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Boeing's uncrewed Starliner capsule will be unable to reach ISS after post-launch malfunction
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- Title
- A Dramatic Error in American Spaceflight
- Authors
- Marina Koren
- Published
- Dec 20 2019
- Word count
- 511 words
This is another blow to Boeing's reputation for reliability and engineering competence. Again, it seems that a software failure is at the root of the problem.
The Starliner crew capsule is already two years past the projected delivery timeline at inception, several hundred million dollars over budget, and per-person launch costs are estimated to be 60% higher than for the competing SpaceX Crew Dragon.
I'm the first person who thinks Boeing should be broken up, but in their defence:
This isn't just a Boeing thing, and is true of both CCtCap providers; and relates to the commercial crew program and its development-focused predecessors being underfunded by government, a series of setbacks on both sides including parachute malfunctions, launch abort system failures, and a bunch of other extraneous things like simple underestimation of how long this sort of advanced aerospace engineering takes. SpaceX was planning to launch humans in 2015 on Falcon 9, for reference. Everyone is delayed.
Delays are expected, but the Commercial Crew contract was fixed-cost. Boeing and SpaceX both bid fixed dollar values to complete their contracts, but only Boeing was given more money to do so.*
* Yes, SpaceX was technically given $5 million extra to investigate drug usage.
The title here is completely incorrect. The launch, onboard a ULA Atlas V, was completely successful; the mission, however, was not.
Better article from Loren Grush of The Verge here.
The mission in this case was to demonstrate Boeing's Starliner crew capsule docking with the International Space Station in an uncrewed demonstration mission. (SpaceX's Crew Dragon completed this mission a few months ago.)
The launch is just the first part of the mission, and went perfectly. As a crewed vehicle, Starliner missions place some unusual restrictions on the launch vehicle:
After being deployed, the Starliner needs to perform its own orbit-raising maneuver. Unfortunately, the mission elapsed time (MET) clock wasn't set correctly, and the primary thrusters thought they had already completed the orbit-raising maneuver. But the attitude control thrusters still kept the spacecraft precisely oriented for the orbit-raising maneuver, wasting fuel in the process. (These issues couldn't be fixed in real-time because the Starliner was in between TDRS satellites, and had no contact with mission control at the time.)
The fuel used up by Starliner's attitude control system meant there wasn't enough fuel to boost up to the ISS's orbit and dock; instead, the spacecraft was manually commanded to raise its orbit out of the atmosphere, and NASA/Boeing are planning to cut the mission short and land Starliner back in New Mexico after 48 hours.
Title is hugely incorrect and seems almost like it’s been autogenerated by a bot. It launched just fine aboard Atlas V, which went off without a hitch.
The capsule itself failed to initiate its orbital insertion burn, but feel free to correct the Tildes heading as you see fit for accuracy.
Yeah that’s not “the launch”. That’s post-launch manoeuvring. There’s a certain separation of responsibilities between launch and mission and the distinction is pretty important. It’d be super weird to say a “SpaceX launch failed” because Dragon couldn’t berth with the ISS—which is unrelated to Falcon 9. Or to say that the Falcon 9 ZUMA launch failed because the payload failed to separate from the LM-designed payload adapter.
That’s why ULA’s Atlas 5 is the “launch service provider” here.
Anyway, I don’t have title editing capabilities but I’d default to the uneditorialized title in this situation.
The unedited article title, "A Dramatic Error in American Spaceflight", is more inflammatory and less specific to the event. I'll happily acknowledge that "launch failure" wasn't an accurate enough characterization of what occurred, but I had no intent to sensationalize or misrepresent.
I edited it and tried to summarize it from my understanding, let me know if there's something still inaccurate about the new one.
Pretty good, thanks!
the point of the launch is to test features of the new craft. these features failed. so the mission (and therefore the launch) failed. (edit: the title isn't even saying "the launch" failed. actually no mention of such a thing. only mentions "the capsule" failing to launch)
this post title is perfectly succinct and clear without bias. it says capsule. it should be clear to anyone, at least after reading the first paragraph, that a capsule and rocket are not the same thing.
can we stop accusing every title of being editorialized, which implies intended bias?
The title was originally "Boeing Starliner Capsule for NASA ISS Missions Fails to Launch", which is categorically untrue. The launch is part of the mission; if the launch fails, so too does the mission (typically.) However, a failed mission does not imply a failed launch. The launch vehicle here (ULA's Atlas V) performed its part of the mission perfectly and deployed Starliner to the planned trajectory.
isn't that sentence only talking about the capsule, saying nothing about the launch?
A = Boeing Starliner Capsule for NASA ISS Missions
B = Fails
C = to Launch
so the sentence structure is
A B CwithA = subjectB = verbandC = objectNo, because the Starliner itself doesn't launch: it gets launched by a rocket. Launch in this case refers specifically to the "takeoff phase of the flight of a rocket". Atlas V launched Starliner.
That Starliner failed after being launched does not mean the Atlas V launch was a failure.
No, the launch only includes things up to launch vehicle separation from the payload. That's ULA's job. Once the customer's payload is separated, that's a mission. Two different entities, two different owners of responsibility.
Launches can cause missions to fail, for example if the launcher explodes, but a mission cannot cause a launch to fail.
If you could say a mission causes a launch to fail, that'd be like blaming Toyota when you have an early puncture in your custom-fitted winter tyres on your Corolla.