starliner finally appeared ready to fly on the long-delayed crew test flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

NASA commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams were strapped into their seats inside Starliner on May 6 when officials halted the countdown due to a faulty valve on the spacecraft’s United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. ULA rolled the rocket back to its hangar to replace the valve, with an eye toward another launch attempt in mid-May.

But ground teams detected the helium leak in Starliner’s service module in the aftermath of the scrubbed countdown. After some initial troubleshooting, the leak rate grew to approximately 70 psi per minute. Since then, the leak rate has stabilized.

“That gave us pause as the leak rate grew, and we wanted to understand what was causing that leak,” Stich said.

NASA finds more issues with Boeing’s Starliner, but crew launch set for June 1 Read More »

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The first crew launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule is on hold indefinitely

atlas v, Boeing, commercial crew, human spaceflight, NASA, Science, Space, starliner, united launch alliance / /

Pursuing rationale —

“NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward.”

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Boeing's Starliner spacecraft on the eve of the first crew launch attempt earlier this month.

Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft on the eve of the first crew launch attempt earlier this month.

Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/AFP via Getty Images

The first crewed test flight of Boeing’s long-delayed Starliner spacecraft won’t take off as planned Saturday and could face a longer postponement as engineers evaluate a stubborn leak of helium from the capsule’s propulsion system.

NASA announced the latest delay of the Starliner test flight late Tuesday. Officials will take more time to consider their options for how to proceed with the mission after discovering the small helium leak on the spacecraft’s service module.

The space agency did not describe what options are on the table, but sources said they range from flying the spacecraft “as is” with a thorough understanding of the leak and confidence it won’t become more significant in flight, to removing the capsule from its Atlas V rocket and taking it back to a hangar for repairs.

Theoretically, the former option could permit a launch attempt as soon as next week. The latter alternative could delay the launch until at least late summer.

“The team has been in meetings for two consecutive days, assessing flight rationale, system performance, and redundancy,” NASA said in a statement Tuesday night. “There is still forward work in these areas, and the next possible launch opportunity is still being discussed. NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward.”

Delays are nothing new for the Starliner program, but it’s not yet clear how this delay will compare to the spacecraft’s previous setbacks.

Software problems cut short an unpiloted test flight in 2019, forcing Boeing to fly a second demonstration mission. Starliner was on the launch pad when pre-flight checkouts revealed stuck valves in the spacecraft’s propulsion system in 2021. Boeing finally flew Starliner on a round-trip mission to the space station in May 2022. Concerns about Starliner’s parachutes and flammable tape inside the spacecraft’s crew cabin delayed the crewed test flight from last summer until this year.

Boeing aims to become the second company to fly astronauts to the space station under contract with NASA’s commercial crew program, following the start of SpaceX’s crew transportation service in 2020. Assuming a smooth crewed test flight, NASA hopes to clear the Starliner spacecraft for six-month crew rotation flights to the space station beginning next year.

In the doghouse

Engineers first noticed the helium leak during the first launch attempt for Starliner’s crewed test flight May 6, but managers did not consider it significant enough to stop the launch. Ultimately, a separate problem with a pressure regulation valve on the spacecraft’s United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket prompted officials to scrub the launch attempt.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were already strapped into their seats inside the Starliner spacecraft on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, when officials ordered a halt to the May 6 countdown. Wilmore and Williams returned to their homes in Houston to await the next Starliner launch opportunity.

ULA returned the Atlas V rocket to its hangar, where technicians swapped out the faulty valve in time for another launch attempt May 17. NASA and Boeing pushed the launch date back to May 21, then to May 25, as engineers assessed the helium leak. The Atlas V rocket and Starliner spacecraft remain inside ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility to wait for the next launch opportunity.

Boeing engineers traced the leak to a flange on a single reaction control system thruster in one of four doghouse-shaped propulsion pods on the Starliner service module.

There are 28 reaction control system thrusters—essentially small rocket engines—on the Starliner service module. In orbit, these thrusters are used for minor course corrections and pointing the spacecraft in the proper direction. The service module has two sets of more powerful engines for larger orbital adjustments and launch-abort maneuvers.

The spacecraft’s propulsion system is pressurized using helium, an inert gas. The thrusters burn a mixture of toxic hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants. Helium is not combustible, so a small leak is not likely to be a major safety issue on the ground. However, the system needs sufficient helium gas to force propellants from their internal storage tanks to Starliner’s thrusters.

In a statement last week, NASA described the helium leak as “stable” and said it would not pose a risk to the Starliner mission if it didn’t worsen. A Boeing spokesperson declined to provide Ars with any details about the helium leak rate.

If NASA and Boeing resolve their concerns about the helium leak without requiring lengthy repairs, the International Space Station could accommodate the docking of Starliner through part of July. After docking at the station, Wilmore and Williams will spend at least eight days at the complex before undocking to head for a parachute-assisted, airbag-cushioned landing in the Southwestern United States.

After July, the schedule gets messy.

The space station has a busy slate of multiple visiting crew and cargo vehicles in August, including the arrival of a fresh team of astronauts on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the departure of an outgoing crew on another Dragon. There may be an additional window for Starliner to dock with the space station in late August or early September before the launch of SpaceX’s next cargo mission, which will occupy the docking port Starliner needs to use. The docking port opens up again in the fall.

ULA also has other high-priority missions it would like to launch from the same pad needed for the Starliner test flight. Later this summer, ULA plans to launch a US Space Force mission; it will be the last mission to use an Atlas V rocket. Then, ULA aims to launch the second demonstration flight of its new Vulcan Centaur rocket—the Atlas V’s replacement—as soon as September.

The first crew launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule is on hold indefinitely Read More »

doj-says-boeing-faces-criminal-charge-for-violating-deal-over-737-max-crashes

DOJ says Boeing faces criminal charge for violating deal over 737 Max crashes

Boeing, Policy / /

Criminal prosecution —

DOJ determined that Boeing violated 2021 agreement spurred by two fatal crashes.

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Relatives hold a poster with faces of the victims of Ethiopia flight 302 outside a courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, on January 26, 2023.

Enlarge / Relatives hold a poster with faces of the victims of Ethiopia flight 302 outside a courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas, on January 26, 2023.

Getty Images | Shelby Tauber

The US Department of Justice yesterday said it has determined that Boeing violated a 2021 agreement spurred by two fatal crashes and is now facing a potential criminal prosecution.

Boeing violated the agreement “by failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations,” the DOJ said in a filing in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Because of this, “Boeing is subject to prosecution by the United States for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge,” the DOJ said.

The US government is still determining whether to initiate a prosecution and said it will make a decision by July 7. Under terms of the 2021 agreement, Boeing has 30 days to respond to the government’s notice.

The DOJ court filing did not list any specific incidents. But the notice came after a January 2024 incident in which a 737 Max 9 used by Alaska Airlines had to make an emergency landing because a door plug blew off the aircraft in mid-flight. Boeing also recently said that some workers skipped required tests on the 787 Dreamliner planes but falsely recorded the work as having been completed.

Boeing itself referred to the Alaska Airlines flight in a statement the company provided to Ars today. Boeing confirmed that it received a communication “from the Justice Department, stating that the Department has made a determination that we have not met our obligations under our 2021 deferred prosecution agreement, and requesting the company’s response.”

“We believe that we have honored the terms of that agreement and look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue,” Boeing said. “As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident.”

Deal struck after crash deaths of 346 passengers

Yesterday’s DOJ court filing said that Boeing could be prosecuted for the charge listed in the one-count criminal information that was filed at the same time as the deferred prosecution agreement in 2021. That document alleged that Boeing defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration in connection with the agency’s evaluation of the Boeing 737 Max. The DOJ filing yesterday said Boeing could also be prosecuted for other offenses.

In January 2021, the DOJ announced that Boeing signed the deferred prosecution agreement “to resolve a criminal charge related to a conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Evaluation Group (FAA AEG) in connection with the FAA AEG’s evaluation of Boeing’s 737 Max airplane.”

This occurred after 346 passengers died in two Boeing 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion, including $1.77 billion in compensation for airline customers and $500 million for the heirs, relatives, and legal beneficiaries of the crash victims.

“The tragic crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 exposed fraudulent and deceptive conduct by employees of one of the world’s leading commercial airplane manufacturers,” Acting Assistant Attorney General David Burns said when the 2021 deal was struck. “Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception.”

US Attorney Erin Nealy Cox said then that “misleading statements, half-truths, and omissions communicated by Boeing employees to the FAA impeded the government’s ability to ensure the safety of the flying public.”

The nonprofit Foundation for Aviation Safety, which is led by former Boeing employee Ed Pierson, recently accused Boeing of violating the deferred prosecution agreement. Pierson alleged in a December 2023 court filing that “Boeing has deliberately provided false, incomplete, and misleading information to the FAA, the flying public, airline customers, regulators, and investors.”

Meeting with victims’ families

The DOJ court filing yesterday said the department is continuing to confer with the airlines and family members of the crash victims.

“To that end, the Government separately notified the victims and the airline customers today of the breach determination,” the DOJ wrote. “The Government also has already scheduled a conferral session for May 31, 2024, with the victims. The Government last conferred with the victims on April 24, 2024, to discuss the issue of whether Boeing breached the [deferred prosecution agreement].”

Paul Cassell, an attorney for victims’ families, said the DOJ filing “is a positive first step, and for the families, a long time coming. But we need to see further action from DOJ to hold Boeing accountable and plan to use our meeting on May 31 to explain in more detail what we believe would be a satisfactory remedy to Boeing’s ongoing criminal conduct.”

DOJ says Boeing faces criminal charge for violating deal over 737 Max crashes Read More »

court-rules-against-activision-blizzard-in-$23.4m-patent-dispute

Court rules against Activision Blizzard in $23.4M patent dispute

Activision Blizzard, Boeing, gaming, Networking, patent, troll / /

pay up —

Activision plans appeal, says it uses different network tech in its games.

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Acceleration Bay says <em>World of Warcraft</em>‘s networking code infringes on a patent originally filed by Boeing.” src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/wowcrowd-800×450.png”></img><figcaption> <p><a data-height=Enlarge / Acceleration Bay says World of Warcraft‘s networking code infringes on a patent originally filed by Boeing.

Activision Blizzard

A jury has found Activision Blizzard liable for $23.4 million in damages in a patent infringement lawsuit first brought to court in 2015.

The case centers on patents first filed by Boeing in 2000, one that describes a “distributed game environment” across a host and multiple computers and another that describes a simple method for disconnecting from such a network. Those patents were acquired in 2015 by Acceleration Bay, which accused Activision Blizzard of using infringing technology to develop World of Warcraft and at least two Call of Duty titles.

Those accusations succeeded in court earlier this week, as a jury found a “preponderance of evidence” that the patents were infringed. The decision came following a one-week trial in which Activision Blizzard argued that its networking technology works differently from what is described in the patents, as reported by Reuters.

“While we are disappointed, we believe there is a strong basis for appeal,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said in a statement to the press. “We have never used the patented technologies at issue in our games.”

Acceleration Bay’s website describes it as an “incubator and investor” that wants to “nurture, protect, and support the dissemination of technological advancement.” But the company’s only currently listed venture is Edge Video, a “Web 3 Video Network” that provides crypto rewards and “AI-driven shopping” opportunities through interactive video overlays.

In a 2019 counterclaim stemming from a similar patent case (which was dismissed in 2020), Epic Games argued that “Acceleration engages in no business activity other than seeking to enforce the Asserted Patents.” Epic also said at the time that “Acceleration has asserted the same six patents against other major videogame publishers, even though Epic can see no applicability of the claimed technology to the videogame industry.”

Acceleration Bay has outstanding patent cases against Electronic Arts, Take-Two, and Amazon Web Services, among others.

In 2021, Activision Blizzard won a longstanding infringement suit brought by Worlds, Inc. over a patent for a “system and method for enabling users to interact in a virtual space.” In dismissing that case, US District Judge Denise J. Casper wrote that “client-server networks, virtual worlds, avatars, or position and orientation information are not inventions of Worlds” and that its patented technology was not “inherently inventive or sufficient to ‘transform’ the claimed abstract idea into a patent-eligible application.”

Court rules against Activision Blizzard in $23.4M patent dispute Read More »

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Faulty valve scuttles Starliner’s first crew launch

atlas v, Boeing, butch wilmore, commercial crew, human spaceflight, international space station, NASA, Security, Space, starliner, suni williams, united launch alliance / /
The Atlas V rocket and Starliner spacecraft on their launch pad Monday.

Enlarge / The Atlas V rocket and Starliner spacecraft on their launch pad Monday.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams climbed into their seats inside Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft Monday night in Florida, but trouble with the capsule’s Atlas V rocket kept the commercial ship’s long-delayed crew test flight on the ground.

Around two hours before launch time, shortly after 8: 30 pm EDT (00: 30 UTC), United Launch Alliance’s launch team stopped the countdown. “The engineering team has evaluated, the vehicle is not in a configuration where we can proceed with flight today,” said Doug Lebo, ULA’s launch conductor.

The culprit was a misbehaving valve on the rocket’s Centaur upper stage, which has two RL10 engines fed by super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants.

“We saw a self-regulating valve on the LOX (liquid oxygen) side had a bit of a buzz; it was moving in a strange behavior,” said Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial crew program manager. “The flight rules had been laid out for this flight ahead of time. With the crew at the launch pad, the proper action was to scrub.”

The next opportunity to launch Starliner on its first crew test flight will be Friday night at 9 pm EDT (01: 00 UTC Saturday). NASA announced overnight that officials decided to skip a launch opportunity Tuesday night to allow engineers more time to study the valve problem and decide whether they need to replace it.

Work ahead

Everything else was going smoothly in the countdown Monday night. This mission will also be the first time astronauts have flown on ULA’s Atlas V rocket, which has logged 99 successful flights since 2002. It is the culmination of nearly a decade-and-a-half of development by Boeing, which has a $4.2 billion contract with NASA to ready Starliner for crew missions, then carry out six long-duration crew ferry flights to and from the International Space Station.

This crew test flight will last at least eight days, taking Wilmore and Williams to the space station to verify Starliner’s readiness for operational missions. Once Starliner flies, NASA will have two human-rated spacecraft on contract. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has been in service since 2020.

When officials scrubbed Monday night’s launch attempt, Wilmore and Williams were already aboard the Starliner spacecraft on top of the Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Boeing and ULA support team helped them out of the capsule and drove them back to crew quarters at the nearby Kennedy Space Center to wait for the next launch attempt.

“I promised Butch and Suni a boring evening,” said Tory Bruno, ULA’s CEO. “I didn’t mean for it to be quite this boring, but we’re going to follow our rules, and we’re going to make sure that the crew is safe.”

When the next launch attempt actually occurs depends on whether ULA engineers determine they can resolve the problem without rolling the Atlas V rocket back to its hangar for repairs.

The valve in question vents gas from the liquid oxygen tank on the Centaur upper stage to maintain the tank at proper pressures. This is important for two reasons. The tank needs to be at the correct pressure for the RL10 engines to receive propellant during the flight, and the Centaur upper stage itself has ultra-thin walls to reduce weight, and requires pressure to maintain structural integrity.

Faulty valve scuttles Starliner’s first crew launch Read More »

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The surprise is not that Boeing lost commercial crew but that it finished at all

Boeing, Features, Science, Space, starliner / /

Boeing really is going —

“The structural inefficiency was a huge deal.”

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Boeing's Starliner spacecraft is lifted to be placed atop an Atlas V rocket for its first crewed launch.

Enlarge / Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is lifted to be placed atop an Atlas V rocket for its first crewed launch.

United Launch Alliance

NASA’s senior leaders in human spaceflight gathered for a momentous meeting at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC, almost exactly ten years ago.

These were the people who, for decades, had developed and flown the Space Shuttle. They oversaw the construction of the International Space Station. Now, with the shuttle’s retirement, these princely figures in the human spaceflight community were tasked with selecting a replacement vehicle to send astronauts to the orbiting laboratory.

Boeing was the easy favorite. The majority of engineers and other participants in the meeting argued that Boeing alone should win a contract worth billions of dollars to develop a crew capsule. Only toward the end did a few voices speak up in favor of a second contender, SpaceX. At the meeting’s conclusion, NASA’s chief of human spaceflight at the time, William Gerstenmaier, decided to hold off on making a final decision.

A few months later, NASA publicly announced its choice. Boeing would receive $4.2 billion to develop a “commercial crew” transportation system, and SpaceX would get $2.6 billion. It was not a total victory for Boeing, which had lobbied hard to win all of the funding. But the company still walked away with nearly two-thirds of the money and the widespread presumption that it would easily beat SpaceX to the space station.

The sense of triumph would prove to be fleeting. Boeing decisively lost the commercial crew space race, and it proved to be a very costly affair.

With Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft finally due to take flight this week with astronauts on board, we know the extent of the loss, both in time and money. Dragon first carried people to the space station nearly four years ago. In that span, the Crew Dragon vehicle has flown thirteen public and private missions to orbit. Because of this success, Dragon will end up flying 14 operational missions to the station for NASA, earning a tidy fee each time, compared to just six for Starliner. Through last year, Boeing has taken $1.5 billion in charges due to delays and overruns with its spacecraft development.

So what happened? How did Boeing, the gold standard in human spaceflight for decades, fall so far behind on crew? This story, based largely on interviews with unnamed current and former employees of Boeing and contractors who worked on Starliner, attempts to provide some answers.

The early days

When the contracts were awarded, SpaceX had the benefit of working with NASA to develop a cargo variant of Dragon, which by 2014 was flying regular missions to the space station. But the company had no experience with human spaceflight. Boeing, by contrast, had decades of spaceflight experience, but it had to start from scratch with Starliner.

Each faced a deeper cultural challenge. A decade ago, SpaceX was deep into several major projects, including developing a new version of the Falcon 9 rocket, flying more frequently, experimenting with landing and reuse, and doing cargo supply missions. This new contract meant more money but a lot more work. A NASA engineer who worked closely with both SpaceX and Boeing in this time frame recalls visiting SpaceX and the atmosphere being something like a frenzied graduate school, where all of the employees were being pulled in different directions. Getting engineers to focus on Crew Dragon was difficult.

But at least SpaceX was in its natural environment. Boeing’s space division had never won a large fixed-price contract. Its leaders were used to operating in a cost-plus environment, in which Boeing could bill the government for all of its expenses and earn a fee. Cost overruns and delays were not the company’s problem—they were NASA’s. Now Boeing had to deliver a flyable spacecraft for a firm, fixed price.

Boeing struggled to adjust to this environment. When it came to complicated space projects, Boeing was used to spending other people’s money. Now, every penny spent on Starliner meant one less penny in profit (or, ultimately, greater losses). This meant that Boeing allocated fewer resources to Starliner than it needed to thrive.

“The difference between the two company’s cultures, design philosophies, and decision-making structures allowed SpaceX to excel in a fixed-price environment, where Boeing stumbled, even after receiving significantly more funding,” said Lori Garver in an interview. She was deputy administrator of NASA from 2009 to 2013 during the formative years of the commercial crew program and is the author of Escaping Gravity.

So Boeing faced financial pressure from the beginning. At the same time, it was confronting major technical challenges. Building a human spacecraft is very difficult. Some of the biggest hurdles would be flight software and propulsion.

The surprise is not that Boeing lost commercial crew but that it finished at all Read More »

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50 injured on Boeing 787 as “strong shake” reportedly sent heads into ceiling

Boeing, boeing latam airlines, Policy / /

Boeing nosedive —

LATAM Airlines said “technical event” in mid-flight “caused a strong movement.”

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A Boeing airplane on a runway. The LATAM Airlines logo is printed on the side of the plane.

Enlarge / A LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner taxiing at Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Chile on March 20, 2019.

Getty Images | SOPA Images

About 50 people were injured on a LATAM Airlines flight today in which a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner suffered a technical problem that caused a “strong shake,” reportedly causing some passengers’ heads to hit the ceiling.

The plane flying from Australia to New Zealand “experienced a strong shake during flight, the cause of which is currently under investigation,” LATAM said on its website today. LATAM, a Chilean airline, was also quoted in news reports as saying the plane suffered “a technical event during the flight which caused a strong movement.”

The Boeing plane, carrying 263 passengers and nine flight and cabin crew members, landed at Auckland Airport as scheduled. New Zealand ambulance service Hato Hone St. John published a statement saying that its “ambulance crews assessed and treated approximately 50 patients, with one patient in a serious condition and the remainder in a moderate to minor condition.” Twelve patients were taken to hospitals, the statement said.

Most of the patients were “discharged shortly after,” LATAM said on its website. “Only one passenger and one cabin crew member required additional attention, but without any life-threatening risks.”

The plane was originally supposed to continue from New Zealand to Chile, but that leg of the trip was rescheduled. LATAM said it is “working in coordination with the respective authorities to support the investigations into the incident.”

Boeing told news outlets that it is “working to gather more information about the flight and will provide any support needed by our customers.” We contacted Boeing today and will update this article if it provides more information.

Passenger describes nosedive, people hitting the ceiling

Passenger Brian Jokat described the frightening incident in interviews with several media outlets. “The ceiling’s broken from people’s heads and bodies hitting it,” Jokat said, according to ABC News. “Basically neck braces were being put on people, guys’ heads were cut and they were bleeding. It was just crazy.”

Jokat was also quoted as saying that he “felt the plane take a nosedive—it felt like it was at the top of a roller coaster, and then it flattened out again.” It all happened in “split seconds,” he reportedly said.

Today’s flight came about two months after a near-disaster involving a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane used by Alaska Airlines. On January 5, the plane was forced to return to Portland International Airport in Oregon after a passenger door plug blew off the aircraft during flight.

The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that four bolts were missing from the plane. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the incident, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Boeing was seeking a safety exemption from the US Federal Aviation Administration related to its 737 Max 7 aircraft, but withdrew the application in January after the 737 Max 9 door-plug blowout.

50 injured on Boeing 787 as “strong shake” reportedly sent heads into ceiling Read More »