Boeing Starliner

[FMOB]

Ian974 said:

Remember being at a talk by Chris Hadfield a few years back and he mentioned that regarding the shuttle launch.
"Once they start it, you're definitely going somewhere !"

Exactly what you get with a couple of really really big fireworks.

[MiniMan64]

From no flight options for the US now they’ve got two.

Handy.

[Beati Dogu]

ULA boss Tory Bruno had his tie cut in half in celebration of ULA’s entry into the “human spaceflight club.”



The guy with the scissors is Steve Stich, the program manager for NASA's Commercial Crew.

[MartG]

Two new helium leaks detected since arrival in orbit, in addition to the one they knew about before launch

There is a possibility they may have to abort the mission and return to Earth, or at least cut their time at the ISS short

[Dog Star]

MartG said:

Two new helium leaks detected since arrival in orbit, in addition to the one they knew about before launch

There is a possibility they may have to abort the mission and return to Earth, or at least cut their time at the ISS short

Good grief! It’s almost comedy. Certainly farce.

[Eric Mc]

It is a test flight.

Things don't always work 100% on a test flight.

During the first Shuttle flights, various systems went down.

[Eric Mc]

Now the thrusters are malfunctioning so they are being very careful about how close they can approach the ISS.
They do not have a “Go” for docking at the moment.

[gotoPzero]

Now have the go, est docking in about half an hour

[gotoPzero]

Parked... dont forget to pay and display...

[2fast748]

Seeing the news of He leaks this morning I thought this was doomed, fair play to Boeing for getting it docked safely. Hopefully the return is as successful.

[Beati Dogu]

NASA must be pleased / relieved in equal measure with Starliner finally taking humans to the ISS and the Starship's steady progress.

And to see the fruits of the commercial crew & resupply program: They've currently got a Dragon, Starliner and Cygnus all connected to the ISS.

Talking of which, the Dream Chaser resupply spacecraft is due to launch to the ISS in September 2024 on a Vulcan rocket. That's called SNC Demo-1 and it'll be Vulcan's second flight.

[Beati Dogu]

Maxar have released a nice photo of the ISS taken from one of their satellites:



Normally an Earth observation satellite, they swung it round to take this shot. It’s a current photo and show the various capsules; Starliner, Crew Dragon, Cygnus, 2x Progress and a Soyuz

[Eric Mc]

How far away was the satellite when it took the shot?

[Hill92]

Eric Mc said:

How far away was the satellite when it took the shot?

276km

https://universemagazine.com/en/unprecedented-reso...

If commercial satellites are this good, National Reconnaissance Office spy satellites can presumably read the serial numbers on the screws holding Starliner together!

[Eric Mc]

That is pretty impressive.

[Dog Star]

For me there has been nothing yet to beat this shot taken from MRO using it’s hirise camera to capture the Mars Perseverance Rover under its parachute.



It’s amazing how they’ve managed to get all this to come together and get the shot on orbit around another planet. There are some very, very clever people around.

[jingars]

From X: Atmospheric (if you will pardon the pun) shot of the Aurora behind and below Starliner.
Image taken from the Crew Dragon capsule also docked to the ISS.

[Beati Dogu]

Very pretty. And seen here flying over Egypt:



Their departure is currently no earlier than Saturday 22nd June.

NASA is having a press conference to discuss this on Tuesday 18th at midday eastern time.

[Dog Star]

At the moment I’m not convinced they’re going home on Starliner….

[MartG]

Dog Star said:

At the moment I’m not convinced they’re going home on Starliner….

I know that SpaceX are due to launch Crew 9 in early August - I wonder how much they could bring that forward as a 'rescue' mission.

There are a few things they'd have to do first though, like build a couple of suits in Wilmore & Williams' sizes, as their Boeing ones won't be compatible with Dragon's environmental control system or seats.

Then do you disrupt the crew rotation schedule, flying the Crew 8 Dragon up with only a single person aboard leaving two empty seats for the Boeing crew to return in, or can they send up a pair of seats in kit form to retro fit to the Crew 7 Dragon which would be returning soon anyway ?

Alternatively SpaceX may be able to mount an additional mission, or perhaps bump the Polaris Dawn mission to a later date and use that spacecraft for a rescue.